Equality

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EQUALITY Edited

by

JANE FRANKLIN

Contents

Preface About the contributors Introduction

Jane Franklin

1

Socialists and Equality

11

Back to Socialist Basics

29

Forward to Basics

49

What do Egalitarians Want?

59

What Kind of Equality S hould the Left Pursue?

83

Caroline Daniel

G A Cohen

Bernard Williams

Stuart White

David Miller

What h a s Socialism to do with Sexual Eq uality?

101

Equality i n a Multicultural Society

123

The Attractions of Basic Income

157

Anne Phillips

Bhikhu Parekh

Brian Barry

Preface

Equal ity is a value or aspirati on that continues to divide Left from

Right in politics . Indeed , to the extent that those terms retain

meaning they do so because of different attitudes to equality . Yet

the d i fferences are easier to sense than to make explicit . Everyone believes in the moral equality of human beings in some sense,

though the sense is so vague as to have no practical implications

whatever for many on the Right . Similarly, "equality before the

law", is universally accepted , though nothing like it exists in the UK . This violation of a generally endorsed axiom arouses little indignati on and few proposals for reform. Evidently society's

revealed preference is for equality before the law - unless it is very expensive.

Beyond the more or less hollow support for those two principles

of equality, the R ight wants no further truck with the notion . It is

the Left wh ich wants to go further and therefore has to grapple

with the idea and , in each generation, establish what equality

means and what its current i mplications are. This book is an IPPR

contribution to that exercise .

Its origin l i es in a seminar and discussion group which has met

irregularly at IPPR for a number of years . The group rejoiced in

the sobriquet of the

Back to Basics

group until that title was

adopted elsewhere for a less respectable initiative . The group was

convened by James Cornford, the then-director of IPPR and Bhikhu Parekh, Professo r of Political Theory at the University of Hull and

an IPPR Trustee. It was concerned not so much to debate the philosophical foundations of socialism as to "occupy the elusive

intermediate realm between philosophy and practice that can give

us a critical pu rchase on contemporary reality without losing i ntimate touch with it" . In other words, it sought to examine and

clarify practical p o l i cy issues at their roots in values and ethical

precepts. A latecomer to the group, I always found its deliberations

unusually interesting and pertinent in cutting to the heart of many

of the current ethical and p o litical d i lemmas facing the United

Kingdo m and modern societies in general.

This volume springs from papers written for the group on the theme of equality, one of the larger themes it has considered during its existence. In important respects it establishes reasonable and plausible objectives for the contemporary Left. I should like to thank James Cornford and Bhikhu Parekh for their seminal role i n the group along with other regular participants: Brian Barry, G.A. Cohen, Caroline Daniel , John Dunn, Paul Hirst, David Miller, Onora O ' Neill, Anne Phillips, Stuart White and B ernard W illiams. Many of them have written chapters of the present volume but all are, to a greater or lesser extent, contributors. Finally , I must thank Jane Franklin of the I PPR, who participated, acted as organiser for the group and who has ably edited this book. The views and proposals published in this document are those of the authors. They are not necessarily endorsed by the IPPR, its staff or trustees. Gerald Holtham

About the Contributors

Brian Barry is a Fellow of the British Academy and Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics. He is currently engaged on a multi-volume Treatise on Social Justice of which the first two have been published: Theories of Social Justice

(1 989) and Justice as Impartiality (1975). G A Cohen was educated at McGil l and Oxford universities where he obtained, respectively, the degrees of BA in Philosophy and Pol itics and B Phil in Philos ophy in 1 9 63. For twenty-two years he was a Lecturer and then a Reader in Philosophy at University College, London. In 1 9 85 he became Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory and a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford . Professor Cohen is the author of Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence

(1978), History, [,abour and Freedom (1988), and Self-Ownership,

Freedom and Equality (1995) . Caroline Daniel is a journalist at The New Statesman. Previously, she has been a journalist at The Economist and a researcher for Gordon B rown MP and was research editor for Values, Visions and

Voices (1 995) , edited by Gordon Brown MP and Tony Wright MP. She read history at St John's College, Cambridge . Jane Franklin is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research. Her mai n research interest is in the relationship between social and political theory, politics and po licy making. She is currently editing Politics of Risk Society, Polity Press (1997) forthcoming, and an IPPR/Polity Social Policy Reader, also forth coming. David Miller is Official Fellow in Social Political Theory at Nuffield College, Oxford . His research interests include concepts of social justice, the ethics of markets and the ideas of nationality and citizenshi p . Among his books are Market, State and Community (Oxfo rd , Claren d o n Press , 1 9 8 9 ) , On Nationality (Oxfo rd ,

Clarendon Press, 1 995), and with Michael Walzer, Pluralism,

Justice and Equality (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1 995). Professor Bhikhu Parekh is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Hull. He has been a Visiting Professor at many North American universities i ncluding Harvard where he was a Visiting Professor from January to June 199 6. He has written extensively in the field of political philosophy and written and broadcast o n race relations i n Britain. H i s Rethinking Multiculturalism w i l l b e published this year by Macmillan. Anne Phillips is Professor of Politics at Lon d o n Guildhall University. Most of her writing deals with the relationship between socialism and feminism, but she currently works on issues of democracy and representation. Recent books include Engendering

Democracy (Polity, 1991) and The Politics of Presense (OUP, 1995). Dr Stuart White is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department, Massachusetts I nstitute of Technology. He was previously a Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. His research interests concern the nature of egalitarian justice and the application of egalitarian ideals within the framework of advanced market economies. He is currently at work on a book-length manuscript, provisionally entitled, The Civic Minimum: An Essay in the Political Theory of Social Citizenship. Bernard Williams was a member of the Commission on Social Justice. He has recently retired from the White's Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. He has also held chairs at London, Cambridge and Berkeley, and has been Provost of King's College, Cambridge. He was Chairman of the Home Office Committee o n Obscenity and Film Censorship which reported i n 1979.

Introduction

Jane Franklin

The idea of equality has become blurred and has lost its political appeal . Once the anchor of the politics of the Left, it seems to have slipped its traditional mo oring and waits to be reconnected to the system of political ideals that guide po liticians and policy makers. Often avoided as an uncomfortable idea which contains within it negative conn otations of "levelling down" or "uniformity", its presence still haunts us as we witness the growing gap between rich and poor and the atrophy of the welfare state. Tony Blair has written that "liberty, equality and fraternity exist in creative tension. The fact the latter two have been ignored for too long means that the first is b eing increasingly denied. We need to redress the balance."1 It is time to take a fresh look at equality. Equality is a traditio nal idea. Tied to the two great ideologies of liberalism and socialism, its role as one of the guiding principles behind political, economic and so cial reform in this country has been firmly established over the course of the last two centuries. Like these systems of theory and practice, however, it is now open to questio n . There are two ways to respond to this. We can either argue that we have reached the "end of equality"2 and that it no longer has a place in the language of politics, or we can say that we are at the beginning of a new way of seeing equality, and of building a new political language to take us into the future. Any shift in the way we think about traditional ideas evokes a nostalgia for past asso ciations as well as an excitement about future possibilities. But between these two responses, is a transitional phase of i ntense theoretical activity where we must take care to move with sensitivity and understanding, not to debunk traditional thinking but to engage with the transformation of ideas . While some on the Left despair at the abandonment of socialist tradition and others breathe a s igh of relief at the thought of jettisoning a principle which has become problematic, the ideas in this book will , I hope, generate a discussion of how the idea of equality in its many

2

Equality

forms might infiltrate the political mind and influence the politics of the next century. In our engagement with the idea of equality in these pages, you will find no single definition, no central theory of appl ication, but a multiplicity of approaches, which bring the idea alive and shape its potential . Our authors inquire into the nature of equality: whether or not it is a timeless idea w hich exists ind ependently of political intervention and how far it can bend to politi cal expediency. They describe the fluidity of the idea as it shifts from the economic, to the political, to the social sphere and how it relates to the idea of community. They assess the strength of the idea, whether or not strict or diluted equality is appropriate to any given situation. They ask how we occupy that elusive space between ideas and politics and which takes priority over the other. They o ffer an evaluation and critique of the phi losophical foundations of the Commission o n Social Justice, an independent inquiry i nto social and economic reform in the UK, set up at the instigation of the late Rt Hon John Smith QC MP, in 1 9 9 2 . The Commission sets out the philosophical framework for its inquiry in The Justice Gap (1993) , taking social justice as its defining principle and recognising that social justice has "something to do with equality". The question then arises, "equality of what?":l The Commission answers this question as it sets out its four principles· of social justice: •

•

•

•

The foun dation of a free society is the equal worth of all its citizens Everyone is entitled , as a right of citizenship , to be able to mee t their basi c need s T e right to self-respect and personal autonom y demand s the Widest possi ble sprea d of oppo rtuni ties Not all inequa lities are unjust, but unjust inequa ities should l be reduced and whe re poss ible elim inate d. 4

�

The key to und erstand·mg h · ow th e Idea of equality operates within . f . thIs ram ework an d m dee d th roughout this book , is to link it with the co ncepts that bring it mto. focus. In 1he Justice Gap, it is initially . . r tnked wah . . . status, making the active, Iegltlmi smg force for equality •

•

f I

.

Introduction

3

a just soci ety; secondly it is l inked with citizenship and a political d efinition of basic needs; th irdly with freedom and opportunity; and fourthly w ith justice, which renders certain inequalities just. The choice as to which con cepts frame defi nitions of equality, is in turn linked to political , ideological and religious values. Caroline Daniel looks at the fate of equality over the past century to see how its d imensions have altered and adapted to changing circumstances. At the beginning of the century, we can observe how it is attached to the socialist critique of poverty and becomes a force for the redistributio n of material resources. By the 1950s, as Britain beco mes a more affluent society, it shifts to the social sphere, supported by the idea of social justice and promoted as "equality of opportunity". By the 1970s, this optimism for a socially just meritocracy was undermined by the growing economic crisis. The idea th en moves away from its attachment to class, status and wealth, towards the relationship between particular groups and individuals in society, as in the campaigns for racial and sexual equality, and takes on the mantle of liberation. Then the relationship of equality to freedom changes. I n the 1980s, the very concept of society is challenged and the idea of equality is lost to the idea of freed om. Those on the Left who still believed that equality is an essential concept of socialist politics, endeavoured to accommodate the i dea of indivi dual liberty with the idea of equality. So much so, some have argued , that it has lost its radical edge. G A Cohen argues that this accommodation of values, as

articulated in the philoso phical framework of the Commission on Social Justice, undermines the firm foundation of values that the Labour party needs if it is to have any moral force or political character. Contrary to the views of the Commission, he argues , the values of community and equality are not cond itional on changing circumstance and do not need to be adapted to take account of social, economic or political reality. For Cohen, these values are always there, to give social movem ents and political actors a goal and a focus fo r change. They represent a vision which need not correspond with reality, but motivates change toward that vision. Cohen defi nes the p rinciple of equality in material term s : "the measure of amenity and burden in one perso n's life should be roughly comparable to that in any other's". He argues that the

4

Equality

Commission abandons equality as a principle in these terms when it asserts that "inequalities are not necessarily unjust but unjustified inequalities should be reduced and w here possible eliminated" and that "redistribution of income is a means to social justice and not an end in itself ' . The ideal of community represents a particular mode of human relationships says Cohen , and comp lete rejection of the logic of the market. In fact, community is anti-market because the market inspires production, not on the basis of commitment to one's fellow human beings and a d esire to serve them while being served by them, but on the basis of impersonal cash reward . The socialist aspiration is therefore to extend community to the whole of our economic life. The Commission does not, Cohen argues, invoke community as a core value in these terms. Without a firm, moral foundation, Labour has to construct a new identity and in doing so becomes indistinguishable from the Liberal Democrats. Cohen argues that "no Liberal or Tory could object" to the Commission ' s four principles of social justice and that "to modify principles for the sake of electoral gain can be electorally counter-productive". I n undermining the principles which people have always associated with the Labour party , the Commission runs the risk of contributing to electoral failure. B ernard Williams, a member of the Commissi on on Soci al Justice, addresses the complex relationship between princi ple an d electoral success. He agrees with Cohen that principles prov ide a firm foundatio n for the Left, but argues that we canno t take traditional principles for granted : they are not immutable, and to understand them we n eed to inquire as to the circumstances which generated their appeal and understand the particular histo rical condition s in which they were deployed . Unless we trace this relati � nship between tradition and the changin g world we l ive i n , w e Will lose touch with both. The Comm ission acknowled ges that, at the time of the Beveri dge Repor t in 1945, there was perhaps a . . . special feeli ng of clas s so t1· d amy · an d a sense of natio nal com mumty . W Ich grew out of the exper ience of the Secon d Worl d War. But this has changed and many peop 1 e now have a more individual ised tdenttty, and can not accept . . pnnctpl es wht. ch are out of step with the way they live th eu · rIves. F or the Left to generate political suppon, .It .IS nec essary to ques . . . t10n tradIttona l princi ples and move

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.

.

•

Introduction

5

beyond a nostalgic attachment to beliefs that no lo nger resonate with the electorate. This does not mean that we have to reject them out of hand , but that we should engage with them to explore their relevance fo r present circumstances. In this context, Williams disputes the charge that the Commission disparages equality, rather, he suggests, it raises questi ons about what equality is and what it should be equality of. All ideas and theoretical assumptions should be open to interpretation and their traditional status does not exempt them from scrutiny. In fact, the radicalism of the principles of social justice and equality does not arise from principles themselves but in their potential effect. As a political idea, equality must be open to interpretation , which l egitimately takes place in the context of other competing political values. The nature of this i nterpretation will affect the outcome. Stuart White places the values of equality and social justice sid e by side and i nquires into what those who believe in equality want and whether the strategy of the Commission on Social Justice can provide the i nstitutional means to deliver it. White suggests that egalitarians should want a society which satisfies the principles of an "egalitarian perspective on social justice". These i nclude the brute luck principle (which requires that we correct for or prevent d isadvantage attributable to differential "brute luck") ; the fair exchange principle (whi ch requires that we protect ind ividuals from excessive vulnerability in the market-place, and its potentially explo itative effects); and the reciprocity principle (which requires that we prevent economic free-riding) . In The Justice Gap, the Commission explicitly rejects the brute luck principle, at least in its simplest and strongest fo rm . Nevertheless, White argues that the

Commission's

strategy

of "endowment

egal itarianism"

underpinned by an active welfare state, is an ethically attractive one from the stand point of the remaining principles of egalitarian justice, though his support is subject to qualification. White contends that

in setting out its strategy, the Commiss i o n

exaggerates t h e interdependency between justice and efficiency, and understates the extent to which a strategy for achieving social justice must inevitably rely upon conventional income redistribution. In addition, whilst the Commission tacitly endorses the reciprocity principle, it fails rigorously to pursue some of the "tougher"

6

Equality

and the implica tions of this princip le in the areas of welfare policy that ers tax treatme nt of inherit ance. In conclu sion, White consid in the there is much that the egalita rian can and should welcom e the of nt e Commi ssion's report, but calls for further d evelopm l ophica Comm ission' s reform strateg y, a n d of its p hi l os foundations.

Left David Miller turns our attentio n to the kind of equality the y should pursue. He suggests that much of the d ebate about equalit for has been skewed towards material equality and argum ents have equality of outcome or equality of opportun ity - whether all to an equal share of resources or all have an equal opportunity ive s persua strive for unequal resources. M iller puts forward a argument for a third alternative and a way forward for the L eft

-

social equality or equality of status: "when each member of a soci ety regards herself as fundamentally the equal of all the others and is regarded by the others as fundamentally their equal. " In such a society, there would be no hierarchical barriers to friend ship and solidarity. It would, i n effect, be a classless society in which social

equality stands alongside equality of opportunity to "correct its elitist tendencies". This option , he argues, will appeal to many who wish to open up relationships between individuals so that they can relate to each directly without the inhibition of status d ifference. Miller disagrees with Cohen i n that he beli eves that it is not equality per se that distinguishes socialists from other political viewpoints, but the emphasis and significance given to equal ity by those on the Left. It is not, he argues, that socialists believ e in equality while the others do not, but "that they give equ ality a igher priority , or have a better grasp of what it actu ally takes to Implement a principle like equality of opportuni ty". Miller argues that �ea material equality is beyond the grasp of market econo mies and ts, m many cases unjust. If those on the Left could accept th i s, . th ey could move forwar d an d work towards a form of equality that . . . . Is distmcttve and ach . . . tevabl e. I t .IS an attractive propos itiOn that would appeal to many who wish to overcom e the d ivisions of a class-based soc·tet Y an d one that attaches itself to the more . " . . md IVIduahsed identiti es of

�

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the 1990s. Anne Ph i llips takes us funher mto . the intricacies of the meaning . 0 f equahty, con trasting the argument s for equality between men

Introduction

7

and women in both the liberal and socialist traditions. Socialists have argued that women have been constrained by their domestic role in the family, while liberals ten d to defend the private family from public i ntervention and are much less likely to regard th e household as a place of confinement. Phillips explains how "difference between the two traditions has sometimes been theorised as a difference between pursuing equality of opportunities and achieving equality of outco mes: liberalism typically focusing on

rem o ving

opp ortun ities ;

the legal constraints to free up equality o f so cialism

typical ly add ress ing t h e structural

conditions that are necessary to substantial equality". She traces the evolution of the debate between the two theoretical traditions through to the 1990s, where, she argues, feminists still fo cus on the double burden of women who have to juggle home and work responsibilities. This persistent association between women and care work und erlies all sexual inequalities in the labour market and Phillips sees no way out of this short of equalising care work between women and men. Such an outcome requires strict equality between the sexes. Can so cialism help to bring this about? There has been a distin ctive feminisation of Left politics during the 1990s, not least in the recruitment of women as political representatives, with increasing attention being paid to the double burden of women. Yet, this may owe more, Phillips contends, to the recent convergence between l iberal and socialist values than to anything specific to the socialist tradition. Socialist ideas can , however, offer a scale of val ues radically different from that which shores up an unregulated m arket economy. So cialist values can provide the impetus for a social demo cratic regulation of the market, so that "productio n is tailored to social need and caring for people takes equal priority alongside producing marketable goods and services". This im pl ies that un less we separate out the inequalities and differences which are attached to the accident of being born male or female from individual differences we might otherwise accept, we shall never achieve equality between m en and women. In arguing this, socialism may take its cue from liberalism, but it may have a stronger political will to make it happen.

I n Equality in a Multicultural So ci ety Bhikhu Parekh consid ers ,

how we might construct a culturally sensitive theory of equality.

B

Equality

He examines the real dilem mas that different cultures and societies have faced and the ways in w hich they have endeavoured to resolve them, drawing out some of the general theoretical imp lications. Parekh shows us how the discussion of equality in Western political thought has largely ignored the importance of culture, taking an homogeneous society for granted. This lack of cultural sensitivity has meant, that although political thinkers have d iscussed legal, civil, political and other rights of citizens, they have rarely touched on the question of cultural rights, either as the individual's right to culture or as the rights of cultures or cultural communities. They have asked whether, why and within what limits all human beings or citizens s hould be treated equally, but have not raised these questions in relation to cultures. If we i nterpret human beings and their actions, choices, preferences in terms o f the systems of meaning characteristic of their cultures we have greater opportunity to do them justice. As Parekh has argued elsewhere, 5 almost every moder n stat e is characterised by cultural diversity, but is faced with the question s

of how to accommodate differences without losing social co hesion , how to reconcile the apparently conflicting demands of equality of treatment and recognition of cultural differences, and how to create a spirit of co mmon citizenship among its culturall y diverse members . If we are to ensure fairness and equality in culturally diverse societies, we need to do two things . First, we must appreciate that equal treatment might have to be differe nt and not identical in its content. Second , we need to d evelo p app ropriate concep tual and institutional tools to ensure that different treatm ent does not lead to unfair discrim ination or privilege . . Gtven the diversity o f opinion, even among those w h o a i m to embody broadly egalitarian ideals i n practical politics , can policy makers on the Left make any "practical choic es that ' real-world decr ease inequal"1 t "6 B nan · B arry Y· sets out to l eap over w hat he sees as the sh ort term e1 ectoral consensus of policy makers an d . . . pohttctans, to p ropose ch anges . m the nature of eco nomic and soctal . . relatto ns which w1·ll have a real Impact in creating a more equal . soctety . He presents the case for a single measure which woul d , wh en fully .Imp lem . . ented m ake a stgmfican t difference to the quali ty of people s 1.tves. Thi s measure IS baste Incom e . His plea for a .

'

,

·

·

.

Introduction

9

radical , practical approach to thinking about equality is an example of a far reaching i dea for which a political consensus would have to be built. Barry is critical of the "narrow conception of the constraints of political feasibility" in the report of the Commission on Social Justice and asserts "that those who drafted the report were reduced to cobbling together proposals originating from the various pressure groups associated with d i fferent members of the Commission". While it is crucial to think radically, to drive the political will forward, the Commission was concerned to balance rad i cal id eas with politically viable ones. They considered the idea of basic income and set out their proposals for "participation income", which, they suggested , would operate as a way of modernising the social insurance system by placing a higher value on some types of unpaid work, thereby leaving the door open fo r basic, or citizen ' s i ncome. 7 Barry is criti cal of this gradual approach and of the negative responses with which the idea of basic income is often met. He asks why such an essentially simple idea has failed to make the breakthrough into mainstream political d iscourse. There has, he contend s , been a great tendency in the literature to down play the rad i cal potential o f basic i ncome. It offers a genuinely new d eal a d i fferent way of relating ind ividual and society. Compatible with the i d eas o f such socialist thinkers as William Morris and R H Tawney, it not only limits disparities in income but also gives each person the d ignity that comes from independence and is a practical way of achieving some of their central aims. I ndeed , Barry argues that if we can manage to strip away the appalling legacy of "actually existing soci alism" and go back to Marx 's original utopian vision, it is not absurd to suggest that a subsisten ce-level basic income is a far more plausible institutional embod iment of it than anything Marx himself ever came up with. This is an idea waiting in the wings, and is worth taking seriously, Barry argues, as a way forward fo r the Left. As Cohen tells us, the relationship between theory and practice is complex. I d eas provide the backdrop to political activity, a reference po i nt, a rallying cry. There is a passion in the idea of equality that will not go away. Nelson Mandela came to B ritain in the Summer of 1996 and had an extraordinary effect on the people

10

Equality

who saw and heard him. He inspired the fee ling among ordinary people and politicians alike, that we are all equal , all the same, that before we are men and women, black and white, catholic and protestant, we are human beings and we can change the world we live in. As we enter the twenty-first century, and globalisation and technological change transform all our lives, we are at risk of marginalising a substantial number of people who are unable to participate in this transformatio n . The practice of "actually existing socialism" as B arry has pointe d out, has been d iscredited. But there is still a hunger for a more equal and just society which drives us to search for new political fo rms to ach ieve that end . The language of this new pol itics may at first be unfamiliar. It may be structured more by time, space and access to information rather than by status, wealth or opportunity. Who knows'? I n this book, we have taken one step towards the revitalising an idea that may inspire a new generation. Endnotes

1.

T B lair "Ideological Blurring",

2.

M Kaus (1992) The End of };qualify, New York, B asic B o oks.

3.

The Justice Gap IPP R (1993) p7 . The Justice Gap , IPPR (1993).

4. 5. 6.

7.

Prospect, June 1996.

B Parekh (1994) "Equality , Fairness and Limits of Cu ltural . Diversity" in Inn ova tion , Vo l 7 , No 3. He nry Milner quoted in Brian Barry "The Attract ions of Ba sic Inc om e", p1 57 .

See Social Just"tee.. strateg . tes for National Renewal The Rep ort o f the Com m·ISSio . · n on Soc ial Just ice pp 261-26 '

5.

11

SOCIALISTS AND EQUALITY

Caroline Daniel

Egalitarianism has been a key theme of British socialism for much of this century. George Bernard Shaw opened with his idealistic advocacy of equality of i ncome. R H Tawney followed on with a vision of a society brought together in fellowship by greater equality. Then came Anthony Crosland ' s hope of social equality and Hugh Gaitskell's admission, in 1955, that "the central socialist i d eal is equality" . 1 In the 1 960s, the focus of debate shifted towards the more d istinct areas of racial and sexual inequality, but by the 1980s, there had been a further change. Margaret Drabble, writing in 1 9 8 8 , o bserved that "twenty years ago, a profess ion of faith i n egal itarianism was n o t considered improper or eccentric. It i s now. By some shift o f usage, by some change in the climate of thought, egalitarianism has become a dirty word , a devalued word" . 2 Politicians on the left today are certainly squeamish about the little word "equality". In this paper I shall trace the d evelopment of the concept of equality over the last hundred years , how it evolves and adapts to political necessity and how it is d ebated as an idea and as a political tool. The problem is that although most people want equality of something, there is no consensus about what should be equalised. As Crosland put it in Socialism Now, "what are the main causes of inequality - inherited wealth, inherited IQ, home circumstances, hard work or luck? What are the most i mportant inequalities? Are they of i ncome, capital, education, housing or industrial power? Or are they between the sexes or between races? Or are they perhaps of privacy, sunlight and access to unpolluted beaches?":l Different interpretations of equality can conflict. Equality of opportunity may conflict with equality of outcome; equality of income with equality of respect. As David Miller has argued, "The conflict is not about the value of equality as such, but about competing specifications of that value, about different versions of what it means to treat people as equals". 4 Tawney ' s egalitarianism, for example, arises from his

12

Equality

Christian belief that we are all equal before God; Bentham assumed the existence of equal passions ; and J S Mill equal rationality. Robert Burns expressed many a socialist's view that "A man's a man for a'

that" and G D H Cole echoed that "socialism is an imaginative belief that all men, however unequal we may be in powers of mind and body, or in capacity for service, are in a really significant sense equal, not merely before the law but one with another". Raymond Williams in Culture and Society (1958) thought that "the only inequality that is evil is inequality that denies the essential equality of being". And Douglas Jay asked in Socialism and the New Society (1962): why should I have more right to happiness than you'? . . . if we believe that all human beings have an equal right to happiness and a civilised life, then it is for this reason that we should seek to establish a s ociety in which these rights are embodied. The ultimate ground for condemning inequality is that it is unjust, not that it causes resentment or envy. y This belief is still evocative today. "The foundation of a free societ is the equal worth of its citizens", 5 was the first of the fou r core principles of the Commission on S ocial Justice. But how far does equal worth take us in practi ce'? The Fabians and meeting basic needs

The early Fabians, who were united by their criti cism of po verty, argued for a national minimum standard of living, a nd sta te . . regulation of the econ omy an d state provisi O n of free serv ices to . provide the back groun d con d'Itwns for equal access to the ma rk et. · Amy Gutmann ·m L'b 1 eral Equality , noted that "the idea of equa lity serv ed a critical purpose for most early Fabians - as a criti qu e of . . a so ciety that d enied . th e effective opportunity for all citizens to hve decent1 y .6 Th e com . pass ionate desire to ensure that every o ne has . their b asic . needs met is ref1 ecte d m the second core princip le of . the Comm .iSSio n on Social Jus t'Ice, ..everyo ne is entitle d , as a right of citizenship , to be able to meet their basic needs" 7 . The Fab'Ians develo ped th e concep t of economic surplus to jus tify their attack on so 1 . cia Privileg e As Geo ffrey Foote explains, "they .

