More wealth will not end poverty, injustice or the abuse of power, although it can help. But there are many kinds of market, and socialism have to decide what kind they want. The Left must be committed to the creation of wealth, albeit in sustainable ways, not just to its distribution. The Left must offer an alternative in which responsability, skills, ownership and power at work are taken by workers, in the interests of profitability as well as opportunity. The Left must construct markets which work by raising standards, not driving them downwards.
Unpaid work is the main source of inequalities between women and men.
With a few inevitable exceptions, welfare should be an investment in productive and capable people, not a last resort for the incompetent. This may mean spending more to enable some people to overcome their disabilities and more to upgrade the competence of others. It is not 'equality' to demand that women behave like men or children like adults. There are rights to which every citizen is entitled, and these include the right to partecipate in the definition of rights themselves and in the decision as to when and how equality demands the same or different treatment. But however much they welcome difference, social democrats must accept that there may be limits to diversity, and those limits may not be easily agreed or finally drawn where they themselves would choose.