So be it. :p

Everytime i read statements like these, i truly do wonder how and why anybody would think that. I mean, where did you pick it up? Where did you read it (if at all)? In all my time studying marxism and related leftist ideologies, i have never even once encountered any of the prominent marxist writers mentioning anything concerning radical, absolute equality in the sense that you portray it. Even Marx himself openly admits the unequal nature of human beings:

“ One man is superior to another physically or mentally and so supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment and thus productive capacity as natural privileges. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right.” - Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program

The kind of equality that finds common reference in socialist parlance is something akin to our sense of egalitarianism, i.e. equal rights, equality infront of the law etc etc, applied to economics. This does -not- mean that everybody is going to wear the same clothes and live in the same sort of houses, but it rather implies the abolishment of the class structure that so permeates and defines capitalist societies. It is more or less the actualization of your "American Dream", minus the unfortunate structural problems that are reflected in your country's social mobility index.

Also, you seem to have confused a "social(ist)" economy with a social market economy - the former is a centrally planned economy, the latter a normal market economy with restrictions placed upon it by government, and basically the modus operandi of all modern, industrialized countries. Your attack on something i have never defended is therefore a straw man.

And well, you seem to disregard the "nurture" side of "human nature" and how our material and ideological environment can cultivate specific characteristics in a given person - granted, i'm not advocating behaviorism here, but it's crucial to understand that genetics do not define behavior to any significant degree.

Besides that, i cannot really see why you have a problem with overcoming ones own faults and relying on cooperation. I mean, it's pretty much what capitalism is all about, isn't it? Most companies nowadays value their workers capacity for teamwork greatly, nevermind the ability to -improve-, i.e. overcome ones own faults. On top of that, government has special regulations that directly restrict and even ban the possibility for cooperation between companies in certain cases, seeing as it gives so great of an advantage to a given group that it is seen as directly anti-competitive