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Socialists and Equality

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believed that the wages o f the workers were determined by the d emand for their different skills. Any wages above a subsistence level were seen as a form of rent of ability . . . however, in capitalist society a large proportio n of the workers ' rent was directed into the pockets of the private owners and preserved for the children of the capitalists". B The Fabians wanted to see this surplus used for the benefit of all. They argued that the marginal utility of income and wealth progressively diminishes, so that the satisfaction of the basic needs of the poor should have priority over the d esires of the rich. George Bernard Shaw and equality of income

George Bernard Shaw took a more radical position and called for equality of income, "unless we can see the exped iency of this, we are not socialists: we are o nly pitiers of the poor and rebels against unpleasantness". 9 Shaw argued that capitalism was both unjust and inefficient since it involved a misdirection of production, producing "frippery and luxury whilst the nation is rotting for want of good food" . 10 He assessed seven different metho ds of distributing money to see if any of them could provide an alternative to the present system: "to each what she produces", to "each what she d eserves", "to each w hat she can grab", "to the common people enough to keep them alive whi lst they work all day, and the rest to the gentry", "distribution by class", "let us go on as we are", and "socialism: an equal share to everybody". 1 1 The only solution, Shaw concluded was to give everyo ne the same. He imagined a system in which material i ncentives would be replaced by a sense of public duty, although he accepted that coercion might be needed to get people to work. He hoped that equality of income would promote a true meritocracy, for between "persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: characte r, conduct and capacity are everything" . 1 2 Equality and poverty

For the early Fabians, the alleviation of poverty was the prime motivation for the redistribution of wealth. As Anthony Crosland put it, "at any time up to 1 939, the case for greater equality, at least of

14

Equality

rich the poor incom es, seeme d self-evident. By makin g the rich less the rich and could be made less poor . . . to take some caviar from " 13 imperative . distribu te it in bread to the poor, was a clear moral ty are not But can this be taken to mean that argum ents for equali everyo ne really about any desire for equality , but just for levelli ng up to a basic minimum? Joseph Raz has argued that:

what makes us care about various inequalities is not the inequality, but the concern identified with the underlying principle. It is the hunger of the hungry , the need of the needy . . . the fact that they are worse o ff in the relevant respect than their neighbour is relevant. But it is relevant not as an independent evil of inequality. Its relevance is in showing that their hunger is greater, their need more pressing, their suffering more hurtful and therefore it is our concern for the hungry, the needy, th e suffering and not ou r concern for equality that makes us give them prior ity. 14 This perspective can be used to criticise some of the early Fabian arguments for redistribution. However both Richard Tawney and Anthony Crosland show that there are reasons for equality that go beyond just the satisfaction of basic needs.

Tawney and Community In Equality (1931) Tawney worked out a comprehens ive theory of equality. He appealed to the Christian ideal that we are all equ al before God and en d orsed th e pab1 · · asserted t h e wh1ch · an pos1t10n need to guarantee each citizen a decent life, but went further. H is real concern was to build a common and a sense of �ommu �ity. Equality was a means to culture secure fello wship . The 1 nequah�y he deplored was not "inequality of personal gifts , but of the soc1al and eco nomic envuonment . . . not with a biological phenomenon, but . with the spmtu al relation and conduct based on it" 15 The solu tion for Tawney 1ay m . the realm of ideas and . princi ples He reJe cted the Webb 's tocus on changing institu tiona 1 . arrangements. H'ts p . . ollttcs was one charactensed by moral vexatio n . not economic . arne1.1oratton To change, soc1ety needed to "destro y .

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Socialists and Equality

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the moral, social, economic and historical credentials of the status quo", and discredit the acquisitive culture. He wanted to replace the

culture of competition with one based on co-operation and fell owshi p , where people saw themselves as equal citizens. A society that valued equality would place more significance on the differences of character and intelligence between individuals , and a low degree of significance on social or economic differences. Tawney condemned the "habit of mind which thinks it, not regrettable, but natural and desirable, that different sections of the community should be distingu ished from one another by sharp differences of economic status, of environment, of education and culture and habit of life". 16 Tawney did not call for exact equality of income, but equality of "environm ent, habits of life, of access to education and the means of civilisati o n , of secu rity and independence, and of the social considerations which equality i n these matters usually carries with it". He accepted that people were unequal in natural endowments , or in the capacity to d evelop them by education. To criticise inequal ity and to desire equality is not, as is someti mes suggested, to cherish the romantic illusion that men are equal in character and intelligence. It is to hold that while natural endowments may differ profoundly, it is the mark of a civilised society to aim at eliminating such i n equalities

as

have

their sou rce ,

not differences, but i n its own organisation. 17

in

ind ividual

Tawney thought that some measure of income inequality was j u sti fiable si nce "i nequality of circumstance is rega rded as reasonable, i n so far as it is the necessary condition of securing the services which the community requires . . . when a reasonable p ro vision has been made for all, exceptional responsibilities should be compensated by exceptional rewards, as a recognition of the

service performed and an inducement to perform i t". 1 B These intuitions were later d eveloped by Anthony Crosland and Jo hn

Rawls. I nequalities could be justified if they were to the benefit of the worst off. Tawney di d not favour an equal opportunity society. He accepted that privileged positions should be won on merit,

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Equality

requi re that men b elievi ng that "indi vidua l happ iness does not only and distinction; shoul d b e free to rise to new posit ions of comf o rt life of dignity it also requir es that they shoul d be able to l ead a 1 ed that there and cultu re, whet her they rise or not". 9 Tawn ey show alleviatio n of were reaso ns for redist ributi o n that went b eyond the limit the absolute poverty, and that th ere were reaso ns to tho se at the advantages of those at the top, as well as provid e for difference, b ottom. Tawn ey recog nised that i n accep ting indivi du al talent. a hierarchy of b i rth could be replaced with a hierarchy of

Anthony Crosland and Social Equality keen Writing in the post austerity years of the 1950s, Croslan d was call to distance himself from the dour values of the Webb' s in their is H for hard work, self-discipline, efficiency, research and abstin ence. is was a liberating, expansive socialism. In The Future of Socialism, h ate priv paean to social equality, he called for "liberty and gaiety in life: the need for a reaction against the Fabian traditi on" . Britain needed not only higher exports and old age p ensions but m ore open air cafes, brighter and "gayer streets at night, later closing h ours for public houses , more local repertory theatres . .. and so on ad infinitum "20• Socialism and affluence could go han d in han d. Crosland emphasis ed social rather than materia l equ ality. H e '

.' beli eved that econ omic · growth, full employment and Impr o vemen ts . 10 the welfare state had reduced the need for further redis tributio n of wealth, while s ocial i n e qualities s t i l l created coll ective resentm ents, evid ent i n strikes and social unrest ' which could . un dermine democracy , soc1a l and indu strial p eace, tolerance an d free dom Second!y, C ros I and argued for greater equality on th e grounds of social . . I t was unjust , h e argued to pay for an JUStice. . edu cattO . . n which wo ld u overwhelming social privilege; It provide . was UnJu st to inherit . . wealth smce lt could b e gained without merit, carried no corresp . ond ing 0bl"tgattOn, and n ot everyone had an equal opportumty to · acqutre It; and rewards from work could be unjust' because t h e . y were sometimes hnked to nepotism, and th e old school ti"e Th. udlyh eberIeved that s ocial inequality was ' wasteful and . ineffitC:l. ent It ' . sto od 10 th e way of social mobility and prevented genui n e equartty of opportunity. A society based on ·

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Socialists and Equality

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equal of opportunity, provided it was genuinely fair, would prevent the top rewards being reserved for a pre-selected few, would encourage mobility and would be effi cient in selecting people on merit for top jobs .

I s equality of opportun ity enough? Although Crosland is frequently seen as the chief proponent of equali ty of opportuni ty, his support was qualifi ed . Many of the reasons behind his doubts find an echo in the views of John Rawls, set out in A Theory of Justice.21 In Socialism Now, Crosland openly li nked his views to those of Rawls, when he claimed that he adopted "the strong d efinition of equality - what Rawls has subsequently called the "democratic" as opposed to the li beral co n ception of equality of opportunity".22 The l iberal conception of equal i ty

of

opportunity

(so metimes

cal l ed

the

minimalist

interpretation) is mainly concerned with the progressive removal of legal impedi ments to recruitment, and giving all children a fair start in schools. It is a procedural notion, concerned with making sure that the race for positions, or unequal outcomes, is a fair one. For Crosland, this did not fulfi l the requirements of social justice. An equal opportunity so ciety is more than a meritocratic society in which the greatest rewards go to those with the most fortunate family backgroun d . Raymond Plant summed up his view: "Crosland had a belief in equality, with inequalities being justifi ed if, and only if, differential rewards work to the benefi t of the community as a whole and we can assume that access to jobs which command differential rewards would be on the basis of genuine equality of opportunity". 2:� This is very close to John Rawls ' principles of justice: "Each person to have the most extensive system of equal basic liberties compatible with similar liberties fo r all", and "social and economic inequal ities to be arranged so that they a re (a) to the greatest advantage to the least advantaged consistent with a just savings pri ncipl e, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all u nd er conditions of fair equality of opportunity".24 But there are clear d i fferences between the two approaches. Crosland thought his i nsti n ctive v i ew of social justice "not susceptible to proof or disproof ' . He therefore relied on the "moral

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Equality

. predilections of the reader . . Rawls' theory was needed to "round out Croslan d's i ntellectual position", accord ing to Plant. Rawls wanted to get away from this subjective approach. Keen to link ordi nary moral feel ings to an objective case for equality, Rawls adopted the idea of a social contract in which he imagined individuals living in a state of ignorance of their own talents an d abilities. From behind this veil of ignorance, individuals could make objective choices as to the principl es which s hould govern social life . However, Crosland grappled w ith a feeling that egalitarianism was not a co nsensus value. H o w was it possible to move towards an egal itarian principle of distri bution when people both know their talents, and want to keep the rewards they can earn from them'? After Crosland

win g By the 1970s , Crosland's optimism had fizzled out, as the g ro s. econ omic crisis undermin ed his more compreh ensiv e ambi tion wth Incomes were not naturally growing closer togethe r an d lo w gro r made plans for painless redistribu ti on redundan t. Argum ents fo y· alit social equality gave way to arguments for sexual and raci al equ The call for equal op portuniti es for women, for exam ple, was pushed higher up the political agenda, resulting in the 197 0 Eq ual

Pay Act and th e 197 5 Sex D iscrimin ati on Act. ln terpretatio ns as to the sources of inequality also cha ng ed at . . thts ttme N 'tck B osanque t argued that: ·

. We now see po veny more .m relattve than absolu te te rms , but our view of th e sources of mequahty have also c han ge d . . We have co me to fear th e effects of the tax and social secu nty system on inequarIty we have also become much less . opftm.lsttc about wh e th er th e educational system can ever cont n· bute very much t0 equa I'1ty. The government wa s thu s faced w'th 1 th e challe ng e 0 f Inequal · ity arising from t he old natural sources and also W.ith a greater challenge of fin d i n g a more equI· t a . bl e way of fimancmg public spend ing. The redistributive effects of p bl' u IC spending might well be undermined bY th e . . I ncreasingly regr tt esstve way m wh tch was fina ·

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Socialists and Equality

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The forces that created inequal ities i n the first place, and which perpetuated them, were too strong to be resis ted through indi rect methods. Inequalities had to be tackled at their source, through more equal incomes, attacking the culture of inequality . John Gold thorpe argued that the o nly way to create a more equal society was through collective action by the wo rking classes. Piecemeal measures misjudged the resistance of the class structure to attempts

to change it. 2 6

Equality a nd liberty

But the climate fo r equality was changing, and these views were chall enged by those who sensed that equality now had to come to terms with fr eedo m . For Raymond Plant equal ity was "the distinctive so cialist value", nevertheless his main prio rity was to make equality compatible with liberty. "It is because we value li berty for all, that we are concerned to secure a greater equality in the worth of lib erty" arguing that a fair distribution of the worth of li berty is "going to involve far greater equality of income and wealth as well as the provision of services", because differences of income lead to differences i n the use of other sorts of basic welfare goods. Plant's co nclusion is blu nt. "Except in conditions of high economic growth the greater equality in the worth of li berty cannot be attained without a certain amount of levelling down. We have to be clear about this". 2 7 But the political context did not prove amenable to such thinking. "The current pol itical and intellectual climate is deeply hostile to egalitarian ideas", observed Plant. 2B Doubts about the role of public spending combined with a resurgence in new right thinking summed up by Keith Joseph and Jonathan Sumption in Equality (1979) when they argue that equality of opportunity "requires that no external barrier shall prevent an individual from exploiting his talents. No laws shall permit some men to do what is forbidden by others". They do not admit that equality of dignity or self-respect has anything to do with equality of wealth. Freedom lay in the absence of coercion, not the absence of cash, or as they famously put it �poverty is not unfreedom". They called Tawney 's hopes of changing man 's competitive instincts "despotic". Inequality was merely "a state of

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Equality

affairs which results when the natural aptitudes of men are allowed to manifest themselves in natural differences". People do not have the same earning power. Income was paid not according to desert, or merit, but according to the value of work to others. They concluded that the best way to help the poor was not through redistribution, but through trickle-down: "you can only make the poor better off by making everyo ne richer, including the rich" . 29 These criticisms hit home and supporters of equality were anxious to show that equality was not incompatible with freedom. In 1986, Neil Kinnock wrote in The Future of Socialism that Labour had allowed itself to assume that liberty was not important, "efficiency, ind ividual liberty, wealth creati on, patriotism; such a vocabulary is thought to be unfamiliar to the Labour movement . . . the objective past, present a n d future of demo cratic socialism is individual free dom. And the means w hich d emocratic so cialism has chosen to protect that freedom are equality and d emocracy". Rather than look to growth as the means to effect red istribution, Kinnock wanted to create a strong body of moral opinion in favour of equality. "Political economy is not ulti mately a questi on of econ omic organis ation or historical i nevi tab i lity, but mor al 'J · ch Oice :lO R oy Hattersley agreed . His book Choose Freedom· 1 was a clear attemp t to paint Labour as the party of free dom, with equa lity p layin g a lead ing role . "

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Equa lity, just ice a nd effi cien cy . Th e oth er crit'ICis · m t hat had h .it home was that equ ality was. . Inco mpatible Wit · h e ff'ICien · cy. The emphasis by Le Gran d and the oth ers on the n eed for d 'lfect attacks on money inequal ity seem ed . to Interfe re wi th . . the work mgs of the free market, and pai d msuffiICi. ent regard t0 th e fact that some of the i nequ alities the market generated cou ld b e seen as just. Rather than argu e the "moral" case for equa1lty · , more pragmatic thi nkers have tried to move with the sp. . mt of the n eo- l'b . . I era I times, by frammg their case for equ ality I· n th e language o f eco nom ic effic iency. The Justice Ga . . p also tn es to meld equa l'Ity With efficiency. It d oes not accept th at a11 mequah t1 es are UnJ· ust. The paper can be rea d as an attempt to m ov e away fro m RawIsm . n thinking, and liberal ·

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Socialists and Equality

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egalitari anism more general ly, b y i nvoking the concepts of entitlement and desert. It seems fair, for instance, that a medical student should receive a lower income than the fully qualified doctor; or that experience or outstanding talent should be rewarded . . . most people believe that it is fair for people to bequeath their property as they see fit, even though this means that some will inherit more than others . . . parents can, however, pass on intelligence, talent, charm and other qualities, as well as property or titles. Rawls in his theory rests a lot on the fact that a perso n's talents , and his or her capacity to make productive use of those talents, are very much matters of luck and are also, in some part, the product of society . Nobody, he has rightly insisted , deserves his or her natural talents . . . but Rawls's argument applies as much to effo rt a s to raw talent . . . virtually everything about a person that yields a product is itself undeserved . So no rewards, on Rawls's view , are at the most basic level a matter of desert . Few people believe this . . . A s the American philosopher Robert Nozick fo rcefully put it, why does "desert have to go all the way down?: 12 Ronald Dworkin's arguments are relevant to this critique of Rawls. In Dworkin's terms , the goal of equality of income is insufficiently "ambitio n sensitive" as well as insufficiently "'endowment sensitive". Inco me equality does not permit income inequality where this results not from differences in productive capacity over which the individuals have no control, or which are matters of brute luck, but from different choices persons make as how to deploy their productive capacities. But if you or I have the same opportunity to earn a certain amount, but I choose not to make use of the opportunity to earn a certain amount, while you take it, is the ensuing income inequality really unjust? What Th e Justice Gap report attempts to do is restore some role for individual ambition, or effort. It is easy to see that the role of choice does affect the way we view the justice of different distributions. We need info rmation about how the in equalities have come about before we can d ecide if a particular distribution is fair or unfair. So if A earns more

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Equality

A money than B because A works harder, this seems fairer than if is earns more money that B (for the same job) because B for So, r. employe discrimina ted agai nst by a racially prejudiced example, it seems fair that someone who smokes should pay more for their insurance because of the extra risk they kno w they are

taking on by smoking. Yet it may seem unfair that someon e gets turned down for insurance because of factors beyond their control, such as inheriting certain genes. If the outcome is the resul t of individual choice then it seems fair . As Dw orkin says "peop le 's fate should d epend on their ambitions but should not depen d on their

natural and social endowments" . When in equal ities of i nco me are created by choices not circumstances Rawls' differen ce prin ciple would create not remove unfairness . Yet there may be a situation where trying to be distributi on sensitive will conflict with ambition sensitivity. Some peopl e will be unreservedly disadvantaged by circumstances beyond their control, such as being handicapped . However, showing equal concern for advantaged and disadvantaged requires something other than maximal redistribution to the disadvantaged. The disadvantaged can never be fully compensated for their unequal endowm ents as this would involve some kind of slavery of the advan taged.

Betw een equal ity of opportu nity and equality of outcom e Distin ctions between equality of opportunity and equa lity of outco me continue to shape the debate about equality. It helps to look at equality of opportun ity in a li near way. At the begin nin g you have a fair start, and at the end there are winn ers and lo sers . The idea of the fau · start ·Is that there should be no legal barn. ers . p eventmg anyo ne from taking part. So, the fact that a t iny num b er o wo men ' or bla ck peopI e, do not succeed in becomin g doctors , does not mean th at th e race is unfa irly run . As we have alrea . dY seen , sociali sts have typically questiOn ed this Th e ab sen ce of legal b arners IS not enough to ensure that t h e race is a fair one So me may start with an economic hand icap , which preven ts them from rna k' mg the most of opportun ities o n offer . Th e way to address thIS ' Is to ensure that people's min im u m needs are met ' hence the Web b's advo cacy of a natio n al minimu m

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Socialists and Equality

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standard of living , and Tawney's call for a basic level of practical equality. At issue is the question as to how far it is practical to intervene to make the start fair. And , if the start cannot be made fair, how far should the outcomes be interfered with? This can be illustrated by the debate between Roy Hattersley and Gordon B ro wn. Hattersley argues that: I certainly want equali ty of outcome . . . many inequalities are not the result of genetics , even less of fate . They are the product of the way in which soci ety is organised . . . socialists want first to reduce and then eliminate the organisational, institutio nal and social factors which make men and women unnaturally d i fferent. For Hattersley, equal ity of outcome is "the belief that those who fall behind in the race should not be told that they had their chance and failed but sh ould be given a new impetus to run on. :!: l Gordon Brown sees things differently: "the essence of equality is equality of opportunity"_: l- 4 He d evelops a dynamic, progressive model of equal ity of opportunity, where there is not just one race, but several, so if you fall at the first hurd le, this will not auto matically d isadvantage you fo r the rest of the race. He clearly takes Dworkin's view that there are limits to how far it is possible to compensate those who start the race uneq ual ly. And that some inequalities can be justified by a degree of effo rt and desert. He proposes a pol itics of second chances. Like the Commission on Social Justice, he is keen to dispel fears that there is a t rade-off between equal ity and efficiency. Inequality, Brown argues, "affects us all because whether it is in high social security bills and h igh taxes or in the waste of economic potential, every one of us pays a heavy price as a result". Equality of opportunity, he argues secures a more equal so ciety and is also the key to economic prosperity .

Conclusion The current academic and political climate has come a long way from the ambitions of George Bernard Shaw, and even those set out in Labour's 1974 Manifesto which called for "a fundamental

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Equality

favour and irrevers ible s hift in the balance of power and wealth in ic of working people and their fam il ies . . . far greater econom increase equality - in i ncome, wealth and living standar ds . . . and an ful l in social equality by giving far greater importa n ce to emplo yment, housing, education and s o cial benefi ts". It is an illustrati on of how attitudes to equality have changed that n this declaration seems absurdly extreme. Now money redistributio is politically taboo . Argument s about equality have evolved to fit g changed political and economic circumsta nces. Croslan d's thinkin can be understood in terms of his desire to find a way beyo nd nationalisation, and accept a wider role for the market . He was also conscious of the dilemma of how to get people to vote for redistribution, when it was against their fiscal self-interest. His answer lay in growth. But when this failed, egalitarianism fell apart. Simi larly Brown is conscious of the fact that talking of equality of outcome,

as Hattersley does, would be political suicide. Yet the phrase "equality of opportunity" is the rhetorical equivalent of elevator music. Rather bland and meaningless. The language of "fairness" has more salience with today's electorate than "equality", which many still equate with highe r taxat ion. Money redis tribution is becoming less central to aca demi c debate too. Michael Walzer, for example, choos es to stress no t

money equal ity, but complex equality. This recogni ses that there are a number of different dimensions along which indivi duals can be scored , but does not mean that the sco res shou ld be eq uali sed

within one particular dimension. Overall equality can be attain ed by balancing out the inequalities that emerge in different sp h er es , a�d �nsuring that goods are distributed according to app rop riate . cntena So h ealth care s h ould not be distributed solely on the bas1s of cash consid era t'1o ns. p oht1cal . . power should l ik ewis e n ot be . abused to gain a ccess to other types of good. As Walzer puts It, · w m form al ter m s . . c omp 1 ex equal ity means that no citizen ' s stan dm g i n one sp here or w It · h regard to one social good can b e undercut by h'Is standi ng in so m e oth er sphere, with regard to some oth er 35 social goo d" . F rom this perspective, there may be no need to lim it 1. mon ey inequa It y. ·

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Mickey Kaus a gre es In The E 1. nd of Equality,36 he argues for wh at vic l'b t era Ism" as · agamst money l iberalism". The latter

he terms "ci

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Socialists and Equality

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involves reducing income i nequalities , the former a i ms to restrict the spheres of l i fe in which money matters, and seeks to expand the public space in which money d i fferences are ignored . He wants to boost the n o n-economic sphere where money cannot talk, and hold sway. Again, reducing money inequalities is not o n the agenda . I t is clear from the book's preface that the author, a journalist, was respond i ng to a dilemma faced by American l iberals , and i n particular B i l l Clinton. Like Crosland, K aus asks how we can "pursue the traditional li beral goal of social equality at a time when, first, d ifferences i n i ncome and wealth seem to be ineluctably growing, and , second, this money i nequality i ncreasingly originates in differences of skill and talent". The preface concludes with the observation that "Clinton presumably believes, as d o many Democrats, that there is an advantage in combining money and civic liberalism. The claim of The End of Equality, is that this advantage is a chimera - that Clinto n , or his successors, will eventually have to choose". New Labour seems set to choose civic l iberalism over money liberalism. After years of being i n opposition there is not enough pol itical will to see through an aggressive d irect attack on money inequalities , by h igh taxation, or d irect attacks on advantage such as private education. It seems clear that the focus will be on redistributing o pportunities, not i n co m e - an emphasis on preventative m ed icine, through boosting skills, not invasive surgery, through higher taxes. Yet, if we do accept t hat people are capable of, and should b e held responsible for, their cho ices we will have to concede that equal opportuni t ies will result i n unequal outcomes . Not everyone will have the natural talent to succeed , despite their efforts. Soci ety cannot hope to fully compensate those who are disadvantaged by unequal natural abiliti es. But what it can ensure, which is morally most urgent, is a baseline of capability rather than a basel i ne of i ncome. I t matters l ess that pub lic spending may benefit the middle classes, as Le Grand had argued, than the fact that it provid es some m easure of equality of status and some sense of a common culture. Money equality may be d ead, but l ong live equality.

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Equality

En d n otes H Gaitskell (1 9 5 5 ) ··Public Ownership and Equality" i n Soc i al ist

1.

Commentary , June. 2.

Margaret D rabb le ( 1 9 88) "Case fo r E quality", Fa b i a n Society No

527. 3.

C A R C ro sl and (1 974) Socia l ism Now a n d Other Ess ays London: Jo nathan Cape.

4.

D Miller (1989) "Equal ity" i n Ph ilosophy and Politics G M K Hunt.

5.

The Justice Gap, IPPR (1 9 9 3).

,

7.

A G utmann (19 80) L i beral Equality, Camb ridge: CUP.

8.

G Fo ote ( 1 9 86) The J.abour P a r ty s Political Th ough t, Londo n : Croo m Helm .

6.

9.

The Justice Gap, op cit.

'

i b i d.

1 0 . G B Shaw (1 890) "What Socialism Is", Fa bian S oc i e t y N o 1 3 . 1 1 . G B Shaw ( 1 949) Th e In telligent Wom en 's Guide to Social ism, Capital ism , Sovietism and Fascism , Lond o n : Constable. 1 2. ibi d.

1 3. C A R Cro slan d (1 9 5 6) Th e Futu re of Socialism, Lond o n : Jonathan Cap e.

1 4. J Raz (198 6) The Morality of Freedom, Oxfo rd: Cl are ndon Press . 1 5 . R H Tawn ey (1 931) Equality, London: A l l e n & U nwi n. 1 6. ibid. 17. ibid .

1 8 · R H Tawne y ( 1 9 31 ) op cit. 1 9 . i b i d.

20. Crosland C A R (19 ;:> � 6) op crt . . 21 . J Raw ls ( 197 1 ) A •fhe ory of Justice, . Cambridge Mass . : H arva rd U ntv erstt . y P ress . 22. C A R C rosland (1 9 74) S . . m Now and ocwlts O ther Essays, Lo ndo n: J o na t h a n C a p e. 23 . R Plant (1 9 81) . "Democ ra ttc Soci al ism and Equ ality" in Th e Socialist A ge n da : Cro sl and 's I.egacy, edt· leoaard L ted by D Lipsey and D o ndo n: J onat han Cap e . 24 . J R a wls (1 97 1 . ) op cu . ·

•

Socialists and Equality

27

25 . N B os anquet and P Townsend (eds) ( 1 9 80) Labour and Equality:

A Fabian Study of La bour in Power 1 9 74- 1 9 79, Lond o n : Heinemann.

26. J Go!dthorpe ( 1 9 80) Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern

Britain, Oxford: Clarendon Press . 27. R Plant (1 9 84) "Equality , Markets and the State", Fab ian Society N o 494. 28. ibid. 29 . K Joseph and J Sumption (1 979) Equality, Lon d o n . 30. N K i nn ock ( 1 9 8 6) "The Future o f Socialism" Fa b ian Society N o 509. 31. R H atters!ey (1 987) Choose Freedom: Th e Future for Democratic

Socialism, Lo ndon: Michael Joseph.

3 2 . J Rawls (1 9 7 1 ) op rit.

3 3 . R Hattersley ( 1 9 87) op cit. 34 . G Brown (1 996) foh n Sm ith Memorial Lecture: New Labour and

fqu a lity, 1 9 April. 35 . M Walzer (1 9 83) Spheres of Justice, New York: Basic Books. 3 6 . M Kaus (1992) The Fnd of ].;quality, New York: B asic Books.

28

29

Back to Socialist Basics 1

G

A

Cohen

On 24 November 1 993, a meeting of Left intellectuals occurred in Londo n , under the auspi ces of the I nstitute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) , which is a Left-lean ing think tank. A short document was circulated i n advance of the meeting, to clarify i ts purpose. Am o ng other things, the document declared that the task of the I PPR was "to do what the Right did in the seventies , namely to break through the prevailing parameters of d ebate and offer a new perspective on contemporary British politics." The explanatory document also said that "our concern is not to engage in a philos ophical d ebate about foundations of socialism." If this meant that those foundations were not the appropriate thing to talk about, that might have been right: not everything has to be discussed at every meeting. But if what was meant was that discussion of philosophical foundations is not what the Left n o w needs, then I d i sagree, and, if that indeed is what was meant, then

I think i t curious that the breakthrough by the Right should have

been invoked as an achievement for the Left to emulate. For, if there

is a l esson for the Left in the Right's breakthrough , it is that the Left must repossess itself of its traditional foundations, o n pain of co ntinuing along its present politically feeble reactive course. I f the Left turns its back o n its foundations, it will be unable to make statements that are truly its own .

Theory, conviction, practice An essential i ngredient in the Right ' s breakthrough was an inte l l ectual self-confidence that was grounded in fundamental theoretical work by academics such as Milton F riedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Robert Nozick. I n one i nstructive sense, those authors did not propose new ideas. Instead they explo red , d eveloped , and forth rightly reaffirmed the Right ' s trad itional principles. Those principles are not so trad itional to the British political Right as they

30

Equality

theless, in the are to the Ameri can , but they are tradi tiona l never d epth which is impo rtant sense that they posse ss an histo rical which they are assoc iated with the conce ptual and mo ral d epth at locate d .

shoul d do. I t Wha t the Right d i d is not p r o o f of w hat the Left okin g for "a is, nevert heless, extrem ely sugge stive. I t t e l l s agains t l o not land a big new i d ea". That is a futile endea vour, since you do intell ectual new idea as a resul t of angli ng for one i n the wide sea of s to solv e possib ility. New i deas standa rdly come from attemp t new idea proble ms by which o l d ideas are stump ed. S ometim es the because turns out to be big, but looking for a big n ew i d ea , as such, it woul d be impressive to hav e one, is a ridiculou s agen dum. I P PR The character of the Right's success suggest s that if, as the alist document also said, and as I agree, custom ary i n herited soci ut rhetoric now turns people off, then the remedy i s not to cast abo its for a different rhetoric, or buzz-phras e , irrespecti v e of what relationship to traditional principles m ay be, but to resto re our o wn contact with those principles, from w hich exercise a new rhetoric may indeed emerge. The old rhetoric now sounds dated not because everybo dy knows the content behind it but partly b ecaus e its �ontent has been forgotten . The Left w i l l not recou p itself

tdeo logically without addressing that foun dational cont ent. The relatio nship between theory and practice is mor e co m p lex th�n some friend s of the Labour party appear now to sup pose . The pomt of theorY ts not to . e socm · l desi· gn generate a comprehensiv . Whtch the po)ltlct · · an then seeks to implement . Things do not wo rk . that way because tmp . I ementmg a design requires whole cloth , an d ' noth.mg .m co n t emp orary politics is made out of whole cloth . . cs t. s po1 ltt an end! ess struggle, and theory serves as a weap o n in that strugg1 e, b ecau . . . ' . se it p rov'd wn, 1 es a ch aractensatwn of Its d uect and of tt · � co ntr olling purpose. . Con std ered as practtcal propos als, the theori es of Fri edm an , Hayek and N . oztck were crazy; crazy m the strict sense that you would h ave t o be crazy to t . h mk that such proposals (eg abo l itio n of aU regulat ion of p rofes · stona1 standa rds and of safety at work, abolition of stat e tno ney, ab ol1'fton of all w elfare provision) mig ht be .Implement ed in the sh ort med'IUm , or long term.2 The theo ries are rn that � nse trazy pre . Cisely becaus e they are uncom pro misin gly ·

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Back to Socialist Basics

31

fundamental: they were not d ev ised with one eye on electoral possibility. And just for that reason, their serviceability in electoral and other political contest is very great. Politicians a n d a ctiPists

can press n o t-so-crazy rig h t-wing proposals wit/1 con v iction b ecause

t/z ey /z a pe the stre ng t h of con viction that depends upon depth of co1wiction, a n d depth comes fro m theory t/zat is too fun damental to be practicable in a direct sense.

I said that pol iticians make nothing out of whole cloth . All

change i n mo dern c o n d i tions of s o cial d i fferentiat i o n and international integration is perforce incremental, one per cent here, five per cent there, accumulating after, say, fifteen years , into a revolutio n . The large fundamental values help to power (or block) the little changes by nourishing the justificatory rhetoric which is needed to push (or resist) cha nge. Fundam ental social ist values which point to a fo rm of society a hundred miles from the horizon of present possibility are n eeded to d efend every h alf-mile of territory gained and to mount an attempt to regain each bit that has been lost. Consider Gordon B rown's response to Kenneth Clark e's budget

of November 1 9 9 3 . Its central themes were two: the To ries have

broken their promise not to raise taxes, and it is they who are respo nsible for the m ess which obl iged them to break that prom is e .

That co m bined charge, important though it i s , and i mportant as it was to level it, requ ires no socialist valu e, no non-Tory valu e , to back it u p . Co nsider, too, Michael Portill o ' s artful m anoeuvre around Brown's charge. He did not have to face it i n its own terms because he could say with conviction to B rown that Brown

proposed no solution to the £50 billion deficit (to which B ro w n ' s

criticisms of betrayal a n d incompetence a n d B rown ' s policy o f long­ term greater i nvestment indeed represented no solution). Brown centred

his

attack

on

the

m i s d e m e a nours

of

eco n o m i c

mismanagement a n d political promise-breaking, i nstead o f o n the crime o f d epressing the conditions of l ife o f poor people, and on the cri me of not loading more burden o n the better off, includ i ng the not stupendously well off. I do not say that Brown d i d not mention the sheer inegalitarianism of the budget's p rofile. But he did not a n d could not make that point w ith conviction as a central point, because he is imprisoned by the thought about who votes

32

Equality

values. for what and b ecause he has lost touch with founda ti onal because it The B rown respon se was relativ ely i neffec tual partly actual ly presupposed for its effect that peopl e are dumb er than they hough it are. People already knew that the Tories made the mess , t ont was no doubt useful to remind them of it, to keep it at the forefr it think of their co nsciousness. But they are not so d u mb that they Labo ur fol lows from the fact that the Tories made the mess that win will would be b etter at getting the country out of it. Labour its the politics of competence o n ly if people have confid ence in n ow its comp etence. That requires that Labour itself be confi d ent in nt superior compet ence, and that i n turn requires that it be confide i n itself, tout court, which it can only b e if it tran scends its furti ve relatio nship to its traditional values. Electoral success is to a large extent a by-pro duct of commitmen t to someth ing other tha n electo ral succe ss. Success in a particular election can , moreover, be bought at the cost of an ideol ogical backslide which has lasting deleterio us effect. It is one thing to point out that the Tories have fai led by their o wn sta�dards. It is quite another, i n the course of making that goo d pomt, to endorse those standards yourself. Labour is now so beguiled by the praspect of exposing the Tories as tax-raisers that 1t IS begin ning to tre at tax restramt not merely as a Tory goa1 but as an . . . d mtnn s1c des id eratum. Therewith traditional pledges to remforce an extend w elfar e p ·3 rov1s1on are being seriously compromised: ·

·

·

·

·

·

·

Principle and pol itic s

In its ideol ogi . . call Y se 1£-confi dent phase, when its relatio nshi p to I tS valu es was fo rt hright rath er than furtive, the Labour part y affi rm ed a Prine·1P1e of com mumty an d a princip l e of equality. ("Com mu nity'' and "equalit .. can be defined in t differen t ways, and I shal l say wh at l mean by e m, as names of . · tra d ltwn al mainstream Labour valu es, 11\ the follo w. mg sectio n s ) E ach principle was rega rded as authoritative in . Its own rig ht but aI so as JUStified throu g h ·Its tonn tQion With the ot er h E ach vaI ue supported the oth er, an d eacb ... Itt . �b e fact that it was supporte d by t he th odltt. Aalt tbe.e vel y __. ..,._ uea were not on1 Y cen part y -� t.bou, tno\Jetnent surrountral to the Labour also ding it. They were :_ , ·

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·

·

•

·

·

·

·

·

·

Back to Socialist Basics

33

the val ues t h a t d is t i n gu i s h ed Labour fro m o t h e r p a r t i es a t

Wt•stminster . T h e y were. i n deed. t h e only values w h i ch t il e /,eft affirmed as a m a t t e r of prin ciple a n d wh ich th e Centre a n ti R i g h t n•ject as a m a tt e r of p ri n cip l e . +

The v a lu es of commun i t y a n d equality were articu lated in books and pamphlets . fi u t t hey were a lso carried by, and t h ey ex pressed the sent iments o f, a broad m o vement t h at no l o nger exists and t h a t w i l l newr be

recrea t ed .

I t w i l l n ever b e recreated b ecause

technological chan ge means t hat the class base of t h at movem e n t

is gone . fo ren·r. S o c i a l i s t values have l o s t t heir mooring in capita list

social s t ructure. Partly because o f that, but also part l y beeause o f righ t win g i deo logical successes , com munity a n d e q u a l i t y h a v e lost -

the q u i t e extensive ideologieal hegemony that t h ey o n ce enjo yed . If I had to hazard a causal story, I would say that right-wing values

fi l l ed a space vaca t ed b v left-w i n g values which went on vacation

because t h t·ir class base was eroded. fieeause I t h i n k that i s a l i k el y causal s to r y , I should n o t b e accused o f accusing Labour's l ead ers o f gratuitous betraya l . in t h e i r abandonment of traditi onal values . " B etrayal" is t h e wrong name for abandon ment w h i ch has a hard underlying social cause. B u t the hard ness of the cause d o es not mea n

that

t h ere i s

no

a l te r n a t i v e

but

t o a l l o w w h o l es a l e

aban donment o f values t o b e i t s effect . The struggle for community a n d eq uality i s perforce more difficult when the calculus of class interest reduces the constituency that would gain from t h e m , in an i m mediate sense of "ga in". B u t there remain two reasons for i nsisting o n t heir authority. The fi rs t , which

is decisive on

its o w n . i s a self-standing mora l-cum­

intellectual reason. The second , more co n tingent a n d debatable, i s a reason r e l a t e d to the identity and s u r v i v a l o f t he L a b o u r p a r t y , and i t is cont ingent p a r t l y because it i s not a necessary t r u t h t h at the Labour party s h o u l d continue to exist. The decisive reason for not abandoning com mu n i t y and eq u a l i t y i s t ha t t h e m o r a l fo rce o f t h ose values never depended o n the social for ce supporting them that i s now d isappearing. No one who believed in the values could h ave said that she believed i n t h e m

beca use t h e y

expressed the sentiments of a social movement. Anyo ne who bel ieved i n them b eli eved i n them because sh e t hough t them i n h e re n t l y authoritative, and the withering of the social fo rce

34

Equality

. i nk t hem auth orita tive that back ed them cann ot justi fy ceas i n g to t h once e valu es is that, And t h e seco nd reas on fo r not a b a n d o n i ng t h ed princ iple , as oppo s they are drop ped, then there is no reaso n of . Libe ral Dem o crats to of histo r y , for Labo ur n o t to m erge w i t h t h e a party , b elie ve i n Labo ur cann ot cheri sh i t s i ndep ende nce as a "four princ iples of poli tics of princ ip l e , a n d affir m noth ing but the a l Justice ill a social justic e" affirm ed i n The Ju stice Gap a n d S oci Tory need Changi ng World.s No Liberal D e mocrat or progre s sive reject those principles. 6

to think the A d i fferen t respo nse to the prese nt pred icame nt is to see h o w values afresh in a spirit of loyalty to them a n d i n o r d er t i m e , and o n e can sustain comm itm ent to t h e m i n a n i n hosp i t a b l e hat part ly what n ew m o d es of advoca cy o f them are p o ss i b l e . But t sort t h at practical task requires foundat ional refl ection o f just the the IPPR might have m eant us to eschew .7

belie ve You can ask what our princip les are , what , that i s , we ext with passio n, and you can ask what is the b est way to win the n nd election . But you cannot ask what p r i nci ples w e shou l d have , a e th what we should believe with passion, as a m eans o f win n i ng next election . B For the answer w i l l n o t be principl es you can rea lly believe i n , and you m ight therefore n o t even h elp yo urs elf ele:torally , since electors are not so unperceptive that th e y can be rehed upon not to notice that you are dissemb l ing. The two IPPR documents bow b efore the succes s of pro -ma rke t · · and anti-egalitar 1" an ·' d eo 1 ogy that r s has helped to precipita t e La b ou . . . present ldeolog·lea 1 cns1s. . . Th ere .1 s , as I have said , nothm g m t h en fou r core ideash'.J t h . at any L1beral Democrat or left-wi n g Tory n ee d . reJect. To be su re th e T . ones .m particular do n o t in practi ce resp ect the core .ideas as muc h as a Labour governm e n t might, b u t th at does not .JU Sti. " fy fl oun. s h mg forth pale principles to d efin e t h e ' ·

•

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direct"lon of La bou r's renewal . After each of L abour , s four electoral failures, the Labo ur Righ t . said: we d"d l not wm . becaus e we looked too socialist; a nd t h e Labour Left sa·1 d· we did not w ·m b ecause we did not look socia list enough. I do n ot th'mk enher . . s'd 1 e k nows s to b e •

ttue

·

II ttue' and •

. if o ne std e 18 nght, then I do not know w h i ch Certainly there . tx lStS an aversion to Incr eases in taxati o n , a nd ·-·h altlv.. - ""'"5 that is no dou bt P8rtlY because no truly p r i n c i p led d efen ce

•·1o

·

that what it claim

·

·

·

Back to Socialist Basics

35

of greater redistribution is confidently p rojected , I admit that I do not know how la rge a pa rt of the explanatio n of u n popularity o f greater taxation is associated w i t h fai l u re t o project is justifi cat i o n . I

a m t herefore not contending that a principled d efence o f

community and equality is a sure route t o electo ral success i n 1 9 9 7 . But fai lure to secure acceptance of t h e p ri nciples o f community a n d equality 1 1 is n o t a reason t o mod ify o n e ' s belief i n the principles t h emselves, even if it is indeed a reason, politics being what it is, not to thrust them fo rward publicly i n their unvarnished fo rm Y L To massage one's beliefs fo r the sake of electoral gain can, moreover, be electorally counterpro ductive . I t can be i nexpedient to

abandon prin ciple for expediency, because i t is h ard to h ide the

fact that you are doing s o , and everyone, Neil K innock included, knew that the To ries were right when, to po werfu l electora l effect, t hey accused Kinnock o f that unprinci pl ed abandonment. The Commission on Social Justice should not pretend to run an exercise in the examination of pri nciple whose real focus i s not principle but electoral success, because then i t will certa i n l y betray p r i nci p l e and possibly co ntribute t o electoral failure .

Community versus ma rket I mean here, by "community", the a n t i-market principle acco rding

to

which I serve you not b ecause of what I can get out o f doing so but because you need m y service. 1 :l That is anti-mark et becau s e the market motivates productive contri bution not o n the basis of com mitment to one's fel l o w human beings and a desire to s ervice them while being served by them, but on the basis o f i mp e rsonal cash reward. The i m m ed iate motive to productiv e activity i n a market society is typica l l y 1 4 some m ixture of greed and fear , in p ropo rtions that vary with the details of a p ers o n ' s market position · and persona l characte r I n greed , o th er p eop le are seen as possible . sou rces of enrichm ent, and i n fear they are seen as threats . These are horrib le ways of seeing other people , h o w ever much w e have bee n habitu at ed and inured to them, as a result of centu r i es of ca pitalis t develo pment . 1 5 I said that, i n comm unity motiv ation , I p rodu ce b ecaus e of m y

· com ffiitme nt to my fel l o w huma n beings and w ith a desire to s erve

Equality

36

mot ivati on, there is Y them whi le bein g serv ed by thcm ' In such neve rtheless differs inde ed an expe ctation of reci procati o n , but it is willi ng to serve, critic ally fro m m arke t moti vat i o n . The mark eteer the conj u nctio n but only in orde r to be serv ed . He d o es not d esire serve if doing so (serv e-and-be-served) as such , fo r he woul d not expressed in the were not a mea ns to get servi ce. The diffe renc e is on. Cont rast lack of the fi ne tuni ng that atten ds n o n-ma rket moti vati buys the drinks tak i n g turns i n a loose way with respe ct to who The form er with keeping a record of who has paid what for them . the mark et. procedure is i n line with com munit y, the latter with the thought Now , the histo ry of the twen tieth centu ry encou rages soci ety is that the easiest way to genera te produc tivity in a modern unequal by nourishing the motives of greed and fear, in a hierarch y of wo uld income. That does not make them attract ive motiv es. Who otin g propose running a society o n such motive s, and thereby prom to be the psychology to which they belo ng, if they were not kno wn nly effective, did they not have the instrum ental value whic h is the o ith value that they h ave? In the famous statement in which Adam S m ot ustifi ed m arket relations , he pointed out that we plac e our fai th n 1 � the butch er's generos ity, but o n his self interest, when we rely o n · · · ns ic h 1m to �rov·ision us. Smith thereby propou nded a whol ly extn .J . UstificatiOn of m arket motivation in face of what he ackno w led ged ' · · · h av e to be its un attract 'Ive mtrms1c · ter. Tradit ional so cia 1·1sts charac . . rk et often Ign ore d S mi' th ' s pomt, . m a morali stic conde mna tion of ma . . . motivatiOn am . Cert whi ch fa1 1s to address its extrinsi c justification . . . . contempora ry ov er-ent husmst1c market socialists tend , contra n w1se , to forget that the . . are market IS mtrms ically repugnant, because they . blinded b Y theu . beI ated d lscov ery of the market's extrinsic val ue. T he genius 0 f t he m · shabby motives to des1 rab1e arket IS · that It recruits ends ' and .In a ' balanced VIew, · b oth s ides of that propo sitio n m us t be k ept in focu s.

�

.

.

·

·

Generosity nd . . a self-interest ex1st m everyone. We kno w ho w to . m ake an eco n omi c system wo rk on the basis of self-interest. W e do not know how to m ake it wo rk on the basis of generosi ty . B u t that does no t mea n that we s h ouId forget genero sity: we shou l d sf1 ll confine the sway of . s elf -Inte rest as much as we can . We d o that. for ex ample h we tax , redis resu tribu alis i ng

lts of lllatket• ·

:/�

tively the unequ lVtty . The extent to which we can d o that •

Back to Socialist Basics

37

without defeati ng our aim (of making the badly off better off) varies inversely with the extent to which self-interest has been all owed to triumph in private and public consciousness. 1 7 (To the extent that self-interest has indeed triumphed, heavily progressive taxation drives high earners ab road , or causes them to decide to reduce their labour input, or induces i n them a morose attitu d e which makes their previous input hard or impossible to sustai n . ) The market, any market, contradicts t h e principle which n o t only Marx but his socialist predecessors proclaimed for the good society , the principle embodied in the slogan "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." One might ask what it means for each to give according to his ability, and what it means for each to get according to his needs . But for present purposes, the unambiguous m essage of the slogan is that what you get is not a function of what you give, that contribution and benefit are separate matters . Here the relationship between people is not the instrumental one in which I give because I get, but the wholly non-instrumental

one in which I give because you need . You do not get more b ecause you produce more, and you do not get less because you are not good

at producing. Accordingly, the ideal in the primeval socialist slogan constitutes a complete rejection of the logic of the market. The socialist aspiration was to extend co m munity to the whole of our economic life. W e now know that we do not now know how to do that, and many think that we now know that it is i mpossible to do that. But community conquests in certain domains, such as h ealth care and educatio n , have sustained viab l e fo rms of production and d istribution in th e past, and it is co nsequently a matter for regret that the IPPR documents

do

not invoke

community as a core value, when it is a value that is currently under aggressive threat fro m the market principle, and when then there is even immediate political mileage to be got from reasserting community in the mentioned particular domain s .

Justice a n d equ ality · · I e of equaht The prmc1p · y says that the amoun t o f amenit y and urde n in one person 's life s hould be roughl y compa rabl e to that m any other' s. That princi ple is not mentio ned i n the docu ments ;

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38

Equality

in parod y, in the or, to be m o re precis e , tt ts mentio ned only " 18 arithm etic al equality . statem ent that "few peop le b el i ev e in of of the princ i ple Perh aps no one belie ves in the u n l i m ited sway h equali t y is roug 1 equali ty, as I d efined it above , 9 where , that is, nly other s , certai simil arity of amen ity and burd e n . But I , and many other s , and this b elieve in it as a value to be trade d off again st ments . I nst ead, value is rejected , as such, i n the Comm iss io n ' s docu a ly said to be we have an arresti ngly weak propo sition - strang e l just ice, w hich "radica l " one 2 0 - in the fourth "core id ea" of socia - bu t tho se reads as fol lows : "Inequ alities are not necess arily u njust 1 imi nate d . "2 which are should be reduced and where possib l e e\ ineq uali ties Those who are eager to declare their support for unjus t will oppose the fourth core idea .

Proposition three on social just ice read s , in part, as fo llows: Redistribution of income is a means to social justice and not

an end i n itself; social justice d emands sufficient revenue to meet basic n eeds and extend opportunitie s, but the re are li mits of prin ciple as well as practice to l evels of taxa tio n . 22

:o �ay that (an equalising) redistribution of incom e is not an en d m

Itsel f but o nly a means t o fulfil b a s i c need s and exte nd . · :1 opp ortu mttes, · · · once aga .m , to abandon equality as a pn n c1pl e. 2 Is . · · tice The fourth core I· d ea and the third propositi on on socw l JUS . · rats e two quesfton s: d first, what is the d ifference betwe en a JUSt an 1 .. an un just in equ artty ? A · e p n d , second , what are the "limits of prinC J · , to ta xat.ton be yon d w h' 1ch taxation counts as "punit ive ?"2+ ' . An answer t o the fi . g1ven on page 43 ot I Jz e Jus t1ce Irst questiOn IS Gap . The mequarIt. tes that "are indeed justified"2 5 are, it say s th ere . justified b n ed, Y merit, or reward"26 I find that list curio us a nd I � want to examt n · · e 1t m a little detail . ..1nequalities" jus tifi . ed . m . ter ms of need are not ones that eve n the most radic al egahtanan h . as ever opposed . The Justzce G ap do es not say what eed . n . s tt contempI ates h ere, but there are only t wo kmda that apna... 1 .--. re evant p· t ome lev u s _ ... s peo ple need more reso u rce s to •chleve the e ._ ..e l of ll'b emg as others. But to unequ alis e w e 1t:IOufeel on . that basis fld\Ql kkacl. Seeon-� 18 consiStent with egalitarianism of a mo st .

. . .

.

.

K

·

,

·

.

-. SOibe peopte need ·

,

more means of productio n

Back to Socialist Basics

39

t h a n o t hers do to ca rry out their social fu nction . But producer need is

out of place in a rol l-call of justifi ed inequal ities which i s

i ntended to cha l lenge a n uncompromising egalitarianism. N o

egal itarian thinks t hat brain surgeons s h o u l d be d e n i e d expensive equi pment . The other supposed ways of justifying inequalities are, first, in t erms of merit and . seco nd, in terms of reward . But the phrase . . inequality justified in terms of reward" conveys no clear thought, especiallv when it is, as here, contrasted with "inequal ity justified in

tl·rms of merit." I suppose that the phrase was a piece of innocent

carelessness. yet it is symptomatic of the altogether casual treatment of equality i n these proceedings that such carelessness should have

got by the eyes of what must have been quite a few readers. I presume

we ran take it that what was intended by "inequality justified i n terms

of rl'Ward" is i nequality justified in terms of reward for merit and/or

l'ffort . So let me address merit and effort, as grounds of inequality. If one person produces more than others that is because he is more talented or because he expends more effort or because h e is lucky in his circumstances of productio n , which i s to say that he is

luc-ky with respect to whom and what he produces

with.

The last

n•ason for greater productivity, lucky circumstance is morally (as opposed to economical ly) unintelli g i bl e as a reason for greater reward . And w hereas rewarding prod uctivi ty which is due to greate r inherent talent is indeed morally i ntell igible, from certain ethical standpoints , it is nevertheless a profoundly anti-socialist idea . c-o rrec t l y stigmatised by J S Mill as an instance of "giving to t hose who have" ,27 since greater talent is itself a piece of fo rtune

that c a lls for no furth er rewa rd. Effort might be a different matter . I say that it m ight be d i fferent, becau se it can be co ntended that unusual effort (largely) reflects un usual capacity for effort, which is but a further form of talent and therefo re subject to the same sceptic ism as talent itself i s with respe ct to its relevan ce to reward . But let us allow, agai nst such pticis� , that effort i s i ndeed pertin ently28 subjec t to the w i l l . a t bemg grante d , ask , now, w h y t h e effortful p erson who i s o sed t o be hands omely rewar ded expen ded t h e effo rt s h e d i d . . i she do s o m order t o enrich herse lf'? If s o , t h e n w h y shoul d her speci al effort comm and a high rewa rd '? Or d id s h e work hard

�� ��

40

Equality

in o rder to benefit others? If s o , then it contradicts her own aim

to reward her with extra resources that others would otherwise

have, as opposed to with a salute and a han dshake and a sense of

gratitude. 29 Those remarks are, o f cou rse , only the beginning of a

long argument, but it is i n d icativ e of the utter conventionality of

the d isparagement of equ ality in the IPPR pamphlets that such lO considerations l i e b eyond their ho rizo n . : o n social I turn to the q u estion raised by the third propos ition ". N ow, justice ,:H concerning the "limits o f principle on taxat ion ined in although those "limits of p rinciple" are not d efined or e xpla of the the two published documents, I conjectu re that part:3 2 in the unstated explanatio n o f them is the one that appe ars a ms Willi unpublished paper on "Ideas of Social Justice" that B ernar d be rt prepared for the Com mission . Echoing a chief claim of Ro of Nozick's, Williams said that "sustainin g as equal distri but ion mon ey would involve continuous incursions into lib erty." That summa ry r e m ark o verlooks the conce ptua l tru th tha t to have money is

(p ro tanto) to have l iberty . The r icher you are, the

more courses of actio n are open to you, which is to say that you

are freer than you would be otherwise. Accordingly, whoever

receives money as a result of redistribution thereby enjoys an iberty enhancem ent of her l iberty,33 albeit at the expe nse of the l for �f the p erso n from who m it is taken, but with the net res ult

· · h ere liberty as such entire · 1 y moot. Taxation restric ts not, as It IS . · hts ' misleadi ngly su ng ggeste d , liberty as such ' but privat e prope rty · both in ext erna l her th mgs ' and i n one ' s own labour powe r. Whe t or n ot such ri ghts are d eepl y founded , it is ideol ogi cal hocu s-p ocus . . . to Identify . them With . l iberty as such, and it is entir ely all en t o . tr ad'!tiO na\ s oci a rIst b e, Ief . so to cons true them . . The sto ut op p · ion to equality and redistribu tion as m att ers osit . 1 of p ri nci e . p Is reve aled ·In th'IS reJectio n of Tory dog ma: ·

Contrary to . the wtnc kle-down" theory of the 1980s, mak in g the rich ri ch e r do es n 0 t m ake the poo r richer to o . Inde ed , he<:ause the g reat ma j orI' t . Y p ay the cos ts of unemplo yment , c:nme and ill-hea1 t h mak·mg the poor poorer makes us all PQorer too Co ' ...... · tnmon terests dema nd social coh esi o n .....er

t�,POlarisation.� ·

Back to Socialist Basics

41

This appeal side-steps t h e politically difficult redistributive issue. By plausible absolute standards , most people in the past were poor, and the target for redistributio n could then be a rich minority. Now, by the same absolute standards , the standards in the light of which it is pertinently poi nted out that 6 2 per cent of UK households have videos,:l 5 only a minority are poor. To appeal to the self interest of the majority (dressed up as an interest they have i n common with t h e po or) a s a central reason for relieving t h e poverty of that mi nority may work electorally: that d epends on how the electoral majority do the arithmetic the appeal invites them to engage in. It depends, that is, on whether they will reckon that higher taxation is a smaller price to pay for their own health and security than what they would have to shell out on B UPA, improved anti-burglary systems, a house in the suburbs , and so on. But however they figure those sums , inviting them to consider the

issue primarily in that framework. :l6 under a pretence of common interest, is a co p-o ut at the l evel of principle.

Appendix: on m o n ey and liberty A standard pol itical debate runs as fo llows. The Right extols the freedo m enjoyed by all in a liberal capitalist society. The Left

complains that the freedom in question is meagre for poor people. The Right rejoins that the Left confuses freedom with resources . You are free to d o w hat no one will interfere with your doing, says the Right. If you ca nnot afford to do it that does not mean that someone will interfere with your doing it, but just that you lack the means or ability to do it. The problem the poor face is lack of ability, not lack of freedom. The Left may then say that ability should count for as much as freedom does . The Right can then reply, to significant po litical effect : so you may think, but our priority is freed o m . I n my view, t h e depicted right-wing stance d epends upon a reified view of money. Money is unlike intelligence or physical strength, poor endowments of which do not, indee d , prejudice freedom, w here freedom is u n derstood as absence of interference . The difference between money and those endowments i mplies , I shall argue, that lack of money is (a form of) lack of freedom, i n

42

Equality

to be absen ce of the favo ured sens e of freed om , wher e it is taken interference. :n ut money, in To see this, begin by i m aginin g a s ociety witho they are free which courses of actio n avail able to peop le, cours es law. The law to follow withou t interfer ence, are laid d o w n by the person , may says what each s ort of perso n , or even each partic ula r is endo wed and may not do witho u t inter feren ce, and each perso n So I may with a set of tickets d etailin g what she is allowe d to d o . othe r o ne have a ticket saying that I a m free to p lough this l a n d , an cross that sayin g that I am free to go to that o pera , or to walk a freed oms field , while you have differ ent ticket s , with d i fferen t inscribed on them.

o n the Imagine, now, that the struct ure o f the option s writt en of tickets is more com plex . Each ticket l ays out a disju nct ion A conju nctions of courses of action that I may p erfo r m . I may do and B and C and D or B a n d C and D an d E or E and F an d G and A, and so o n . If I try to d o s omething no t licensed by my ticket or ticket s, armed force i nterve n es. By hypo thesis , these tickets say what my freedo ms (an d, consequently , my unfreed o ms) are. But a sum of money is not hi ng but a highly generalised form o f such a ticket. A sum of m o n ey is a l cence to perform a disju nction of conjun ction s of a ctio ns actiO ns, like, for exa mple, visiting one's sister i n Bristol , or tak ing . . home, and weanng, th e sweater on the counter at Selfn dges . . Supp ose that s omeone is too poor to visit her s ister in B ris tol She cannot save fr om wee k to week, enough to buy her way th er e. ' .. . Then , as far as her free d om .IS concerned , that is equival ent to tnp . . to B nstol" not b . . emg w ntte n o n someone' s ticket i n the i m ag m ed non-mo netary e cono m Y· Th e woman I've described has the capaci. tY . to go to B nst ol · She can b oar d t h e underground and approach th e barrier she m ust cross t0 r eac h th e train. But she will be phys ica ll y prevented fr . . om P assm g th rough It, or physically ejected fro m th e ttain, or, in the other ex . amP I e, s h e Will be physically stop p ed outside Sel frid ges and th . e s weate r W ill be remove d . The o n ly way You won' t b e prevented f ro m gettm . g and us ing things is by offe ri ng tuoney for thera. To bave rno n ey t. to have freed om, and the assimilation o f ftlo04rJ to · lltefttU &lkl boclit . . Y resources ··s a piece · of unt h in k mg , , . ·. .

�

·

·.

.

·

·

·

·

.

· ·

·

·

·

·

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43

rep rese nts soc i a l Ma rxis t sen se that it mis fetishism , in the goo d old I n a w o r d : m o ney thin gs tha t peo ple lack . rela tions of con stra int as is no object. :w

Endnotes 207 , (Sep t/Oc t 1 994) , p 6 . First appeared in N ew Left Revi ew That cher revo lutio n has been . Profoundly trans form ing thou gh the and the stand ards set by the distan ce between Britis h socie ty now right-wing theory remain s enorm ous .

1.

2.

1 8 of Th e G u a rdian Cf. the excelle nt article by David McKie on p. as follow s: for 31 januar y 1 9 9 4 , o n e paragr aph o f w hich runs r's presen t "Unless it is handle d with extrem e deftnes s , Labou

:3

picture campaig n is in danger of shoring up the classic Thatch erite wicked; even ble, of taxation as somethin g inherent ly undesira

something that shackles opportun ity rather than, as Labour once taught , expanding it by building the public services on which the great majority of voters and their families will always need to depend: safeguarding your health, y our welfare, y o u r childre n ' s education."

+.

-x rejects V as a matter of principle" m e ans, here, "X

rejects

V

when it is put as a matter of principle", and not "It is a matter o f principle, for X , to reject V."

You could disagree with the italicised claim in either of two w av s .

�

You might think that one or both of the values I' ve identifi ed do 1 · t

fi t the i talicised description, or y o u might think that some value

which I ' ve not identified does . I'll be more surprised i f y o u ' re able to disagree in the second way, not, that is, by challenging the distingu ishing role of the values I ' v e identified. b u t by daiming

that a value not identified here also enjoyed such a r ol e . ( Perh aps a third such value, as suggested to me by D anny Goldstick. is equality of power, in a political sense, as opposed to equalitv in the econom·tc-d'ts t n'b uttve · sense whtch · occuptes me here . This value . was mdeed affirmed by the Left. But I doubt that it w as rejected by both the Righ t and the Cen tre.) ·

·

;) ,

Both Th e Justice Gap and Social Justice in a Ch ang ing World ema�a ted from the Comm ission on So cial Justice a�d were pubhshed by the IPP R · m 1 9 9 3 T he present essay was pro mpted bY the c onster nati on and , some times , shock that I exper ience d w hen rea din g the two doc umen ts. .

Equality

44

"key ideas" The four "princ i p les" (The Justice Gap , pp. i, 16) or " (Social (Socia l Justice in a Chang ing Wo r l d p . i) or "core ideas of a free Justice in a Chang ing World , p . 4) : "1 . The founda tion ld be shou s citizen society is the equal worth of all citizen s . 2 . All me. inco for able as a right of citizen ship to meet their basic needs and ect shelter, education, nutrition and health care. 3. Self-resp of ead spr personal autonomy depend on the widest possib le sarily oppo rtunities and life-ch ances . 4. Inequ al ities are not neces where and d unjust but unjustified inequa lities should be reduce 4) . I n possible eliminated" (Social Justice in a Changing World, P · Th e at n a somewhat d i fferent formul ation of princip le 4, g ive just un y Justice Gap p . i , it reads: "4. Inequal ities are not necess aril ibl e - but those which are should be reduced and whe re poss elimina ted . '

6.

7

·

8.

See page 29 above .

M y own claim that reaffirmat ion of traditio nal values wo uld have electo ral force is not put as an answer to that coun terfe it q uestio n. My view that the old principles can be electorally supp orti ve d oes not imply the (inco herent) recommendation that we shou ld bel ieve in them beca use they can be supportive, even tho ugh it does im ply rejecti on of an electorally inspired case for aban do ning th em .

Socia l Justice in a Chan ging World p 4. 1 0 · Has there bee n a rs post-electoral survey of poten tial Labo ur vo te . who did not vote Labour to ise determine how many voted oth erw or abs tai ned for eac h of the stated opposite reason s ? ( N ot th a t w hat p eople say m · sueh a survey is conclusive with respect to w h at . t heu resp on se t o a d 1" fferent campaign would have been .) 11 . And , some . . m·lg h t a dd . especially a failure wh ich fol lo wed h a rdl }· any atte mpt to defend t hem. . 12. p olitics (ag , . . ain) bem g \1. hat It .IS, a gap between belie f and pub lic . state mem IS often un avOI·d ab le. But there is a limit to how b tg t h at gap can be W .i thout . . co m p rom1smg . aI both principle and po I.!tiC effectivenes . s, and when . . th e gap approaches that limit , pnnctp I e forbids ad"Ju . Sti ng beli ef as oppo sed to public statement. 1 3. That is bY no mea ns t h e on IY t h mg " that "community� can mean. Nor do 1 rPOa . -o rd lt as a p . I artJcu arly good name for what I use it to name he�- 1 . . limply haven ' t been abl 14e to think of a better one.

9.

•

·

•

•

PeoP't � 0.J)erate unde r a sens e of se � rvice even in a , --:-��,- � bta� 1-•-1lDI .,_ · · · . - as they do • wh at ma kes the market .. ·. ·• : , -.kes them . · o · disci Their rk. w pline i s not . ·. • ; .· ·� o; ,· !.

m arket .

wo rk IS ma rket

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45

d epen ds the very succ ess of the mark.et . disc ipl i n e . ( S om e thin k that

n: for in i t of n o n-ca pita list mot lvatw on the t l·m peri ng leav en with

to form a judg eme nt abou t that pres ent pur p o ses there is no need .

nnn p lcx cl a i m . )

e, inven t greed and fear: they are deep l :i . Cap i t a l i s m d i d n o t . o f cours

are to elem entar y i n fa ntile i n huma n natur e. relate d as they

magn ified the role of struct ures. But capita lism has undo ubted ly nl ike i ts p redece ssor greed in partic ular in ordin ary life , and, u grace to conde mn tian) feudal ci,· ilisati o n , which had the (Chris greed. capital ism celebra tes i t .

H1 . U n der i t s most abstract description, the motivation i n question

might be consistent with hierarchy: Prince Charles's motto i s lch

die u . and serfs and lords a like who buy feud al i d eology wholesal e

c a n describe themselves a s b e i n g mot ivated thus . If c o m m u ni ty !liOJ inu ion is indeed c o n s istent with hierarchy, then the p ri nciple

of equality informs the principle o f commu n ity, i n i ts socialist fo r m .

1 7 . :\lv

v i e w s o n this m atter run alongside those o f John Stuart M i l l , w h o averred t h a t "[e1verybody h a s selfish and unselfish i nterests , and a st:lfish man has cultivated the habit of cari n g for the fo rmer,

and not caring for the latter." And one thing that contributes to the direction i n which

a

person's habits d evelop is the ambient

s<wial ethos . wh ich is i nfluenced by the stance of political leaders .

(The Mill quotation is from his Considerations on Representative Got,enrmrnt, in ) . M. Robson, ed . , Th e Collected Works of foh n St u a rt Mill. Toronto

1 965-86, Volume 1 9 , p. 444. F o r sapient

comment ary on this and o ther relevant passages i n Mill, see R i chard Ashcraft. "Class C o n !l ict and C o n s t i tut i o n a l i s m i n I S M ill's thought". i n N a ncy Rosenblum (ed . ) (1989), U b ern l ism a n d t h r Mo ral Ufe , Cambridg e, M as s . , pp.

I H . Tile fustier Gap p . i i . op cit.

1 1 7-1 8 .)

I <) . For a m ore precise definition o f the principle, see mv "On the

Currency o f Egalitarian Justice", Ethics, vol. 99, 1 9 89

2 0 . rh r· fustier G a p p i op cit.

."

2 1 . ihid .

2 2 . Social fustier i n a Ch a nging World, p.

24 (cf. '/'h e Just ice Gn11 p . 1 3 ) T h 15 IS not one of the kfour princip les of social justice " l i s ted � n r�fe�ence 5 above , but o n e of the "ten propo sitions o n social JUSti ce whi ch are more spec1' fi1c an d more . ·

'

·

.

.

. fou r pn nc1. ple s are .

.

cneu mstan t t al than the

46

Equality

e is an 23 . Notice that to say that equali sing redistr ibution of incom y thereb ed end in itself is n o t to say that the equali ty to be achiev ya Sen is of incom e, as oppos ed to, fo r examp le, of what Amart calls "capability". 24. Social Justice in a Changing World, p. 2 5 op cit.

end of 2 5 . And, therefo re , in confor mity with j ustice, since - see the con vey referenc e 5 above - "just" and "justifie d", which can ments. docu differen t ideas, are used i ntercha ngeabl y in the IPPR 26. cf. , The Justice Gap p . 1 5 op cit.

cit. , 27. Principles of Political Economy, in J M R obson , ed. , op Volume 2 . p . 2 1 0 . that 2 8 . I emphasise "pertine ntly", because , a m o n g those who agree uld wo s") effort is sub ject to the will, some ("hard determ inist e utiv deny that raises a challen ge to egalita rian v iews of distrib non· justice, and others (eg Rawls) issue the same denial, on the s determ inist basis that it is inscrutable to what extent a person' a emission of effo rt is not due to differential good fortu ne. (Fo r critical discussi o n of Rawls's remarks on effort , see secti on I I I of m y " O n t he Currency of Egalitarian Justic e", o p . cit. ) 29 · Or, indeed, with a sum of money, conceived as a gift exp ress ing gratitu de, rather than as an ex ante motivating rewa rd. 30 The two most influential Anglophone political philo sop hy bo ok s · of recent years are John Rawls's Theory of Justice, (1971) . Camb n'd ge, Mass . , which is left liberal and Robe rt N oz1ck s ' A narchy, State and Utopia, (1 974) , New York, which is extrem e free-market Righ t. It conforms to the outlook of these docu men ts that R awls sho u ld b e Cite · · ve1 Y . \\··th I · posm · d cnt1cally and N oz1ck respect to the'If teach. at h t ry mgs about equality. Nozick's discove one does not h ave f o S · frUit to d eserve one's talent to deserve the . . Its exercise is heart!' I Y comm ended (The Justice Gap, p . 1 3 ) , wh'l I e the egah. tan. an R · aw1Sian . der that talent is but good fort une remm is d '!Sparaged a nd moreover, misrepresented as a premi se for the 1 plainly fa se co n clusio n, w h'1ch Rawls do es not assert, that �Jn th e last analys·15 all th at any one s work represents is a site at w h .JC h BOc:iety has h ' something� (The Justice Gap p . 1 3) . The sin gle ; .taoderatel•z � ..,n ed expos.tti. O n of academic political phil osophy . .. .•• ..•�. /. .. , ;� .� doeutnents serv es to make a n a nti-egalitarian point in a ••Y� ·

·

·

•

'

·

•

.

!'fl{ � �- ;;,�

•

a:_�evded ..

' ; /+, J���-�

..

·.

'

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47

�

is the idea th t too muc h taxa tion :J2 . Anot her part, pres uma bly,

d , men t o r rewa rd ' : see p-t trenl·hes again st the claim s o f " nee a hove. n betwe en mone y and For furthe r demo nstrat ion of the conne ctio liberty see the Appen dix to this chapte r. Soci a l fust ier i n

a

Ch ang ing World, p.

22. The statement is part

of the elaboration of the first "proposition o n social justice", which reads as follows: "Social justice is about more than poverty - it concerns everyone. The best way to help the mino rity who are poor is to advance social justice for all." J'l! r Justice Gap, p.

1 9 op cit .

:!6. A s the amalgam consisting of t h e fi rst proposition on social justice

(sec reference 3 3 above), and its complete elaboration does.

:l7 . Accordingly. poverty should not be bracketed with illness and lack

of education and thereby be treated as a restrictio n o n "what

\people1 can do with their freedom" (The Just ice Gap. p . 8). Poverty

restricts freedom itself, and the Left needlessly accedes the Righ t ' s misrepresentation o f the relationship between p overty a n d freedom when i t issues statements like that just quoted. C f . J o h n

Rawls A Th eory of Justice, p . 204 : "The inability t o take advantage of one's rights and opportunit ies as a result o f p overty and ignorance , and a lack o f means generally, is so metimes counted among the constrain ts definitive o f liberty . I shall not however . say this. but rather I shall think of these things as affectin g the wor th of liber ty . . ."

:�8 . I thank Arnol d Zubb off for exten ded, patien t critici sm of a n carli t• r draft of this paper . I a m also g rateful for writte n comm ents fro m Alan Carlin g, Paula Casal , N orma n Geras , Keith Grah a m . J ohn McMu rtry , David Mille r, J o h n Roem er, Amel ie Rortv . . H illel Steiner , Bern ard Will iams and Erik Wri ght.

48

49

Forwar d to Basics Be rna rd W illia ms

Introduction a s, Jerr y Coh en has mou nted In his pap er Back to Soci a list B asic by the appr oac h w h I' C h was ado pted s pi rited assau lt on t h e . . and ort Rep expr esse d m 1ts Com miss ion on Soci al Justi ce and was and S o c i a l Justi ce i n in its two earlie r publ icatio ns '/'he Justi ce G ap nt essay , thoug h it w ill prob ably do 11 Cha nging World . The prese is a perso nal nothin g to allevia te his "cons ternat ion and shock" , to share attempt to explai n why people on the Left have no need

these reaction s; and why, if they do share them, they should direct them at the world, not at the Commissio n. There are three things , at least, i n Cohen ' s paper w ith w hich l agree. The first is that those, such as the Commissio n , who are

trying to think about policies for the Left should address themselves to principles, not just to electoral success. One reas o n for this i s that electoral success itself requires o n e t o b e convi ncing.

and being convincing is not unconnected w ith having convict i o ns .

However, while political success should not and cannot b e uniquel y the objective, its prospects should not b e despised a s a n indicator . If the electorate cannot b e persuaded t o support o n e . o n e needs t o ask why this is. There a r e some answers to this questio n which need not lead one to question one's principles.

and the Left has , for o bvious reasons, been keen to fi n d such answ ers . Some of those answers have no doubt, on various occasi ons, been correct . But sometim es the d isappo inted Left offers not much more than a morali sing disapp ointme nt with the electors, to the effect that they are too greed y and self-c entre d to accept one s pnnc1 · · p 1 es , and then the time has co me to ask wheth er one ' s pnnc · ·lp 1 es are princ iples for these peop le - whet her, inde ed. they are pol itic al prin cip les at all . Seco nd I agre e with Coh en that prin ciples invo lve ' in a cert ain sense f�und atlOn · s . I i ndee d agre e that they invo lve trad ition al roundat10ns 1 in ' asmuc h as no-o ne coul d reas onab ly hop e to ·

,

'

50

Equality

in had no ro ot� o utlo ok which giV en ev er , in any to be see n. ho w be to ho w it is qu estio n an d tical ant to a p oli _ tr adi tio n relev hat iS ' tr a d .It!. O n" - t st ife an "m i ts be movement need not nece ssarily all ab out think schematic Y hey if t first of hink t people what roughly, a trigger w orks m erely as its past . If the phrase "trad itio nal v alues" abour party device in th e L of nostalgia , it will be no less a dece ptive than it usually has been in the Tory party . of ideas the r el ati on Third , 1 agree broadly with Cohen ab out -prints, generat e blu e or poli tical valu es to poli cy: prin ciple s d o not 1 also to poli cies . but rather conv ey a unify ing sense that gives life l be es may wel agree that pictur es of social life that conve y valu in a way c ra7·Y · influential withou t being practic able - they may be y lly offered b Cohen cites certain images that have been influ e ntia agree with the R ight in the past twenty years . H owev er, I do n ot r gr a nted his account - which, so far as I can see, he s imply takes fo becaus e theY - of why they were influential . H e assumes th at it is erta ·t n1 Y · were tr d'ltlona 1 But they were not tradit ional - quite c the not m Britain, where laissez-fa i re capitalism has not be en for y most part the central motivating idea of the Conservati ve part · e er h We have to l ook e 1 sew h ere for the power of these ideas , and t sever�\ directions in which we can look . O ne of the less · s explanation s o f why these ideas have had an effect i . at t e y in a cert a m sense psychological ly and histo ricallY realistic· a 1 th the sch emes of theorists such as N ozick o r Hayek are th erose 1 ves unre a\isf Ic, th ey may b e seen as appe aling to motives that peop1 e h ave and are not ashamed to have , rat he r than to motives that mo rah. sts wo u\d prefer them to have . I a m not end orsing that exP1anatt. on 1 am saying that the r e needs to be an explanati on, an d that the assumption from whi ch Cohen starts, that the ptinci 1 es o f the new Right were influenti al

persuade people of a p olit ical historical ex perienc e . It rem ains case what is the traditio n in interpreted . In particul ar, t he

. a

·

are ��couragmg h are •

ough

m erely

·

b:.. n�f �he Rigbt;s manifest traditi on , is false. 1t is therefore no b . . ... . . :the •� fee ble · mfer nce tha� the Left will be . influea�·, !"'� \�,.l;� � . to its · � ";' t. ��· � ;�f�ti mnm fest tradition. ' ·, .

because they were at the .

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!(·" q·

F orward to Basics

51

Equality, desert, ju stice, a n d luck Cohen refers t o what he calls "the d isparagement of equality"� in the Commission's publicat ions , but it i s absurd to say that the Commission "disparaged" equality. The Commission did raise some questions about what equality is, and what it should be e qual ity o f. Anyone who has equality as a political aim is faced with these questions, and no-one can take the content of that aim to be obvious. Cohen criticises the Commission's reference to inequalities being justified by "need , merit or reward": ! - where the last means, of course, that the justification l ies in someone's being rewarded for something that he or she has achieved or contributed , where this is not necessarily a recognition of merit. If the reason for someone's greater productivity (to use Cohen ' s term) l ies in lucky circumstances rather than in greater talent or effort, this luck , Cohen says, "is morally . . . unintelligible as a reason for greater reward" . But no-one proposes that the luck is the reason for the reward. The reason for the reward is the contribution, achievement, or (in Cohen's terms) production . The circumstances that enabled this to come about were indeed a matter of luck. But so, the Commission suggested, may be talents or the capacity to make an effort. Cohen seems not to disagree with this (though he may make some exceptions for efforts of will) . What he d o es d isagree with is th e way in which one should think about this. The Commission cited Nozick's questio n : d o es desert have to go "all the way d own" - that is to say, can we d eserve rewards for what our tal ents have enabled us to do, even though we do not d eserve our talents? Cohen finds this shocking, not because the question is irrelevant, but because it was Nozick who asked it. But if he thinks that (roughly speaking) d esert rests o n what a r e ultimately matters o f luck, and he also thinks, contrary t o No?.ick, that "d esert must go a l l t h e way d own", he must think (roughly) that nobody d eserves anything. This is what Rawls thinks. I fail to see why this is misrepresented, as Coh e n claims, 4 by the Commissio n ' s formulation, ". . . all that anyone's work represents is a site at which s o c iety has ach i eved s omething . More i mpo rtantly, I fail to see why it should be regarded as morally u ninte lli gi ble to deny this, and to accept that p eop l e can deserve "

or be entitled to rewards in virtue of what they have done, even if what they do depends on talents which they are lucky to possess.

52

Equality

h gre es wit. t Whi. te , a ar tu S e m ' . volu uality to this at an ineq Another contrib uto r wh h o ld th en Coh lude tial "brute � those - I take it the y in c to di fferen e l ta u n� spects just if it is att n the pro in (say) inco me is un fer ent .ially o dif · t c pa and Im s that e co ntrol h t luck" - tha t is to fac tor d n o y · y be are ess en uall ry clear , of ind ivi du als , but wh ich . n r; (Th .IS makes ve s .m quesu o . ulating the influe nce of the ind ivid ual . tS on fo rm .IO SIS ne " f 0 1 . h ' w h IC ses .1t to inc ide ntally , the ext ent to usly ex po ero . g dan e term s , on biti. ous ideal o f equ alit y in suc h te ns am ea r h t as at sam e kin d luck wh scep tici sm , of mu ch the er o f b rute t at m a ot n . l Wh Y .IS 1. t an get conc epti ons of fre ewil d ' th e y c ee d . . m t ha ' ce - w h at peo ple can con trol and .m fl uen o d idea t . uenc e ? It canno t be a go rough them selve s to cont rol and m fl up to v ery d stan to bas ic pol itica l idea s, whi ch hav e .) · ll y s en siti ve treatm ent, shoul d be so metap hysica e to a y we ll b ' ma ts en l ta s on Whi te accepts that a pers that he I tak e 1· t d an k ' uc l consi derab le exten t, a matte r of brute . king that . th 10 · h N 0 z ick) m wit ee disagr (and Cohen must agree with nst the clud es , a gai con he since ", down s desert "goes all the way . ve b asi very pers uasi l Commi ssion, that desert does not prov1' d e a se h·1m f te does n ot on which to rejec t the brute luck prin ciple /> Whi t1 es for . ci. p l e , but set support a "comprehensi ve�· versio n of the pnn luck f the b rute a "threshold" version. The threshold vers .wn o n t, t we preve . principle in itsel seems not to demand very roueh : "th a strategiC or correct/compensate for, brute luck disadvantage ·m cencY insofar as this pushes people below cert ai n d e u do o Y m · prosp e t for well-bemg and agency ·" o u ld ga itari a to agree that no-on e sh el merely need to be mo d erat Y connection with egalitarianism, to the extent that there d is m Wh s insistence that the thresh ol is f i ig an issue of principle. The o igin o f the rute luck" principle said we must <:onsciously gulate th e of strategic good s such as inc:o�e IIU\4 w� so as to compensate for rute luck in.equatltlc$� 'rb' the ext nt an

:

·

•

•

f

goods th resholds then cs notl need to be much of an e l n fal below the level of decency - you human. The one, ade rather , by ite should be set a rly h h This leaves r al statement b re distribution b correct d e i fall short of the compte\letmve kieal d ll w hold res th he hat t t oes White think th at to this extent re!IU1t8'will be unluat? t• th'1s an .

·

,

'

.

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its

.,

.

.

of political values . one in which othet ex ample of a conflict .·

.

•

�lntcat

Forward to Basics

53

values, such as autonomy, exact a price which has to be pai d by social justice? I would rather say that when we reject some of the demands that would be made by comprehensive egalitarianism , there is perhaps less equality than there would have been , but this d oes not necessarily mean less justice, since there are principles of social justice other than equality. Many people would say that these i nclude some ideas of desert, such as the idea that people can be entitled to rewards which are based on things achieved by their talents. This itself is - or would be, if properly spelled out - a principle of justice. I f we accept this, and also accept the plain truth that w e do not deserve our talents , then we must agree with Nozick that desert does not "go all the way

down": we can deserve rewards for what our talents have enabled us to do, even though we do not deserve our talents.

In relation to the i deal of equality, we can then say either one of two different things. We may say that the i d eal o f equality is opposed to acknowledging the effects of brute luck at any l evel; i n that case, equality will have n o time for desert, and t o the extent that we recognise desert, to that extent we reject o r limit the ideal of equality. Alternatively, we may say that the id eal of equality i tself should not be dedicated to cancelling the effects of b rute luck at e nery

level: it must confine itself to some kinds of bad luck, such as the familiar kinds of bad luck that just happen to one, and such things as the effects of d isability with regard to basic capabilities. On that und erstanding, the recognition of certain kinds of d esert could itself be consistent with the pri nciples of equality. There is much to be said about each o f these options. The main point here, however, is that whichever way we go, we shall have to agree to two things: that equality as a political i deal needs interpreting; and that in interpreting it, we have to attend to other pol itical values , some of which may be other principles of justice . We cannot simply assume that a recognition o f d esert betrays the aims of social justice. Com munity and the manifest tradition

Cohen identifies the tradition of the Labour party in terms of

community and equality; and it is clear,

I think. that he not only

54

Equality

inter prets equality in rega rds c o mm unity as a c o re val u e ,7 but also terms of it .

s, Cohen says that ' As a critic ism of the C o m miss ion s princ iple reaso n t o reje ct" "no Libe ral D emo crat or p rogr essiv e Tory has n objectio n is. Cohe them . H It is not imme d iately clear what this les do no t display presu m ably d oes not mean simp ly that the princ ip that the y are not sufficient produ ct differen tiati o n . H e must m ean that radicalism radic al enough. B ut the Com missi on expl icitly said p les: while lay in th e unders tanding and applica tion of these princi real ise ho w other parties m i ght affirm them , those partie s did not per ly and radical the effect would b e if the principl es were pro his . O ne consist ently ap plied . C o h en d o es n o t m enti on t tio n of explan ation is that he cannot accept that the radic al a ppl ica eno ugh principles which others might accept could ever be radical dic al, for the Labour party. The Labour party must not just b e ra lies ut radi cal in some quite distinctive way. That way , I take it, the m a notio n of co mmunity. But, more than that, it mus t lie in ce Labou r party' s own distinctive con ceptio n of c o m m u nit y, sin a liberal dem ocra ts , aga m · , o r not so progressi. ve Conse rva ti· ves, m )' str on gI Y be q · t e k een on comm unity. The Left must wan t m po ses �galitaria n commu nity, and it is this, I take it, that Co hen su p and Is offered by the manifest tradition of the Labo ur p arty , cravenly or cymea · llY neglected by the Com m ission . What is this trad ition'? but 1 Cohen does not actually tel l u s, pr sume that he � has in mind an outlook which c ombin ed , a s o ne mtght say ' an exp . enen ce and a hope: the experienc e was of a stron g sense of com mu nit comb .med with hop e Y class solidarity, an d the w as that th .is 0f co uld b e generah. sed in some way to th e w ho 1 e society so · th at there w ou ld b e a shared sense of fairn ess , so ci a1 hu miliati on Would d'Isapp ear, and selfish m otives wou ld be replaced by a1trutstt. c on es I do not want to deny the existe nc e of such a tra dition. or to b erItt1 e it. d fundamental However, there are re al a n questions of w h a t a this exp erience was, and ho w it w s related \0 th e hope Cohen agre which es t hat the social circum stan ce s !U h sue •eal:out!Qok .� . obtain. 'l'h'A--- - �ed to the extent that it did, no lo ng er

?

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asrees> it .. ...... · · ·-.•· '"'. 11\ean that
.

·

·

- .

·

·

�Cal � �ed .

• •

also means that u .," ; -� ' answered, of what that ou tlo ok

Forward to Basics

55

was, what socially supported it, and of where it went, we shall not be able to say what the relevant tradition was, o r i n what form we might now appeal to it. Th e Com missio n ' s publ i cations prominently featured a n historical analysis of t h e differences between social conditions n o w and those of fifty years a g o . This d o es n o t answer these questions about the traditio n , but it d o es bear o n them. Cohen d o es not address this historical analysis, or these q uestions, at all . The manifest tradition which h e takes for granted invol ved a whole set of alliances and conjunctures , which w ere peculiar to thei r times, and wh ich ind eed d i ffere d , to some extent, from time to time. In the war, at the high point of the B ev eridge spirit, th ere was perhaps a special combination of a sense of class s o l idarity with a wider sentiment of natio nal c o m m u ni ty . This was significantly different from something which had existed earlier and lasted longer , rough coincidence b etween the i nterests of the org anised working class and the interests, more general l y , of the worse-off. The Labour party, like parties o f the Left elsewhere, relied on this for a long time, but more recently it has dramatically fallen apart, and to the extent that supporters of the Left go o n as thou g h this had not happen ed, they show l es s social und erstanding than Margaret Thatcher did. Again, and very significantly for the history o f the Labour party, there was solid arity within working class communities themselves, which writers such as R aymond Williams celebrated. There was no doubt m u ch to celebrate, balanced as it must b e again st the deform ations that are less remembered now, though some of them, at least, w ere well rehearsed in those times by l iberals and radicals who wanted to change that worl d . But it is not the fact or the extent of the bad things - the x en ophobia, brutality and sexism , the public surveillance - that are the main concern in this argument, but rather the point that the good features just as much as the bad were the product of d eprivation. Such communities were complex adaptations to eco n o mi c and social disadvantage, and were bound to disappear when that disadvantage was alleviated. As Kierkegaard marvellously put it: "Adversity doesn't just knit people together but elicits also that beautiful inner community, as the frost forms patterns on the 9 windowpane which the warmth of the sun then erases."

56

Equality

ditions of n d the tra ta ers nd u us h o w to istonca1 Cohen does not tel l obvi ous h . r el h t m fro to to free th em o reason com mu nit y ' or ho w w e hav e n s o , s doe . ttO ns . u nd at he . lta I . es us any thi. n g . n gJV . UO con dition s and hm d! st the roa m· f est tra ely, not lu think that his ap pea l to nts us to r wa e H y er ane. mo ry L ut on v all exc ept a trip dow n Me mu m· ty ' b m co of .md eed "1d eas dly b e . on ide as o f equality o r , n supp o se . ns o f t h ose values w hiCh ca . ss w e But unle par ticular aru cul auo . . n o f t h e Lab our party. to the reco ver ed from the trad ltlo art y and p ur o b La e ed to th e x isted , w und erst and wha t has hap pen. party ha s e r b ou La d e h t h . w h IC he p ast, an society and the wor ld m · n mea nt .m t d"1uo tra t tha t wha g win have no way of kno today . hen ce wha t it mig ht mea n to us .

·

·

•

•

Markets and Marx

of . torical c o nd .IU O ns IS h e h t t ir There are questions, not only abou b o ut the . b"l" to d ay ' b ut .a lty I ca pracu t their and , k hopes r those earlier . . a ma e · Ve a ctiVIt Y 1 n uctJ d pro to d motive te content. "The immedia reed an . miX tu re of g society ", Cohen writes, 10 "is typical ly some . lly" a d b Y "ty p1 ca . fear", and the only qualification introduce 10 a exist ev e n · " footnote tells us is that "a sense of serv 1ce can o ne o ut en u r ely market society . This extraor dinary remark leaves u al kets· mut of the most significant motives expressed .m m ar s ne th at ha advantage. This is not simply a theoretical point , b ut o · mm·lgrant to great relevance to a political or social order . If an 1 s erv es Britain from Pakistan sets up a newsagent or grocery wh ich he r the local customers, it is not obvious to me (nor to him) that eit ed . he or his customers are necessarily driven by greed or fear (inde is Th in his situation, his business may help to keep away fear) . . and many other such truths, are so obvious, and so spectacularlY overlooked by Cohen, that I can only suppose that he has in min d ·

•

'

·

·

a model of some markets rather than others, in particular of a labour market based on unequal income. I t is stil l a questio n , to what extent such a marll•,is driven by greed and fear . lt is a funher qu�on, wheih•·.ct.e fear, at any . rate . and at least some mamfestanons of p� lni&ht not be on based on the But allev i ated by legislati ratSea, and \t w � :� th en Coh that tion ques a at 1 is not

�onuni!Aiibn's Jl'rihc:iptes. • .

this

: - �;.. .

Forward to Basics

57

shall take up. I want to take u p , i n conclusion, a much more general

point about Cohen's outl ook. It arises from his remark, 1 1 that these

are not "attractive" moti ves, and that we would rather d o without them if we could . Soon after raising this question, h e mentions the name of Marx. There is a notable paradox in this conjunction, and it tells us someth ing about the assumptions on which Cohen bases his case. Why should anyone suppose that an effective and creative society, not merely i n economic terms but more generally, coul d b e based entirely on "attractive" motives'? Certainly Marx did n o t ; he was particu larly insistent that unattractive motives were necessary to histori cal advance . Of course, he did think that they would wither away when class conflict was elimi n ated and history no longer adva nced . Cohen, a world expert on Marx, does not need to b e told this. B u t h e d o es need t o be asked whether he still accepts the Marxist i dea of the end of h istory. If not, does he accept Marx' s view about t h e world w e have, in which h istory a n d economic development do still obtain, that it is one i n which there cannot simply be attractive motives'? If he does accept this view about the worl d we have, and d o es not b el i eve in the revolution ary tran sfo rmati on of that world, then p erhaps he had better accept the Co m miss ion 's general definition of the problem of social justice, that aspirati ons for equality and a sense of community must be applied , by d efensible political power, to a world which is signi fica ntly driven by other sorts of motiva tions. Mar xists, as opposed to the Utopian socialists whom they tend ed to despise, notably believed in two things : the political imp ort ance of a sound histo ri cal analys is, and a fi rmly uns enti m ental picture of what made people act. It is a remark able diale ctical turn by which , in both these respect s, it seems to be the Com mission rathe r than Cohe n who are in touch with tradit ions of Marxist socialism . End notes

p29 . Cohen in this volume e p39 . Co hen in this vol um

1.

GA

3.

ibid p39.

2.

GA

58

4. 5.

Equality

Cohen note 30.

al chance Stuar t W hite, in this volum e �To satisfy the equ utio n of condi ti o n we must . . . consc iously regula te the distrib ect and orr strategic goods such as income and wealt h so as to c compensate for these b rute l uck inequalities." p61 .

6.

Stuart W hite i n this volume p69 .

7.

Cohen op cit p 3 2 .

8.

Cohen p 3 3 .

9.

and Written in 1 83 5 : Papers and Journals: a selection , translated edited by Alastair H annay ; Penguin B o oks, 1 996, p3 9 .

10. Cohen p 3 6 . 11. Cohen p36.

59

What do Egalitarians Want?

Stuart White

Introductio n

Like many people who first became politically active on the left in the 1980s, I spent a large part of that d ecade attending a seemingly endless series of meetings and seminars with titles like "rethinking socialism", or even, more bleakly, "socialism: is there a future'?" For I had come of age in a d ecade when, retreating before the increasingly self-co nfident intellectual and political onslaughts of the New Right, the left (or at least its less blinkered and more rational pans) had begun a process of close self-interrogation and probing, tentative reconstruction that is still far from complete today. At the heart of t his process of self-interrogation and reconstruction there were two basic questions to which participants would continually return, and to which they still return today. The first concerned values: how, at the level of principle, do we ("the Left", "socialists") conceive of the good society'? What values are distinctive to us and our conception of the good society'? The second concerned means: given a proper understanding of our values, how can we effectively impl ement or advance these values at the institutional level'? What is the core institutional apparatus, so to speak, of our good society'? In the Br itish co ntext, the Comm ission on Social Justice has provided an important focus for this continued process of self­ interrogation and reco nstruction as we have moved into the 1 990s, and debate surro unding the Commission has been framed, once again. by variants of these two basic questions. Thus, at the level of values, the Commission has focused attention on the question: what d o es a distinctively left, or egalitarian, conception of social justice look l ike'? Fol lowing on from this, at the level of means, comm entators have asked: do the institutional arrangements and policies a dvocated in the Commission's final report, Social Justice: Strategies for National Renewal, offer any prospect of significant advance from the standpoint of a distinctively egal itarian conception of justice?

60

Equality

essay. to i n this wish to return I s that ns tio e galitarian These are the tw o ques hat it is that w , es u val he of level ether t I want to explo re, a t the means , wh the lev el of at , ted and t) , wan ly be expec want (or ought to . ve can rea so nab gy te stra rm ' we rs we gi Commissio n s preferred refo ns a The (ought to) w ant . sio n: to deliver what egalitarians e Co mmis we ass ess th w ho ft ine rm dete path to le to such questio ns will un certain the on p ste the tive e on as marking a genu ine, if t enta y fo r tho s sa d ten de nc a ing plify exem y tio ns and renewal, or as merel ov er insti tu s ce n ere p ref perceiv ed left passively to adapt their - to th e es u val r ove . · , a\ly m hav e P0 \ICie s, and mo re fun dam ent l cap italis ba glo new the lim its of what the Ne w Ri gh t and e now made possible. 1 begin th w a n t ?, 1 ans ri lita ega at In Par t I of thi s essay , What do vieW , lie whi ch , in my es cipl prin the ic out discussion by setting just e. e o n social ctiv spe per rian we the hea rt of a genuinely ega lita qui res th at re h hic (w These include the bru te l u c k pri nci ple al "brute to differenti ble a ibut attr e ntag dva ent ect disa for or prev corr ro tec t that we p es uir req ich (wh e · luckn) · the Jrmr exc hange prin cipl n d '1 ts : . . . t-p la ce, a . . mdiv!dua\s f rom vu 1 ner ab1 hty m the ma rke (wh'!Ch pri n cip l e · tlve · potentia\\y exp1 mta effects) ; and the reci pro ci ty m firs t mten . requues that we p revent eco nomiC free-r idi ng) . In its �' rs e o ntr o v c ed rt cou on ssi report, The Ju s t ice G ap, the Commi . ng tl y re) ecu . amongst political. th eonsts · a n d phi losop her s by exp lici 1ts . m st on e o f these pnncip\ es -th e brute luck pri nci ple , at \ea . a mme simplest and strongest .form . 1 n the sec ond half of Part I, I ex nd ed the Commission s cnuque f th'I S e galitar ian pri nci ple , grou ° to b c in the notions of � entlt1ementn an d "d esert and sho w the m .

·

.

·

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weak and unpersuas·lVe. ln Part 11 of the essay '

A S tr tegy for Equa lity?, 1 argue tha t the � strateg", . centnng on what 1 caB end ow m e nt . ed cga\itnrianism and an active welfare state orgamse d on a mod e rnis nh . . • e\eas' an ethi. cally attract ive o ne sol'lal ms ur a nce basis is • neve

Commissio n' s

. . \es o. f egart from t he standpoint of the prinap l arl. an JUstice deli ne a ted . h . t e Commiso si n•a tn Pan 1 ( notw nhsta nding \u confused effo rts , at th e epud iate the r to lt.·ve\. cal philos ophi ple) . Th is claim t quali&eat� tn som e im portan e r . M o st out \ts � howev 1 m port a nt lv . \ arg e that in pendency between exa �e ratl_'!; the inte rde . . . , �cy. and,

�s suhjct·t

u

setting

btUte

��-�mission

61

What do Egalitarians Want?

relatedly, understates the extent to which a strategy fo r achi ev i ng social justice must

inevitably rely upon conventi onal i n co m e

redistribution, or "Levelling". I n additio n , I argue that while the Commission tacitly endorses the reciprocity principle,

it fai l s

rigorously to pursue some of t h e "tougher" implicati o ns of t h i s principle i n the areas of welfare policy an d t h e t a x treatment o f inheritance. There is, I therefore conclude, much that the egalitarian can and should welcome in the Commissio n ' s report, but further development of the Commissio n ' s reform strategy, and

o f its

philosophical underpinnings, remain n ecessary.

Part 1 : What do Egalita rians Want? What do egalitarians want'? The answer that they want "equality" is, of course, hardly very illuminating by itself since this i d eal is so ambiguous and

contestable. To b e sure, all egalitarians are

com m itted to some basic notion of the equal worth of all perso n s , and t o the view that t h e m a j o r institutions o f soci ety a n d rules of

social co-operation must somehow embody this principle of equal Wort h . But to say this, important as it is, is not to say all that much b y way of clarification. Libertarian philo so p hers, like Robert No?.ick, can also p lausibly claim that their conception of the just society satisfies this principle, fo r in their preferred society all

persons would at l east have equal rights of self-ownership,

acquisition and transfer. 2 And surely no one would want to claim

that No7.ick's libertarianism , which issues, ideally speaking, in a co mplete endorsement o f laissez-faire, is a form o f egalitarianism .

Thre e core principles of egalitarian justice · · n howe ver · e po smo · · Egah· tarian philoso phers stake out a d1stmcuv w hen thev build on the basic p rinciple of equal wort h m the th, foll owmg way. If we regard peop1 e as h av1· ng equ al mor al wor as them rd then , the egalitarian suggests , we oug h t also to rega . lling fulfi . g h. k e an equa1 c ha nce t o live a h aving a ri g h t to so me t h m ition N�w for ma1 life. We may call this the equa l chance cond . •

,

.

·

.

. .

equa lity

. of opportuntty

imponant as

and

the

abs enc e

•

.

of dJsc nm mau o n ,

fy this equaI ch ance they are, are not enough to satis

62

Equality

. oppo rtunity , .IS for mal equa1 Ity o f ere h t nces , less con diti on .3 Ev en wh. en . w er l "Ife-cha lo y ntl . Jca T m hav e sig ces m som e ind ivid ual s will t 0 differen ue d ers oth n · h t say '4 tha . (alway s) be effective free dom one mig wh1 ch cann ot lth . wea f 0 gs ply a skil ls, han dicaps, and ho ld m h "I ch are sim cho ice s , b ut w ent " fer dif s ve ual ivid att rib ute d to ind y then ha p erso n ma " One k 1 uc te " bru . n o fault matter of differen tial ther th r ough o an n a th . om d . ust, significantly less effe ctiv e free d"Jt!On we m 1 ch ance con a equ the sfy sati ods To o . of his/ her own . on of strategic g uu " b t n IS d" e h t late te for ther efor e, cons ciou sly regu d co mp ensa an ct orre c o t s the such a s inco me and wealth s o a . sh ort ' a s r to this , f or refe may We . ties uali ineq thes e bru te luck ht brute luck princip l e . 5 b e th oug . e r incipl e can fo In its simplest and strongest form, th P non r ' t"10 n/comp en sa c corre or of, ntion preve the for of as calling ds w hich strategic goo . any and all brute luck ineq uality in the key the y call thIS ma e W cy agen d . determine prospects for well-being an what · · ple · Su re1 Y k pnnci compreh ensive version of the brute luc I· s h o wever, .mt o f vieW · o p moral the from matters most urgently . ally . d ecent mimm that everyone has an equal chance of lea d mg a or prev �nt , fulfilling life and , accordingl y , that we ds strategic goo correct/ compensate for, brute luck disadvantage in . reshold s m insofar as this pushes people below certain decency th itmen their prospects for well-being and agency . This co mm ute luc describes what we may term the threshold version of the br iv el y principle. This version of the principle is perhaps less disti nct t a egalitarian, but so long as we are willing to set the thr eshold a us o r reasonably high level, that is, we have a fairl y ge ne n understanding of what a decent life requires, it remains a demandi g principl e, and in any case, as suggested, one which captures wh at .

·

.

•

.

'

�

is morally most urgent in the egalitarian's commitment to prevent or correct/compensate for brute luck inequality. The concept of brute luck disadvantage does not captu re everything that excites egalitarian concern, however. Egalitarian s ar e also concerned to prevent economic exploitation . This latter conc ern may often overlap with the former , but is not reducible to it .u While the concept o f ex ploitation is often appealed to in left­ wing literature, it is a concept which is seldom clearly defined . \Vhat is explo itation'? As a very general definition, we can say that

What do Egalitarians Want?

63

to exploit someone is to "take unfair advantage" of that perso n . But then we have to say something about the ex act nature of the unfairness involved here. Let us start with a stark and simple example. I n eed a j o b or I will starve. You are an employer who can offer me a j o b . I know of no other jobs that are avai lable, but I do know that t h ere are many others who want this job. You take advantage of my (and those other's) desperation to drive a very h ard bargain in which I agree to work for you for a very low wage, and i n conditions that, while inexp ensive to you, are risky for my heal t h . This case roughly describ es one sort of exploitation. The essence o f the unfairness involv ed here consists of the way one party takes advantage of the marke t nuln ernbili ty of another party to effect a trade of a k i n d , on term s that the vulnerable party would not consent to were h e or she not vulnerable in the relevant way. In this most extreme fo rm , depicted in the fo rego ing example, market vulnerab ility arises

when: ( 1 ) the individual l acks acceptable alternatives to making the

exchange i n questi o n , an alternative being "unacceptable" if it entails a l evel of wel l-being that is both lower than that achieved

through the trade, and very low in absolute t erms (for example, starvation) ; and (2) the party with whom h e or s h e is bargaining does not need to make the trad e with anything like the same urgency . 7 I n capitalist soci eties, relati onships between workers and empl oyers so m etim es exhibit vulnerabil ities of this kind , and thus, so me d egree of exploitati on in exch ange . A second principle of ega litar ian justice, the fair exchange principle, states t hat trades en tered into against a backgroun d of market vulnerabil ity are u nfai r , a n d calls u p o n public authority to prevent market vu lner abil ity o r else to alleviate its exploita tive effects. This p rin ciple arguab ly captur es some of the moral concer ns raised by . " II the Co mmiss ion i n its discus sion of the conce pt o f "fa1r rewar d folk on Cons id er now anoth er exam ple. There are 1 , 000 fisher funds for st reque a them an island. Their gover nmen t sends each of with g � i � li col to build a l ighth ouse so as to stop their fishi ng boats fo r 1ent are suff1c the s hore. 900 of them send fund s in, and these island inhab itan ts then the lighth ouse to be built. All of the 1 ,000 . 1 00 non-c ontnb� tors the ing includ benefit from the lighth ouse, ute the lightho use built, an d were able to contnb ·

who also wanted

64

Equality

ds . Th" anY fun din g i n en s m n· ed fro . 'th e no t w ho refr ain o itati on to its cost , bu d of ex pl i n k er ee"tr oth es , I th ink , an butors bY exa mple des crib he co ntn" nta ge of t , and dva a air unf is unfait e-ri din g contributo rs take e fr ch tio ns . Su oY a kind ter' s con tr ibu g to enj ridin g" on the lat er is try in d ri eeods fr , be cause the so cial go therefore expl oit ative acc es s to in " ent ct atm d thus a preferenti al tre ost), an of "obje ction ably of their c re 15 ha at s a orth th out bearin g (to enjoy them with equal w of e pl ci n pri tes the very in a way that viola .9 ci ple of lita ria nis m ird p ri n fou nd atio nal to ega ests a th gg su g in nciple. free-rid ci ty pr i The concern to prev ent re ci p ro he t erm he we may t ccept egalitar ian justic e , whi ch in gly a ill w ho ding ple , th os e w rr esp on According to this prin ci ve a co ha on ti ra the co-o pe bl e , to economic benefits of s o ci al if so a , n tio bu uctive con tri ery one obligation to make a pro d fits . Ev es e be ne th es vid pro " do co-operative community which ought 10 inco me , of um t mi nim retu rn. who receives , say , som e dec en bilitY in or her a l his of ds un bo f socia hls or her bit" . within the n efits o ono mic b e ec the of in ng Those who do not will be shari c o st of the fair sha re at th e co-o peration without bearing their nfa irl Y u g n livi be pro ducing these ben efits , and will thus . tt· on.1 0 a con tnbu h suc e t mak do expense of those oth ers who p o rtan . yed a n t m pla has . iple Htstorically ' the rectpro ctty princ can b e . l . pri n ci ple · thou ght . Such a ro e m socialist and ega1 ·rtanan e o bs th . italist r seen to underlie the M arxtst charge that the cap h.1ca1 a nd et worker 0f ab ou r produ ct as well as the New Liberal es s n ct io nl socialist cnttque of wh at R H Tawne y call ed "fu the ro m property" (mcom e en t 1 t1 ements that are div or ced f y for . performance of any pro ducfw e functton) . 1 1 Th e just s o cie t 1 o . _ izens d Marxists and ethica soctahsts al'k 1 e, ts on e in wh ich aU cit n thetr productive bt't ' Wl'th·m the bound s o f their ability , in r etur . 0 s pponumt\es wh'tch the co m m uni t y makes for the good and

:

�

•

·

·

1

•

·

.

"

"

•

.

.

avat'1 a

b1e to them.

So . in answer to the question "'Wbat do egal itarians w ant'?". I th.mk we can now answet that e&&litanan. are centrally com mitted: •

( 1 ) To the prevention o r co� of_,....._ ..... with special mora urgency � or . te correctton of absolu ·

.

1

th

·

d"

ntage, �,�-- tsadvaion or ent J)tev ; t!t:��

.

_

_

... . ..�..

What do Egalitarians Want?

65

( 2) To the prevention of market vulnerability i n the negotiation of the terms and content of market transactions, or. \\·here this is not possible, to the alleviation of the effects of such vulnerability.

(3) To the prevention of economic free-riding - that is. to distributive arrangements that s atisfy principle.

the

recip rocity

Is the reform strategy set out in the Commission's fi nal report consistent with these core commitments'? This is the question to which we will shortly turn in Part II. Before doing s o , however . I want to take a brief look at one aspect of the Commission' s own attempt to set out a working conception of justice: i ts criticism and rejection of the first of our three core principles - the brute luck principle.

Brute luck, e ntitlement, and desert In its first interim report, The Justice Gap , the Commission claims that "there is a basic justice i n people having some differential reward for their productive activities". Moreover, it claims that unequal rewards for unequal productivities are justified w hen the diffe rences i n productivity are attributable to u nequal tal ent. "I OJut standing talent should be (specially1 rewarded". 1 2 Now, to the extent that differences in talent reflect differences in natural ability, they are clearly a matter of brute luck , and so this latter claim entails a rejectio n of the view that any/all brute luck inequality in income (or, more fundamentally, in effective freedom) i s unjust. Thus , when, i n its final report, the Commission says that ·not all i nequalities are unjust", this means: "not all i nequalities, including s o m e brute luck inequalities, are unjust." "Luck is everywhere", remarks the Commission, "and one i s entitled to some 1a rewards of luck" . The Commission thus rejects the first o f th e three p rinciples o f ega l i ta r ian justice delineated above, the brute luck p rinc i ple - at least in its simplest and strongest, comprehensive for m It is .

important to be clear as to what is being asserted here. The

Commission does not say that the elimination of brute luck

66

Equality

t be h ich mus a go aI w est. ra ble , but y. d om on ine qua liti es is vi dual aut h as in di e u s s. ue te val r other at e all b ru qu ali fie d b y res pe ct fo to eli min try o t e w · d were ise es·tr able wh ich mig ht be c o m p rom at it is a d . n ar gue th O iSSI . mm of C o th e str al· nts l u ck i n equ ality ; n o r d oes by the c on d ' le \ ' f 1 a qu mus t be 1 sort can goa l w h o s e pur sUit , a as , ts o f th iS ue c on fl'I c val me eso bl hat th e eco nom ic effi cien cy . T rou clai ms t . b ec a use it . ssto . mt tn Com si ra bl e be and are , avo ided by the e ve n d e t ' o n IS ineq u a \'tty defend elim inat ion of bru te luck va nc e to . sl o n a d mts m Co the es o prin ciple . Wha t argu m ents d . are they ?. er, the this claim '? And h o w p l ausi b l e e m ann d .me h o at an e us ' ff 1 d I 1uck g Y In w hat is a frust ratin . e b rute tio n ° f th j ec re its d e Com missi on attem pts to groun rt . T h an d " d ese nt , me title n . n. es ' princi ple in the c o ncepts o f " e ine q uah b ru te 1 uc k me so . . tue at h t effect, · u st in v1r d o cumen t claims , m · 1 ta 1 e nt c an b e , t1a ' e to particu larly those l i nk ed to d .1fferen ve c o m to, or h a of the fact that indivi duals are "entit le d"

pri ma fa C i. e

·

·

�

.·

"

" d eserve" , special rewards. 1 4

t s ay th a · quest ion-be gg1. n g. To IS · 1 ement Now the appeal to "entlt e h ,a s a . . say tha t sh someone is entitled to someth m g IS mereI Y to di n gly . a re ac c o r morally legitimate claim to that thmg w h 'ICh 0the rs estio n n th e q u obliged to respect. But to say this is to leav e wid e ope ss · · tel Y pr e . ay l eg iti m a of th e moral grounds .m vutue of wh1c . h sh e m y· d o ut b this claim. The bare notion of entitlement need s to be fi\ le l d eq ua reference to some more fundamental conce pt, sueh as n ee e h . d es t consideratio n , due process, or possibly desert, which pr o vl men t moral grounds of the supposed entitle ment. T h e d .1sa gree er between the egalitari an and the anti-egalitarian is not ab o ut wh eth or not, or to what extent, the cl aims of entitlement sho u ld tr u mP those of equality , but rather, abou t what, morally s pe ak in g , es tablish es an entitlement in the first lace. One cann ot the re fo r e p o just assert that people are entitled to things ( g e , "one is ent itle d t u some rewards of l ck") ,15 and then pit entitleme against the cla i ms "

•

nt o f e quality in the manne r supposed in The Justice G p; ath e r , o ne r a must sho w that there is some other, deeper moral consid erati o n which establishes such an entitlement a tonsiderati on strong 1� �· ,• enou gh to defeat the counter-claims of eqwa1n

.

·

�,���ifically .

Is "deserC p e r h a ps one such consid defend can we usc the notion of desert to

hi��W;1A>r more ;, '

r

·�

�

ib- ,\f.�• ::.1-w.!l-

•

What do Egalitarians Want?

67

productive workers, when their superi or productivity is attributable. say, to differential natural talent? To assess the plausibil ity of desert claims in this kind of case, it may help to consider th e fo llow ing example. Albert and Barbara work for the same length of time producing widgets , and at the same intensity, but Albert produces more widgets just because he happens to have been gifted by nature with better widget-making skills (say, especially d extrous hands). Is Albert entitled , o n grounds of d esert , to a higher income? In thinking about our answer to this question it may help to consider another. What if the difference in output b etween Albert and Barbara stems not from Albert's natural gift for widget-making, but from the fact that when they arrived at the factory in the morning they were each rand omly assigned to a widget-mak i ng machine, and Albert's machi n e just happened to be more efficient than Barbara's? Would Albert then deserve a higher income in virtue of his h igher productivity ? It is surely i mplausible to say in this second case that Albert i s d eserving of h igher reward in virtue of his higher productivity. But, one might then ask, how is this case significantly different from our first case ? In both cases Albert himself is in no way responsible for that which explains his superior productivity; in both cases, he benefits from some s o rt of "mechanical good fortune" - in one case in the form of being endowed that particular morning with a superio r widget-making machine, and , in the o ther case, by being endowed with , as it were, a superior widget-making body (especially dextrous hands). How can the particular form of the mechanical good fortune he enjoys make a moral d i fference? If he is undeserving of higher reward in the machine cas e, surely he cannot be any more deserving in the orig inal, d extrous hands case. But now consid er anoth er case. There are two pian ists, Paula an d Q u entin. They practi ce equal ly hard, but, come the big night of the grand p erform ance , Paula perfor ms much better simpl y ed because she h as more innate ability than Quen tin. This is reflect ly � pped in the app lau se each receives. While Quentin is p � lite cl n. It mg ovatio stand nged for a few m inutes, Paula receives a prolo d id that Paula t ec be rather odd for Quen tin to obj would surely because the su per io r it y of her not deserve the extra a pplause le to greater innate a bi lity for performance was entirely attributab

68

Equal1ty

e ts th at on · b Je . Th is su gges esp on st th r in n o way r th an a no � whic h she h e r s elf is d eserv in g ore m t be to w h r th e sup e r io ri y !Ill a b l y be said person c a n reason e e n e e v ce a n ma erio r p e rfor lit y i n n atur in v irtue of a sup l u ck in e qu a

bl e to a bru te perfor ma nce is a t t n.b uta ab ilit y. . es

e what th W th at o oll f ot n o ably h ow ev er , It d ul a argu Ha vin g s a i d tha t, . o e W h at P a · c . . . e, esteem. hig her w m . rve s IS a e , p rats sup eri or pta ms t d ese a pP\ aus a xtr e . t go ns ' and w h at s h e o m ed.t a d es er v es is prec tsely o p u J ar c p , rs sta · {or ck smg ers , ro ur r en cy D i tto for p o p u l ar ope ra p r ia te c pro p a e th h ile pre sum e t h at h o rt, w spo rtin g leg end s . Wh y . com e ? I n s m r) h e (hig · . tY in cas es IS u p en o n r ewa rding d es er t m s uch d on a s e s . ba s ese rt cI atm ut e \u ck this exa mp l e sho ws tha t d . ut abl e t o a b r b · att n o r a1 \ v1 sup eno n· t Y is e an s rn P erfo rma nce ' whe re the . · y no m b e r a 0f abth ty e n es s i n eq uali ty i n t a l e n t or r o p ri at pp a e t h q u e s f1 0 n o r rn er u ni n t e l l i gi b l e , we can s t ·i i 1 or pe rf . th e sup en· g · paym by ackno wledg ing the desert c\mm per so n a h i gher income. th at o ne g i n . y a s m rn ore We prob ably feel mor e conf iden t s o n is en o n e p er h w r anothe r eiY deserves a higher inco m e than a n rn e . more effor t ' ra th e r th then produc tive becaus e she has put m ted Bu t mo re t ale n nd because she just happens to be n atur a II Y cas es ' a . f m m o st o effort is something which we tend to thmk 0 . . · du al ' s th e md tV I f I 0 ra cont the under to some extent, as being ene ral . ke us n g that effort-based i n equ al iti es in income will not stn. . h os e A n1d t n t as being clearly attr ibut able to differentia l brute luck . r e nt i'·ll . d to diffe cases where differences in effort can be att nbute . er · at ht gh · brute luck, I am not sure we feel as confident m say mg th n at o e effort is deserving of higher reward. I magine, for exam ple , th 0f . person has just entered work after a prolo nge d p e n o d er involuntary unemploy ment which has left him phys ica lly w e ak d r than his co-workers . Because of this be is unable to wo rk as h a as they do . D o we feel confident in saying that the deb ilita te d worker deserves a lower income than his co-workers becaus e h e puts in less effort? One can readily imagine the worker sta r in g a t .

·

·

•

·

.

'

·

his wage packet, acknowledging the diffetence between his pay a n d th at of his co-workers , and , in the li&\t: �� the series o f

whi�h

�labwt� �;;��. saying:

uncontrollable misfortunes MWhat h ave I done to deseroe thas? It I

not � �'!\)if.�,-, th

at

1

What do Egalitarians Want?

69

can't work as hard as the others at the moment." I contend , then , that effort-based inequalities in material reward either do not conflict with the brute luck principle, or that w here they do, we feel less confi dent that the relevant inequalities in reward are

genu inely deserved . In short, the brute luck principle can acco mmo date our strongest intui tions about d esert because it allows fo r inequalities attributabl e

to choice rather than brute luck; and where t h e putative claims o f desert d o confl i ct with the principle, our i ntu iti ons about d esert as a basis for d i fferenti al reward are then probably all the weaker.

Desert, therefore, does not provi d e a very persuasive basis on which to reject the brute luck principle. And the Commission ' s attempt to repud iate the principle by appeal to the notions of entitlement

and deser t must consequently be regarded as unpersuasive . However , a s I suggested above, the morally urgent con­ side ration is not so much strict equality of life-chances, but ensuring that every one has an equal chance to live a minimally decent, fulfilling life. The primary concern of the egalitarian, in other words, is to ensure that i nd ividuals do not fall below certain

decency thresholds through no fault of t h eir own. Prevention or correction for brute luck inequal i ties over and above such thresholds, even i f i t r emains prima facie desirable, is just not as im portant . Now, for all its talk of entitlement and d es ert, the Co mmis sion does not retreat from this threshold version of the b rute luck principle . Clear evidence for this is provided by the sec ond of its "four k ey i d eas", introduced in The Justice Gap, which sta tes that ''all citizens are entitled . . . to be able to meet their basic need s . . . " The Comm ission d o es not reject the d emand s of the b rute luck p rincip le, then, at the point where the egalita rian believ es they have most force. ion Seco n dl y , what ever the Com miss ion ' s philo s� phica l posit the regard ing the brut e luck princ iple, it is conc eava le that adera ble way Com miss i on's re fo rm strategy m ay still go som e cons inco me (and in ty i l a u q e in to wards redu cing the extent of brut e luck �yone up to eve ing gett e ffective fre edo m) abo ve and beyond just

�

thre shol d . The thud of the a fo rement·a oned d ecen cy . . ble access r key ideas caJis for the "widest possi . L • 1ou s n ssao ma Com m below , and life-chances" ' and, as I shall expla I to opp ortUnl•t·es the

•

70

Equality

this can Com miss ion to achie ve the t ed mann er, reaso nably b e e x p ected to redu ce, i n a well- targe , then , It is poss ible genera l extent of b rute luck incom e i nequa lity. , in its strong form that a supp orter of the brute l u ck princ iple, even gy, trate reform s may still find much to supp ort in the Com missi on's ce of thes e defen and coul d quite cons istently i nvok e the princ iple in he itsel f was l o at elements of the strateg y, even if the Comm iss ion

the

p o l i cies

set

out

by

the

to do s o .

t a t the con ten T o pursue t h is point w e must take a closer l ook to this task of t h e reform strateg y set out by the Comm issio n. It is that we now turn.

Part II: A Strategy for Eq ual ity?

ee cor e Beneath the detail of the Commission ' s final repo rt, l i e thr re orga nisin g ideas : that justice is to be promoted t h roug h a m o an d equal distri butio n of productive endowments , such as skil ls, e not only thro ugh co nve ntio nal income redistribu tion ; that ju s tic d and effICiency are inter dependent values ; and that , in a just a n ·iD g · m m coh esiv e so Cie tY ngh ts are balanced by responsi bi litie s . Ex a e s sa y. each of these i deas in turn, is t h of I shall explore, in Part II · t he the consistenc Y 0 f t h e Commission ' s reform strat egy w ith . . egahtanan prin ciples delin eated in Part I . ·

·

·

•

The core of th e co . . , mm•s s•on s strategy: endow m ent egalitarianism

H ow can we h o pe to r edu ce ine et · 1 1fe-chan qua 1·Ity m · ces 1· 11 a m a rk econ om y'? F'Irst1Y . we c an si mP1Y try to redistribute incom es w h 'I l e t akin g b ack grou . nd Ine .ve . qualities m . th e dis tribution of pro d ucu e ndow m ents cap1"tal and ski lls - as g1ve n . Alternatively, we ca n try to equ alis e th e b ackgr ou nd d'J stn. buu. o n of prod u c u. ve en d owm ents _

·

itself 50 that market · e mt ractio n leads to a gr eat er 1 mmal equality of inc:om e , essen_mg 'b . the need for subse qu en t red 1stn uuon. ·

·

·

·

The reform strategy set OUt �laces a strong emphasis on th:�mrniss ion's fi nal rep or t these strategies, the strategy of what we may tena _ As t h e .•

�9( �t4raanism. · ··

What do Egalitarians Want?

Commission puts i t i n '/'he Justice Gap:

"

71

. . . the aims o f s o cial

justice are served not only by red istributi o n , by bringing resources after the event to people who have done badly. Social justice req uires as well that s tructures should be adapted and i nfluenced in ways that can give people a b etter chance i n the fi rst place"' . 1 6

This endowment egalitarianism u n d erl ies the central s trategic recommendation of the report which i s to i ncreas e the access which the average citizen has to educati on and train ing, in order to raise the skill level of the workforce as a whole, with a s p ecial emphasis on raising the skill level of those most lack i ng i n s k i l l s . To t h i s end , the report advocates the establish ment of a national Learning Bank, at which each citizen will have an I n d i v idual Learning Account, fi nanced from a combi natio n of publ i c and private source s , providing access to the equivalent of three years educa t i o n (pp . 1 4 1 -1 4 7) . 1 7 To a d d ress the s k i l l

fu ll-time

deficiencies o f those groups most di sadvantaged i n the labour market, the report also reco mmends the estab lishment of a Jobs, Education and Training (JET) programme specifi cally targeted on the long-term unempl oye d and single parents i n receipt of welfare benefits (pp . 1 70-1 8 2) . This endowment egalitarian approach is, I think, eminently sensible and ethically attractive for a number of reasons of which I will note three here. The first reason, strongly emphasised in the report itself, is that it may well make for an improved overal l trade-off between justice and effi ciency. A rad ical l evell ing-up of access to education and training will not only help to reduce inequality, but, as I will explain in a moment, can also be expected to improve overall economic perfo rmance. A s econd possible advantage lies in the potential effect o f the endowment egalitarian approach on market vulnerability. Some people enter the market-place with very minimal p roductive endowments, i n c l u d i n g skills. This l i m its thei r � a � ket opportu nities, increasing the risk of vulnerability and �xplottauon.

Work ers w ho are more broadly and highly skilled are hkely to have correspondingly wider market options, and are therefore less like y _ a btg to suffer market vulnerability and exploitation - potentially

�

plus from the standpoint of the fair exchange principle.

72

Equality

is ent egal itar ianis m The thir d pos sibl e adv anta ge of end owm inly egy will almo st certa that its inclu si on in any egal itari an strat luck redu ction of brute m ake fo r a b etter "targ eted " a ppro ach to the me conv entiona l inco ineq ual ity than a sing l e-mi nded relia nce on usually inequ ali ties will redis tribut i o n . I n the real w o r l d , incom e re As a resu lt, the refle ct a com plex m ixtur e o f brut e luck and choi ce. e redis tributi on will be an enormous p robl em in targ eting i ncom e for unjust brut throu gh the tax-t ransfer syste m so that it corrects sed cho ice-b a luck i n e q u a l i t i es , w h i l e p re s ervin g l egitim ate som e way of inequalities. It would be much better if we could find the first pla ce, preven ting the emerge nce of brute luck inequa lit ies in inco mes to rather than relying o n a subseq uent redistr ibut ion of ts us in th e corre ct them after the fact. And this immedi atel y poin prod uct ive direction of add ressing the backgro und d istributio n of p o rtan t endowm ents , such as ski l l s , w h i ch are such an i m m e an d determinant of citizens initial o p p o rtunities to acqu ire inco can wealth. By adopting an endowment egalitarian app roac h we to make these opp ortunities more equal , and so reduc e the extent the which the mat erial inequalities subsequently thro wn u p in market are a reflection of differential brute luck rath er tha n ch o ice;

this, in turn, wil l reduce our need to rely on the b lunt instrument

of conventional income redistribution to minimise the extent of unjus t, b rute luck inequ ality. for The endo wme nt ega 1·ttanan · app roach has special rele vanc e . m a country like the UK w h'Ich has Witnessed a significan t increas e . . mcom e mequ alit Y ·m th e 1 ast fifteen years driven to a conside ra ble exte nt, by incr ease d earn . mgs i nequality and high le vels o f unemp loymen t.1 8 The mcrease · m . earnmgs mequality has occu rr ed . m . 1 arge part due a relativ e d e mand shift away from unski lled to skilled 1 abour, while resea r h . . 10 d Icates that lack of skills in th e workforce has a1 so b een an Imp ortan t factor behind high lev els of unemplo yment 19 1 n both cases . the so 1 ut10n would ther efo re necessaril y seem to inv o 1v e more ed . . ucatio n and trammg, focu smg especially on those cu rrent1 y most . . lackin g m skills; and such measures are ' as we have see n, at the very h ean of the endowment egalitarian approach. ·

.

'

.

.

.

�

·

'

.

Having made these points however we mu st also acknowl edge the l imits of endowment egalitariani sm. We sh ould not naively '

•

What do Egalitarians Want?

73

suppose that an endowment egalitarian approach will completely

prevent the emergence of brute luck income inequal ity or market

vulnerability .

Underlying

d ifferences

in

natural

ability,

and ,

therefore, market opportunity, will always remain, and even if each

citizen had i d entical endowments o f skills and other productive assets, some citizens would still end u p badly off through no fault of their own and/or in a position of market vulnerability. As I shall

illustrate below, there are large constituencies of currently needy

people for whom such a strategy has little or no relevance, simply because they are, due to age or infirmity, non-productive members

of society. Conventional income redistribution will therefore still have an important role to

p lay i n

correcting for brute luck

d isadvantage and alleviating market vulnerability.

Does the Commission acknowledge this? At one level, the

answer

must

be

"yes" .

The

s econd

major

element

in

the

Commission's reform strategy is an "intelligent welfare state",

organised on a modernised social insurance basis, which can be

expected to satisfy th e d emands of at least the threshold version of

the brute luck p rinciple and , in the p rocess, to alleviate the p ressure

felt b y unfortunate ind ividuals to enter into exploitative, "desperate

trades". As I shall shortly explain, however, I think the Commission can nevertheless be faulted for the importance of conventional redistribution - or, more specifically, for adopting a rhetoric, centring

on

a

s i m p l i st i c

contrast

"Investors", that serves to obscure it .

b etween

"L evel l ers"

and

A supply-side m a r riage of justice and efficiency? As said ,

one argument in favour o f the report's endowment

egalitarian a p p roach is that it apparently holds out the prospect of marrying the values of justice and efficiency. 20 The Commission's report is, to put it mild ly, enthralled with this prospect. Its constant

refrain is that the two values g o together. Thus we are tol d : " . . .

the eco nomic success of our country requires a greater measure of so cial justice" (p.1 8); "there will be no solid economic success without more social justice" (p. 1 8) ; "social justice is not simply a moral ideal but an economic necessity" (p.19) . In short: "fBritain]

must be both fairer and more successful if it is to be either . . . it is

74

Equality

pos iti on there is n o t an o p a co n stant them e of this rep ort that rary. cont effici encyl . On the betw een [socia l justic e a n d econ omic

7 21 each d emands t h e other" (p . 1 ) . tries like is tha t , fo r c oun The centr a l , u n derlyi n g though t h ere ing a dep en ds on hav B ri ta i n , the health of the whole ec o no my o du ct st pro m isin g pr competitive trad e s ecto r , and that the mo itio n al pt is n ot the tr ad mark et strate g y for firms i n this se ctor to ado ds on stand a rdis ed goo strat egy of com petin g i n th e prod uctio n of of i n th e prod uct ion th e b as i s of cost alon e , b ut that of c o m petin g ll e s w alit y m atters a more comp l ex , d i ffe rentiated goo ds , wh ere qu his t a do ptio n of as price ( p p . 9 9-1 0 2) . H o wever, suc ces sful r ce rkfo y skille d wo competitive strate gy requi res a broad ly and highl e­ pro vide) . Ju stic (which the free-m arket canno t be relied u p o n to and the JET prom o ting polici es such as the Learn i n g B ank evel the req uisi te l progr a mme will help to produ ce a workf orc e with c v e e co n o m i of skill , a n d can thus be expect ed to i m pro e bru te t uck competitiv eness and perfo rmance even as they reduc m ain line inequality and market exp lo itation.2 2 This , I thin k , is the v alu es of of argument underlyi ng the report's attempt to m arrY th e justice and efficiency.

are a of Now the report is almost certain ly right to point to this . the Interdependency between justice and effi ci e n cy. Never the l ess . th e Commission almost certainly exaggerates the d egre e to wh ich two values are mutually supportive, a n d , as a result , fails su ffi c ie ntl Y . - and to affirm the i mpor tance o f JUStice · as a value m 1ts o wn ng h t . . the contin uing im p ortance o f conventional i ncome redis tn b uuo n as a neces sary co mp 1 ement to endowment egalitari anism . ·

·

·

The r•m•·ts of endowment egal itarh:� nism

. Some individuals in our soctety are never going t o be sign ifi ca nt econo mic con tn' butor s due t o men t I 8 or P h ys i c al disabilities they . . suffer. Since in 8enera 1 they suffer th ese d'I sab Jh tie s as a matt er of . brute luck 1·ustice as t he egah. tarta · , requires that t he · " n conceJves Jt . . community support th ese m d tvtduals paymg · them s uffici e n t benefits to cover their needs and t ohelp compensate for th eir disabilities. There is however cum . -'-olutely no w ay wh1ch th ese . payments can be meaningfully said to contribu te •

•

•

•

•

'

•

·�

to Improving the

75

What do Egalitarians Want?

economy's competitive strength. The payments i n questi on are pure

transfers and cannot be characterised as "investment" expenditures

in any meaningful sense. The same could be s a i d , for i nstance, o f transfers t o the needy a n d non-productive elderly. I f anything , such transfers probably detract from the economy's co mpetitive strengt h , for an opportunity cost of maki ng these payments i s expenditure on education and training, i n frastructure,

either

of

whi c h

would

h i gher

or on investment o n (according

Commission ' s analysis) improve competitiveness.

to

the

Simple examples such as these suggest that, t o some extent, the

values of social justice and economic efficiency can and do conflict.

While some theorists o f the New Right may have b een too

simplistic in presenting the two valu es as necessarily always in

conflict, the Commission on Social Justice proceeds to commit the inverse fallacy of presenting them as completely reco ncilable ("it is

a constant theme of this report that there i s not an o pposition

between [them]") . The prosaic truth o f the matter i s that i n some

areas the two values are mutually supportive, and that in others

they are antagonistic. In certain, specific policy areas, we do have

to face up to an ugly trade-off between them, and it is either morally or economically naive to think otherwise.

The inevita bility of "levelli ng"

Now, precisely because in certain respects the pursuit o f justice will

compromise economic efficiency, it is very important for those who

value social justice to continue to affirm the claims o f justice indepen dently o f its contribution to efficiency. Rather than doing

this, however, the Commission proceeds to articulate its conception

of a just society in a language that trades very heavily on the

supposed interdependency between the two values. Thus, most notably, its vision o f a just society is summarised as a vision of an

"Investor ' s B r i t ai n , in contrast to the primitive redistribution "

�

principle o f a so-called "Leveller's Britain". But as we have s en,

not every policy which justice demands can be felicitously descnbed

as a type of investment policy; some of these policies will be

� urely

�

and simply a matter of "levelling". The political dang� r '". t e Commission's position, and the rhetoric through wh1ch It 1s

76

Equality

for justic e-prom oting expre ssed, is that if one tries to build supp ort mic ribut ion to econo polic ies solel y by refer ence to their cont of nd to the claims effici ency , peop le may be l ess ready to respo . With justic e conflicts socia l justi ce when , as may o ften happ en, state com e to over effic iency . The intel lectu al dang er is that we may and unde rsta te the case fo r the endo wme nt egali taria n appr oach , redist r ibution i n the inevi table need for straig h tforw ard inco m e pursuing social justice .

egy The role of reciproc ity in th e C o mm ission ' s strat

"amb itio n The Commi ssion's final report speaks frequen tly of its right s are of creating a "some thi ng fo r somet hing" society . . . where rt taci tly match ed by responsibilities" ( p . 36 2 ) . In this way, the repo d in Part endorses the third principle of egalitari an justice intro duce

I, the reciprocity principle .

cip le is Concretely, the Commiss i o n 's endorsem ent of this prin ent most evident in its pro posals for the constructio n of an "intellig ed welfare state". The key proposal h ere is for a system of " m o der n is

social insurance", the creation of which would involve expan ding the categories of workers covered by the social insurance system.

and the introduction o f a range o f new social insurance benefits to cover various contingencies which are ignor ed by the pres ent

system , such as a p art-time employment benefit, and a ben efit to cover p eriods of parental leave (pp. 227-245) The rep ort de fe nd s . t e so ci l insu rance approach on the grounds that it "ba la nces nghts With respo nsibilitie s" (p ic . 23 1 ) , and thus ex pr ess es "an eth of mut uali ty whi ch Is essent er ett . b ial I f we are to create a comm nit y (p . 23 2) . The appeal to reciprocity also unde rpins th e repor t s propo sal for a new "Citiz ens ' Servi ce", a v o l un tary com mum. ty service sche m e m w h'1ch young people, especially . sc hoo I -I eave rs, woul d perform vanou s so rts of community wo rk , .m areas such as conservatio . n and cann . retu rn . g servic es, and m . would receive credi ts t o help finan ce hi . . g . gh er education or tram m (pp.361 ·3 69) .

�

�

·

�

.

"

·

.

'

Howev er.

hav i ng

t ac i tl y endors ed an d a p p ealed to th e the Commissio n is less rn than resolu te in pursuing some of its implications. This is ost evtdent in its 1

reciprocity pnnc1p e, ·

·

·

·

.

What do Egalitanans Want?

77

discussion of "Citizen's Income", and, to a lesser extent, in its treatment of inheritance taxatio n . Advocates of Citizen 's Income argue that each citizen should receive as of right a substantial cash income , without a "means­ test", and which is not conditional on any past , present, or future productive contribution. This is a proposal for a right which is not balanced by a corresponding co ntributive respo nsibility. It is therefore vulnerable to the objectio n that it would enable citizens to free-ride on, and so exploit, fellow citizens who d o make the productive contribution required by the recipro city principle. In the language of Tawney, a citizen's income is a species of fun ctionless property, and as such is immoral . The Commissi o n ' s final repo rt co mments o n the proposal as follows: [The introduction of a sizeable Citizen' s I ncomel would have to be backed by a broad-based co nsensus , of wh ich there i s , a s yet, no sign . I n a society with a strong work eth ic many people would oppose, as "giving something for nothing", a scheme deliberately d esigned to o ffer unco nditional benefits to all. Citizen's Income d o es n o t require any act of citizenship; it would be paid regardless of whether someone was in a job o r looking for one, caring for children o r other dependents , engaged i n voluntary work or not (p. 2 6 2) . I sense some prevarication here as to exactly what the Commissi o n thinks t h e p roblem w i t h Citizen 's I ncome is. T h e final sentence seems to endorse the principled , reciprocity-based o bjection described above. But in the precedi ng two sentences the problem seems to be not that a Citizen 's Income, for reciprocity-based reasons, is unjust, but rather that many would , alas, just happen to p e rceive it as unjust. It is as if the report cannot decide whether the problem is merely one of public image and political feasibility, as suggested in the first two sentences, or whether there is really is also a genuine ethical objection to the proposal - an o bjection which would make it undesirable to introduce a Citizen's Income even if it were politically feasible, indeed, which would require us to actively struggle a ga i n st the emergence of the "broad-based consensus" which is the precondition of its political feasibility. The

78

Equality

le an d say grasp th e n ett to elf its g brin e on Comm issio n cann o t facie un desirabl a m pri ' is ome Inc s �flequ ivo cally that a Citizen ds 23 would also rec ipr oci ty- bas ed gro un . city prin ciple pro reci the of us gifts A consistent app lication her ita n ce (pl in of on ati tax the heav y an -ri ding by alm ost certainly r equire eco no mic free ent prev e to ad r lth to ev and bequests) in orde en ou gh wea d e erit inh have ens "overclass" of citizens w ho rtu n ate citi1. h o th er , less fo whic s litie e. nsibi om espo the contributive r el of inc aso nable lev re a oy enj to ce h eritan h ave to bear if they wis ' ent o f i nh missio n s tr eatm Com a the ght, li this V iew ed in adv o cate al r epo rt do es fin he T ing is . point ion taxati on is also disap reco mmen dat ation , but th e d is an , ) 1 "fairer" system of inheritance tax -39 rep ort (pp . 390 the of k d bac the s kin ard tow the hid den awa y is said about ng thi no ly, ial uc Cr sic d. left rat he r un de velo pe d The ba sho uld be taxe . ed of rates at wh ich we alt h transfers gly assert be mo re stro n uld sho n atio tax ance ven erit i leg itimacy of inh ul d be g menda t i o n sho ail . and the rel evant pol icy rec om det ore dev elo ped in m h wit pro portionat ely greater pro min enc e and course, coh ere neatly, of ld wou e anc erit n of inh atio vier tax Hea in th e gy pre sented te stra rian lita t ega owmen the underlying end be made cou ld perh a ps rep ort. The con nec tion between the two with the nce taxati o n mor e explicit by link ing steeper inherita hi ch prog ramme w funding of the Lear ning Bank and/ or the JET the report r ecomme nd s 24 .

Conclusions

. And : w1ll

? Our two questions h ave b een: what do egalitarians wan t . m miss i o n th e reform strategy set out m the final report of the Co . . on Soct' al l usuce gtve the m w h at they want? . ciety In response to the first uestton , I have argued that a so . nc tp · 1 es · pn y t t te luck fau exchange and rect pro c satisfy ing the b ru . . . ts. wan n set out in Pan 1 of the essay ts essentially what an egahta na e . hes The Commission on Soc'ta1 l usttce Itself re·teeted the first of t . pnncip les, in its simplest and strongest form but we have seen th at •

�

.

•

.

.

tts grounds for doing so were unpersuasi endorse the principle in its weaker,

•

tbr.esh:C:t:!,!t

wha t matters mos t to the egalitarian).

�.· . ;,

did effec tively

ptures ·� ;, ;.which ca

' ..•..

:

{

79

What do Egalitarians Want?

Turning to the second question, I have argued: (1) that the main elem ents of the Commissio n's reform strategy are endowmen t egalitari anism (which fo cuses on widening access to productiv e

endow ments , su ch as s k i l ls ) , supplem ented b y an act i v e , redistri butive welfare state providin g i n c o m e maintena n ce o n a mod e rnised social i nsurance b as i s ; (2) that e n d o w m e nt egalit arianism can be expected to reduce the tendency of the market to throw up brute luck inequaliti es i n income, and to promote cond ition s for fa ir(er) exchange ; (3) that the active w elfare state

advocated by the Commissi on can be expected to correct for the mor e alarming cases of brute luck d isadvantage and/or market vuln erabili ty which are likely to arise even when the backgrou nd di stribut ion of productiv e endowme nts has been made more equal tha n at prese nt; and (4) that the systems of entitlement to welfare, and to educati o n and training, proposed by the Commission are bro adly consi stent with our third principle of egalitarian justice, the rec ipro city prin cip le . On the other hand , I have argued : (5) that the Commission exa gge rat es the i nterd ependency o f justice and efficiency and , relat edly, u nderstates, though clearly it d o es not straightforward ly deny, the i nevitable i m p o rtance o f conventional i n c o m e red istribution - or "Levelling" - t o t h e attainment o f egalitarian object ives; and ( 6) that al though the Commission tacitly endorses the reci procity principle, it backs away from some of the "tougher" policy impli catio ns of the principle in relation to welfare provision an d the tax treat ment of inheritance . In con clusio n , therefore , I think that if we are prepared to state m o re clearly the continu ing importa nce of convent ional income redist ribution (d is card ing the Commis sion's rhetoric al contrast bet ween "Investors" and "Levell ers' ) , and to develo p further the Co m m issw n ' s p ohcy proposa 1s •m cert am areas (such as inheri tance . taxa tion) , then we w11l have a strategy bas ed on the Comm iSSio n s rep ort, th at can reasonably be expec ted to satisfy at least the most excha nge, and mora I I v urge nt d e mand s o f t he brute luck, fair wo uld argue, I basis, ed qualifi · reci procity pnnc1' pies On this nt a useful, represe docs s report therefore. t hnt th e Comm ission' . a nd ructing to the task of reconst thoug h I.1m1'ted contribution ·

·

·

·

·

.

·

,

·

·

·

·

•

project. ren ewi ng the egalitarian

,

80

Equality

E n dn otes

1.

2. 3.

the present On the dang er of adap tive p refere nce forma tion in D isi llusio n", conju n cture , see G A Cohe n (1 995) "The Futur e of a Camb ri dge: in h i s Self-O wnership , Fre edom , and Equa lity, pp. 254-2 64. Cambr idge U niversi ty Press, pp. 245-26 5, especia lly rd : Basil R o bert Nozic k (1 974) Anarc hy, State, and Utopi a, Oxfo B lackwell. prevention For purposes of this essay , I take it as self-evi de nt that I do not of discrimination is central to the egalita rian project; and owledges think there can be much doubt that the Commis sion ackn ticu lar, par in this and p roposes app ropriate policie s . See,

s for

egie Commission o n Social Justice (1 994) Social Justice : Strat National Renewal, Londo n: Vintage , pp.51 -52, 1 94-1 9 7 . wel l­ By effective freedom I mean the individu al ' s cap ability for egic strat being and agency , grounded in h is/her comma nd over t, sigh as goods, such as income, wealth, and basic capacities suc h ss mobility, etc . , that have value for well-bei ng and agency acro a

4.

wide range of conception s o f the good.

See G A Cohen "On the Currency of Egalitari an Justice", Ethics 99, 1 9 89 , pp.906 -944. 6 . I could, for instance, find myself vulnerable to explo ita tio n as a result of factors that are not a matter of bad bru te luck, bu t a result of my ow n choices (for example, losing all my res ources in a bet to which I gave my fully-informed co nsent) . B ut the fact tha t bad brut e Iuck IS · not part of the causal story which le ads to t h'IS . . situation of vuln erab I' l 1ty ' d oes not necess arily mean there I S no exp loita tion if and wh en some better p laced md1v1dual mes to take advantage of it. 7 . My characterization f ( 0 acute) market vulnerability in term s of the . non-aval1 abihty of aceeptabl e aI ternatives is derived from G A . Cohe n'S d'ISCUSSIOn of COerced exch ange in "Are Disadvantaged Wo rkers Who Take H azardous Jobs, Forced to Take Hazardous Jobs'? � in his H'tstory, Lab our an d Free d om, Oxford: Ox fo rd University Press, 1 87 But see also R E Good in (1985) Protl.'cling the u ner able '· A R eana l ysts . Socr. a1

5.

·

·

.

·

·

·

.

•

9 ':�· 239·2.S4. •

8.

9.

Responsibilities, Chicago·. U . . ntvers•ty of Chicago , See The Justice Gap, pp.l S-l 6.

See

of our

pp.1 95-19 6

·

Garrett Cull i ty "Moral Fr•Rid in8,' Philosophy • and Public pp . 3-34' es-· ....- tallY PP-22-23 .

Affa irs

24, 1995

What do Egalitarians Want?

81

10 . Note that our conception of what counts as a producti\·e contribution in satisfaction of the principle need no t be rest ricted to formal paid employment, but may be expanded to inco rpo rate at least some forms of care work that, at presen t , typically go unp aid. 1 1 . See R H Tawney (1921) The A cquisWve Society, Lond o n : Bell. [1945] . 1 2 . The Justice Gap, p . 1 3 Similarly, The Justice Gap claims that ·· . . . . one is entitled t o some rewards fro m the product o f one's efforts and talents" (p . 1 4) , and comments that "rewards in a market economy [may not be] fair, because they are not . . . determined by such things as talent, effo rt, and the person's contribution t o the enterpri se . . . " (p . 1 5) , implying that rewards which do rel1ect differe ntial talent are (or at least can be) fair. 13. Th e Justice Gap , p . 1 3 . 14. See especially the section headed "Entitlement and D esert" o n pp.1 2-1 4 of Th e Justice Gap . 1 5 . The Justice Gap, p . 1 3 . 1 6 . See The Justice Gap , p 1 1 . . 17 . All page referen ces in the m ain text are to the Co m m ission' s final report, Social Justice: Strategies for National Renewal. 1 8 . See Joseph Rowntree Foundation, (1995) Inquiry into Income and Wealth, York, Volume 1 , especially pp.1 2-23 . These developments are i mpo rtant in explaining the growth in t he inequality of original inco mes ; changes i n the tax-benefit system over t he same period have meant that this has been mirrored by a similar rate of growth of inequality in final incomes.

1 9 . For a review of recent researc h on the causes of increas ed earning s ineq uality and unemp loyme nt, includ ing the crucial role p l ayed by the level and distrib ution of workforce skills , see A Glyn (1 995) w �The Asses sment: Unem ploym ent and Inequ ality". Oxford Rlmil'

of Economic Policy, 11 (1 ) , pp.1-25.

20 . I borro w the marit al metap hor from Philip pe Van Parijs ' paper, ''rhc al of Social Policy Secon d Marriage of Just ice and Efficiency", Journ word �effic iency " the using am I that 1 9 , 1990 , pp.1-25. N o te also c i p erform a n ce· as m o con e good to refer here in a loose sense to o f grow th . rates and t, outpu , ctivity measured by levels of produ a Cha 11yiuy in Social Justice 21 . See also The Justice Gap, p.2, and 1 99:�). p . :J . , h rc ea Policy R es World (Lond on: Institu te fo r Public

82

Equality

2 2 . H e re the report seems ind ebted to the kind of analysis set out in J R o gers and W St reeck , "Productive Solidarities: Econ omic Str ategy a n d Left P o l i t ics", in 0 M i liband, (ed) (1994), See R r i7wrrl tin!J t h r /,rft, Ca m bridge: Pol ity Press. pp . 1 2 8-1 4 5 . also 0 F i n egold and 0 S o sk ice (1 9 8 8 ) , ''The Failure of Train ing i n Britai n : A n alysis and Prescriptio n", in Oxfo rd Review of vant Economic Policy 4 (3), pp . 2 1 -5 3 , and for more recen t rele (eds) ower Sn empirical and policy-ori en t ed work, A Booth and D ( 1 9 9 6) Acqui1·ino Skills, C ambridg e: Cambrid ge University Pres s. 23 . Since it is o n ly fair to in sist o n satisfaction of the recip rocity prin ciple if there are s u fficient opportunitie s fo r cit izen s to do so. it would arguably beco me u n fair to continue to affirm the principle were we unable to return to full employ ment ( i n an app ropriately m ode rnised sense) . The case fo r citizen's incom e wo ul d the n be correspo ndingly stronger . I therefore think the Co m missi on is right to hold out the possibility (on p . 263) that if labo ur market condi tio ns turn out to be worse than expected in fu ture . we sh oul d recon sider the case for citizen's i n co me . Note also that the mod est "par ticipa tion i ncom e" which the report reco mme nds as a sup �lemen t to social insurance benefits (pp.2 64-2 65) is n ot subJect to the reci procity objection prec isely bec ause it is cond i tion al, in the case of the able-bodied on some form of . prod uctive con tribu tio n , though not necessarily o n paid w ork . 24. A sim ilar su ggest · wn 1s to use the funds from in herita nce tax ati on gradu ally to build up a public portfolio of assets , or "com m uni ty · :und", the d ividen ds from which could then be used to fin ance tncreased spend in g in areas like ed ucatio n and t rai ni ng or healt hca re . See G H oltha m , "A comm unity fund could save so ci al d e mocracy" ' 'I'h e 1 nde pen den t, Apr i l 1 8 , 1 995 . ·

·

83

What Kind of Equality Should the Left

Pursue? 1 David Miller

The question of equality continues to cause heated controversy among politicians and i ntellectuals of the Left: witness the recent sharp exchange between Roy Hattersley and Gord o n B rown i n the pages of Th e Guardian. 2 Hatters ley , in his lately assumed role of defender of the Tawneyite socialist faith, argued for equality of outcome as the principle that a Labour government should use to JUdge every policy proposal; B rown, perhaps the leading i ntellectual architect of New Labour, claimed that equality of outcome was both

� nfair

and unrealisable, and that a Labour government s hould Instead commit itself to a maxi malist version of equality of

opportu nity. And indeed this is very o ften the form that the d ebate over equality takes. Should we be aiming to create a society i n which outcomes are equalised - i n which everyone gets a n equal share of resources, or income, or material benefits o f other kinds - or should we recognise that material equal ity is an im possible dream, and aim instead for a society i n which each person gets an eq ual opp ortunit y to strive for unequal advantages - more educatio n , better jobs, h igher incomes'?

I want to suggest in this essay that there is a third kind o f

equality that gets overlooked i n this debate, d espite the fact that it

has inspire d generations of d emocratic s o cialists and social democrats: this is social equality or equality of status, by which I mean the i d ea of a society in which people regard and treat one another as equals, and together form a single community without d ivisions of social class. This may appear to be a less tangible ideal either than Hattersley's equality o f outcome or Brown's equality of opp ortunity, b u t I s h a l l t r y to show in the course of the essay that it can guide our thinking a bout policy issues in a q uite d istinctive way. I go along with Brown when he says that material equality o f outcome is both unattainable and unjust, but I am concerned that a society guided solely by the principle of equality o f

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Equality

o pp o rtu n ity - e v en in t h e generous , life-long version that Brown

d efen d s - might still be o n e in which the gap between the successful

a n d t h e unsuccessfu l , t h e q u a l i fied a n d the unqualified, the rich and

the p o o r , was o f a size that created sharp class divisions, even

within a s i n g l e generati o n . We would then have a class-divided

merito cracy , better than a s oc i ety in which class position is largely

in herited, but s t i l l not a c o m munity in which each citizen has an

equal s tanding and there are no hierarchical barriers to friendshi p

and s o l idarity. I d o n 't, th erefore, regard social equality as a value that

replaces equality o f o p p o rtun i ty but as one that stands

alongside it to correct i ts elitist ten dencies.

In order to get to closer grips with the q uestion , I want to begin

with t h e work parti c u l a r

with

philosophical

of the the

basis

Commission

p r i n c i p l es

of the

of

on

Social Justice, and in

justice

Commission's

that

formed

the

Report. These were

summarised in the fol lowing four propositio ns:

all (l) The foun dation of a free society is the equ al worth of citize ns.

(2) Every one is entitled , as a ri ght of citizensh i p , to be abl e to

m eet thei r basi c nee ds. (3) T e right to self-respect and personal autono my dem an ds the Widest poss ible spread of opportunitie s . (4} N o t a l l inequalities a r e unjust, b u t unjust inequ aliti es should 'l be r edu ce d and w h ere possible ehmmated :

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. A noteworthy fea . . de ture of these four prmciples is that they mcl u . . n o co m mu m en t to e qua I'Ity p er se: unjust ineq ualit ies a r e

condemned , certamly . ' bu t as t h e fourt h principle makes plai n, th e . Commi ssion' s V . ew I was th · a t some .mequalities were just. m part icular th ose co rresp ond ·m g to . differences in des ert a n d ent.itlem ent. Thi s 0m .i . ssion provoke d a h eated attack by Jerry Co h en . the m article rep ro duced . m th"Is volum e t · . mking together the valu es of com munity and eq ua l I" ty ' he argu d e that thes e were the o nly vaI ues wh .1ch �the Left affir med as as a matter of princi ple and wh ich the Cen tre and Right reject a matter .of nPI ..,. .nC 1ple ".4 1f these valu es were a ban d o ned , he . claimed th e ' er

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WO"Id be noth . . . . mg distinctively soc1aI"1st remam mg t o dist inguish h :. '· ..;. . bour t e .... .Party from centrist . ·

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What Kind of Equality Should the Left Pursue?

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parties l ike the Liberal Democrats. The Co m m ission's report constituted just such an a bandonment, with its embrace of the market signalling the end of the trad itio nal socialist co m mitment to community , and i ts principl es of justice - particularly its defence

of inequalities o n grounds of d esert and entitlement -signall i ng the end of the quest for equality. Acco rding to Cohen, the principle of equality that social ists have embraced and should embrace "says that the amount of amen ity and burden in one perso n ' s life s hould

be roughl y co mp arable to that i n any oth er's".fi Socialists, i n other words , must believe i n material equality, whereas the Commission's repo rt advocates only the reduction and possible elimination of unjust inequal ities, in a context which makes it clear that just

ineq ualiti es are both conceptually and morally admissible. Al thou gh my thinking about social justice is closely in line with that cont ained in the Commissio n ' s report, I agree with Cohen that the re is somethi ng more to be said about equality that the

Co mmission does not say and that needs to be set alongside t h e four principles of social justice that head t h e R eport. B u t I do not think that Cohen's principle is the one that we should embrace, nor do I think that he is correct to say that equality as a principle is exclusively the property of socialists and the Left. Let me begin with a couple of remarks on this second question. It is far fro m evident that equality can be used as a litmus test to m ark socialism off from rival political ideologies such a s

co nse rvatism a n d li beralism. It i s true that conservativ es very often dis pa rage equality: they are the ones who write books with titles lik e Against Rq uality. 6 Neverth eless, these same conserv atives qu ickly make it clear that they are not agains t equali ty in all its for ms . The conse rvative rhetor ical strate gy is to declare in favou r of certain limited equali ties - equali ty before the law, equal ity of opp o rtu nity, both narro wly interpreted - and then �o d enoun ce �ys anythi ng beyo nd this as "level ling down � - th� e� uahty that s size the same m th at everyo ne s h ou ld have the same incom es, hve . this strate gy may be And ols. scho ical · ident h ou ses, b e ed uca ted l n picked up what have vatives conser effectJve , to t h e extent that once . hty, there may of equa iples s ound like the more appe aling princ · socialists should want to cling on t o . seem to b e no thl ng left that about co nte mpo r ary li berals, it is a well known fact ·

As for

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Equality

to l i b eral philosoph y that it has moved the p rinciple of equality sophy centr e stage. A recent authoritative t ext on political philo presents

a

range

of recent

l i b eral

thinkers

offering rival

as

be articul ations of a s hared und erlying concern that people should g treated as equal s . 7 The case of Ronald Dworkin is illumi natin has here. Dworkin writes as a critic of socialis m , yet his liberali sm s call in as its core princi p l e a version of egal itarianism that Dwork

the "equality of resources" . H Now a d m i ttedly this is not preci sely to s mend same principle of equality as the one that Cohen recom e Th his fel l o w socialists , but it appears to be its near neighb our. s" dispute b etween Cohen and Dworkin over "equali ty of reso urce of case vs. "equality of amenity and burd en" lo oks like a al philosophical fine-tuning . Something is clearly amiss if the soci democrat Dworki n can express h is central principle in terms of the value which Cohen claims is distinctively and uniq uely soci alis t .

So perhaps what distinguishes socialists from conse rvati ves an d liberals is not that they b elieve in equal ity while the othe rs don ' t , b u t that they give equality a higher priority, or have a bett er gra s p

of what it actua lly takes to impl ement a principle l ike equal ity of opportunity. This last is certainly true: both the Com miss ion 's Report and B rown ' s article in The Guardian refer red to abo ve. reveal a much more thoroughgoing commitme nt to eq uali sin g opportu nities th an anything a conservative might su pport. B ut th is is not the same as saying that there is a p rinciple - eq u ality - w h ic h unique ly s erves to s eparate socialists from thei r ideo logi ca l opponents .

So let me turn now to the principle of equality i tse l f. in someth ing like the version favour ed by Cohen It suffers fro m wh at . we might call the Two Bears proble m: the porrid g e is eit h e r ro o hot or too cold. The egalitar ian begins with a principle that is very stron g and has radic al impli catio ns: for insta nce that evervo ne shou ld en'J oy the same I eve 1 o f resources unless they have sp eCi a I . ps whic h need s or han dica entitle them t o ex tra ones. A cnuc · · t h en . ts out that to purs ue pom such a principle consis mea n. 1 ld tent y wou amo ng othe r thing s, rejec ting the syste m of matena · · 1 mcenuves tha t · make s a mark et econo my possible· forbid d'm g vo 1untary gifts th at disrupt ed equahty , for mst ance buying Gra ndm a a once-m-a- l '1feu me . Mediterranean cruise; p referring equal poveny to unequa 1 affluence ; .

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and so on. Faced with this barrage of criticism s . our ega l i t a r i a n then conducts a strategic retreat w h ich lo oks increasi ngly l i k e a

rout. Two avenues of retreat are especi ally popular. One consists in saying that equality should be treated only as a baseline from which improv ements can be made provided everybody benefits .

This lead n aturally to John Rawls' d i fference princi ple, which says that ineq ualities should be arranged to maximise the share of advan tages enjoyed by the l east well-off.9 But this n o w makes t h e

degre e o f equality o r i nequal ity that counts as j u s t d epend e ntirely on empir ical claims about the way in w h ich markets o p erate, about the size of the inc entives that are needed to make entrepreneurial ty pes maxi mally productiv e, and so o n . If the T hatcherite claim that

d eregulating the market and privatising the welfare state would in th e l o ng run maxim ise the economic prospects of the worst-off coul d be s h o w n to be true, then these p o l i cies would be chosen by th e R awlsi an differen ce principle. The porridge has gone from bein g too hot to being decide dly ch i l l y . The other avenue of retreat consists i n saying that material

equality is what justice requires , but that this value has to be traded

off against considerations of efficiency, personal liberty and the like. Ec ono mic i n centives, for instance, can n ever be just, but they may be justified on the grounds that they improve productivity and so

raise the average standard of living. Now i n general there is nothing obj ecti onabl e in the i d ea that sometimes we have to sacrifice justice

fo r the sak e of other values . Only a fanatic takes the s logan "Let Justi ce be done though the Heavens fall" literally. But the picture th at supp o rts this is one of justice governing most o f o ur

t ran sa cti on s and practices from day to day, but then having to be s et asid e i n certain extreme circums tances. Thus one of our basic p ri nc iples is that no o n e should be impriso ned withou t a fair trial, an d we h ope and expec t that this shoul d be adher ed to strictl y in

all no r mal cases ; but if we are realis ts we shoul d admit that there er n men t are conceivable circu msta nces in which some thing like in t

� eople are held is n ecess a ry to prote ct civil orde r. This is unjus t -

. mnoc ence - but ' th 0ut a prop er chan ce to prove thetr . be polit ical viole n ce �hat w a l l if t he alternative really is going to .JUstice must say that · .....; ms dead on the streets ' then we

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10

capt i V I ty ·

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WI

Ieave ats va.... general welfare of society. yield. temporarily, to the ·

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H owever the p icture p ainted by our retreating egalitarian is not like t hat. He wants to say that justice d emands equality of material treatment, but that for reasons of expediency, justice has to be set asi d e , systematically and for as far ahead as we can see, to allow incentives to op erate, v o luntary exchange and gift-giving to occur, a n d so fo rth . Wearing his realist's hat, the egalitarian comes to acquiesce in a s ocial system that routinely flouts justice as he sees i t , so that justice becom es little more than a utopian aspiration, something we might aspire to if citizens could transform their day­ to-day motivatio ns from self-interest i nto

a

wish to serve their

fellows. But this surely won 't d o . Justice must be something we take seriously here and n o w . Once again the porridge has suddenly switched from hot to co l d . equa lity So far I have sugge sted a) that it is not so obviou s that thei r is the value that uniquely disti nguish es socialis ts from kin d of opponents; and b) that if we take materia l equalit y as the tha t its equality which might play this d i stingu ishing role, we fi nd hat is advocates tend to retreat when challenge d to a position t w ls' barely egalitarian at all (and hence, as in the case of Ra t wan now difference principle, plainly not distinctively socia list) . I ty uali to give two more d irect reasons fo r abandoning mate rial eq as the guiding id eal of socialism, one practical, the other prin cip led . For simplicity ' s sake I shall take equ ality of i ncomes as the ideal that is up for discussio n , the qualifications to this that egalitarians like Cohen would wish to make not b eing german e to the prese nt argume nt . The practical objection is simply that income ineq ualit i es in mar et economies cannot be reduced beyond a certain poi nt, an d that m most count r·Ies th e present trend appears to be movmg slo w I '! . m the direct ion of grea ter mequa 1· Ity. 1 0 It ·I S very tempting to bla m e . · the latter on the poli Cies o f ng · h t-wmg governments and the se have . certam lv contrib uted but th ere are also . facto rs w h1ch underlymg · . have to do with the tech mea · 1 reqmrem en ts of employmen t, th e cha ngm g pattern of work"mg l 1" fe and so forth. The i ncr easing d.tspersa1 of mcome s is pan) y a matter of the wi d en ing gap betw een h"Ig hi y qua l"ti I le d profession als and man agers at one end an d . unsktiled workers at the other' but also pan1Y a matter of great er . . . . . sk11l groups, as a result 0f more d JspcrsiO n wtthm part-ti. me work,

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more freelance work, et cetera. Now it is possible to combat this trend to some degree, by one or both of two routes. The older route is progressive taxation plus redistribution in favour of low income groups. The arguments here have been well rehearsed , and I think it would now be generally agreed that there are d efinite limits to the equalising potential of this classic social-democratic approach. The newer route, rightly favoured in my view in the Commissio n ' s Report, involves getting people into t h e market from a more equal starting point, by increasing the skills l evel o f the less skilled , by making it easier to acquire working capital , and so forth. This is an excellent approach, but it will probably work m o re effectively as an anti-poverty device, preventing people from dropping out of the bottom of the labour market, than as a d evice for reducing inequality between top and bottom. One reason is that as you approach the top, relative ability counts for progressively more. If you make singing lessons freely available, everyone's voice may improve, but since not everyone can be Pavarotti or k . d . lang, there may not be much effect o n the earnings o f these favoured few . 1 1 I do not mean to imply that we should give up on any attempt to make (pri mary or secondary) i ncomes more equal. But I think we should be realistic about the obstacles to doing so, and also clearer - this is the main burden of my paper - about why income in equali ty con cerns u s . It is not because equality of i ncomes is a requirement of justice . The reas o n for this is simply - h ere I side with Bernard William s , the main philosophi cal inspiratio n behind the Com mission ' s report, against Cohen - that some i ncome

inequal ities are dese rved. If one puts the point i n a suffic iently abstra ct way, it might s �em that there is no dispute about this. B oth sides of the arg� � ent mlght _ agree on something like the fol lowin g: incom e inequ ahue s are JUSt o nly when peop le are resp onsib le for the beha viou r that �� oduc es ues, but them. Thu s if John and Bill have the same job opportum k half wor to es ecid d J o h n d ec1" d es to work a full wee k whi le Bill en, gard rose is h g time and spen d the rest of the week culti vatin ual. be uneq ld inco mes shou everyone agrees th a t 1" t 1· s fair that their side want s to expan d the · . one se becau s The d1sa greement anse . 1 " ty in such a way that people can be held . notw n of responsl" b"l1 talent s, whlle the effectS of deploying their native 1or respons1' ble r

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the other wants to co ntract it so that only clear-cut choices, like B i l l ' s , will count as grounds for having a less-than-equal income . Let us ca ll the second view the voluntary control interpretation of d esert. It says that people can only d eserve rewards and other benefits on the basis of features of their conduct which are directly under their co ntrol, such as their choices and efforts. In particular natural talents are excluded as a basis fo r d esert: you cannot deserve greater inco m e if your achievements d epend on native intelligence or other endo wments which are not themselves the product of voluntary effo rt or choice . One p roblem with this second view is to say what is going to count as a genui n e choice. Make Bill into Belinda, make the choice into one between full-ti me work and part-time work plus childcare, and the p roblem comes m o re clearly into view. A second pro blem, which I shall focus upon here, is that any ach ievement fo r which we might want to hold so meone responsible

is going to have background con ditions for which they are 1101

respo nsible. John may choose to w o rk at a certain job, but h e cannot take credit for the fact that he is living in a society which has the technica l resources to make a j o b of that kind avai lab le ­ say a society i n which i t i s possible to work as a co mp uter p rogrammer . So at the very least, the responsibility condi tio n mu st be rewritten, fol lowing a suggestion of George Sher's, to say that people cannot d eserve benefits on the basis of features for which they are not responsible and which are not possessed equ ally by ever yo ne 1 2 Th e pomt · a b out natural tal ents is not just that t h ey a re cont ingen cies for w h 'Ic h t h eu · possessor 1s not respo ns ible , b ur t h ar they are distri bute d unequ a I I y between d ifferent peop le . But now let us press a 1 Itt · 1 e h arder on the .Idea that peo ple on I � . dese rve m the m ora 11Y re 1 evant sense on the basis of those as pec ts . o f th etr perf orm anc e that are under their voluntary cont ro l , sue h as effort. C onst der a performa nce which depends on natural ta len t such as c 1.1m b'mg Everest or 1 P aymg a Beeth oven concerto at co nce rt level In cases l'k l e t h'ts the p erformer mu st a) have chos en a nd worked to turn a natural abil i tY l"k 1 e manua l dexterity int o a . 1 develo ped talent l'tke mustca sktll · b) h ave dect. ded to d eplo y the talent so as to pro d uce the peJ . uormance - t o spen d h'Is even mg . playmg a concerto rather th an watchm . ghtelevtsto n at h ome. These choices and exertions are presum ably w at someone who adheres ·

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to the voluntary control idea would want to count as genuine d esert bases . But now observe that these voluntary acts take place against the backgro und of unchosen factors: on the o ne hand t h e performer's native talents , o n the other his tastes and preference s

(insofar as these are not themselv es subject to choice) . The person who decides that she wants to become a mountain eer d o es so o n the basis o f what she knows about h er physi cal capacitie s, a n d also on the basis of her liking for being out in the open air. Of course tastes and preferen ces can to some extent be cultivate d; but they are usually cultivated o n the basis o f other existing tastes and cap acities . 1 :3 My point is that a greater o r lesser element of contingency enters even i nto those elements of performance that the narrow i nterpretation of d esert would want to allow in as pos sible bases . If we say that the concert pianist d eserves applause, not for his p erfo rmance as such, s ince this depends in part on his natural talen ts, but for what is left over when the effect of natural

talent is remo ved - the choice and effort involved in raising himself to this level - then we immediately have to recognise that his making those choi ces and efforts itself depends o n contingencies which are not under his contro l . He did not choose to be born dextrous and with a good musical ear. Other people have not b een co nfro nted with the same range of options as this person. We the refore stand at a parting of the ways . I f we try to take seriou sly the idea that p eople can only deserve things when they are fully responsible for what they achieve - in the sense that the ou tco m e was not affected by contingen c ies which impinge unequally o n different people - we find that the scope of desert s h rin ks to vanishing point. We can never say, in a real case, that so meone d eserves reward s or benefits for what they have done, because it is alway s reason able to assum e that their p e�forma nce was affected by factor s for which they were not respo nsible . If on the other hand we want to retain the idea of deser t , then we need to replace the stron g respo nsibi lity cond itio � I have been mg h nes: peopl e cons1' d ermg so far by something along the follow when they intende d the are res p o n s1' b l e fo r a perfo rmance o me that it did, and when the p erfo rma nce to have the o u tc kind of way o n quahues and right the in perfo rman ce d ePends . . " cs t hat are integral to the performer , mcludmg her tastes · t1 ch aractens .

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a n d natural abilities. This exclu d es cases in which people bring about results inadvertently, or as some kind of fluke, or in which the outcom e of their actions depends upon external conditions that affect d i fferent people d i fferently, but leaves in as suitable bases for desert instances like the co ncert p er formance which combine effort and choice with natural talent and p reference. y hous e The upsho t of this argum ent is that there is no half-wa t that between desert and radica l egal itarian ism. If you accep t levels inequa l i t i es are just when p eo p le d eserve to enjoy d i fferen ds on of benefit , then this m ust include cases where d esert depen the de natural talents . If, on the o th er hand, you want to exclu different effects of natural talents by sayi ng that people o nly d eserve achi eve , treatment when they are fully respons ible for what they wil l then you must e nd up by rec o m m ending s trict equali ty. There th e always be some externa l differen tiating factor to accou nt for ed mpt different efforts and choices that p eople mak e . I have not atte to show that this second view is i nh erently unt enabl e, but few people will, I bel ieve, be happy with a view that turns its back so completely on notions of res ponsibil ity and free agency . This concludes my case against taking material equality as the . kmd of equality that the Left should pursue . I have argued that there are serious practical l i mits to the pursuit of equality of this kind in m �rk �t econo mies, and also that inequal ities may be justified in prmct ple by d ifferences in peoples' deserts. But I do not w ant t o · con clud e tha t we must simply · fall back on equality of opp ortunitY as our goal, even in the strong form favoured by Gord on B ro wn . and the Comm·ISston. · S o 1 et me now make the case for social equalit y . . as a d'ISt�· nctiVe · prmctp le of the L eft, a n i d eal that ne ith er H C onserv attves n or L 1' bera1 s h ave shown any inclination to sup po rt. . Let me try to elUCI· d ate further what I mean by s ocia l equ ality or eq ua l'' t Y oJ ,1' sta t u s E q u a rtty of status o btains in a society wh en each member regards hi m- or h erself as fundamentally the equal of ·

all the others ' and . S r . I ega rded bY the other s as fundamentally thei r equal. It invo lves , th en . the recip ' rocal recognition of equ al standin g. This does not mean that membe rs regard o n e o ther as having equal st and i ng in every spher e of act1v1· ty .m which t hey m ay engage: some will be regarded ,� better footballe rs than others, some as better architects and ' so ua and s t 0 Orth. But these specific ·

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judgements will not crystallise into an overall social ranking such that we can assign people places in a hierarchy of social standing . The contrast here is with a ranked so ciety in which t here i s consensus about where people stand in a m o r e or less sharply defined system of social classes. People think of themseh· es as belongi ng to one or other of these classes, and interact with other individ uals on the basis of norms and expectati ons governing inter­

and intra-class relation s. Typically there will be titles , special forms of address, conventio nal m o d es of d isplaying d eference and so forth . Social ranking is clearly a matter of d egree, and a soci ety of equal statu s stands at the end of a s pectrum the other end of which is occu pied by a caste system in which inequalities of rank are fix e d , pervas ive and publicly affirmed. 1 fi The appeal o f a n egalitarian society , the reason why social equality is widely valued, is that it aspires to be a society in which people deal with one another si mply as individual s , taking account only of personal capacities, needs, achi evements , etc without the blocking effect of status d ifferences. I do not claim that this is a universally valued ideal. We can understand, if not sympathise with, aristocratic disda in for the easy familiarity between people i mplied by it. Nevertheless it seems t o be an ideal that is wid ely endorsed in societies which are open and socially mobile, but still marked by class differen ces. The values at stake here can perhaps best be suggested by the respo nses invoked in a survey sample by the question "What sort of chang es in social class in America would you l ike to see in the future, and why those'?" Among those who favoured moving towards a classl ess society, the following reactions were typical : . So cial class as a way of tre a t i n g others shoul d b e eradi cated People should be t reated equally.

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no t by h is j b t ll ink e v eryon e shoul d be judge d as a perso n, . zs the m a m way that or how much m oney he has. Judging

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t h i ng wrong now. will get alon g as one the t i me toill come when every one reed, and colour, and all these class roithout reg a rd for race, c 16 . maten.a l we ll-b ewg. and e incom extraneous things like

1 hope

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Each o f these reactions appears to pick up a different aspect of the ideal of an egalitarian so ciety in which people's behaviour towards o n e another is not co n ditioned by differences of rank, in which specific inequalities - in income, say - do not crystallise into judgements o f o verall personal worth, and in which barriers of class do not stand in the way o f mutual understanding and sympathy. Social equal ity is n o t a principle of distributive justice. It does n o t tell us anything directly about how soci al institutions should assign benefits and burdens to i n dividuals . It describes the overall character of a society, and it d irects our attention to the way in which the members understand their relationship to one another. It does have implications for distributive justice, but only because the way in w hich we d istribute goods and resources almost inevitably effects the w ay in which we regard one another. Certain kinds of material inequality may destroy social equality - but that not

is something that h as to be es tablished empirical l y , d emonstrated as a matter of conceptual necessity.

So what practical implications do follow from the ideal of social equality I have sketched '? How can it gui de our political thinking? I want to suggest three d i rections of advance.

The first is equal citizenship in a fairly strong sense. This

corresponds to the first principle in the Commissio n's Rep ort, but the idea would benefit from being spelt out more exp lic itly . It means first of all that every citizen should enjoy a set o f rig hts that go beyond civil and political rights to embrace the s ocial rights that mak e citiz ensh ip a re a1 poss1·b·1· en 1 Ity: nobody can be an equa 1 Citiz . wh ile slee pin g i n a car ment. ank d board box on the Thames emb . . But Citiz ens hip s h ou ld a 1 so be an active status , in that pe ople . shoul d have the exp . enen ce of Interacting with one another o n a n . equaI footing i n P b lIc � " settmgs. In particular they sho uld be i nvolved m th e makmg of . r I po Itica decisio ns : it is of course not ' . easy to trans 1ate thIs . . Ideal i nto practice m a large and co mplex . society but 1 am convm . . ced that cunenship cannot serve as a . foundation for socia 1 equah. ty unl ess It goes beyond the equal enjoy ment of rights to be . . . come an acti. ve roI e. Fmally .Impo here , It IS rtant that there should b e public spac m wh '1c h peop I e es . congregate wi th out d istinction 1t . . as o ne of the more alarmm g tendencie s (from the point of view of the SOcial ega li tari an) in ·

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present-day society that schools, hospitals , even shopping precin cts . are in danger of becoming socially segregate d , so that people no longer rub shoulders with one another in places that emphasise

their comm onality (everyone gets ill, everyone needs education , and so forth) . In thinking about these questions we tend to fo cus on , the inju stice that is perpetrate d by private medicine or private education, but we should not forget that social equality is also put at stak e when people are able to cocoon themselves in private hosp itals or schools .

The second direction in which social equality should point us is towards what Michael Walzer has cal led "complex equality" . 1 7 This con cerns the extent to which various types of social goods all accru e to the sam e people, or on the other hand are d istributed in different, non-cumulati ve ways . Walzer attaches the label "complex equality" to a societ y in which many d ifferent go ods - income, power, edu catio n , recognition, et cetera - are allocated by their o wn criteria of distribut ion in such a way that having more of good X

gives a person no particular advantage i n the competition for good Y. Assuming that the same person does not win out in all the spheres of d istributio n , such pluralism is likely to contribute to equality of status: if A outranks B in some spheres but B outranks A in others, this will make it d ifficult if not impossible to arrive at a con soli dated ranking that would allow A and B to be assigned to sep arat e cl asses. 1 B What follows from this practically i s that w e should try to pres erv e the indepen dence of the various spheres , attempting as far as p ossi ble to p revent people from convertin g the advantag es they gai n in one sphere m oney, say - into advant ages in anothe r edu cation or political po wer . We should also stop spheres from Si· mp I y collapsmg mto o n e anoth er, as would happe n for instan ce, if health care were to becom e simpl y anoth er comm odity whos e r. M o re distribution d e pen d e d o n each perso n's purch asing powe can res which e h p s d positive 1 y, govern men ts can act to expan . . . ies In societ e pre-em ment . counteract th ose th a t threat en to becom ex equali ty comes from l .1 k e our own, the most likely threat to compl . e the o ther s p h eres m dominat may hich w t h e sp here o f money . ons of so c1a l status . Th1 s can be o ffset to term s o f people's percepti . er the s y s tem of extent by fosterin g rival spheres . Constd _

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variou s forms p u b l i c h o n o urs . U n d er comp lex equali ty there will be e, and can of pu b l i c recog n i t i o n o f achi eveme nts that stand alongsid of money serve to o ffset, achi eveme nts in spheres such as those perform ed a n d p o we r . Hon ours are d istrib uted to peop le who have others who se a cts of publi c servic e, to artists a n d scient ists, and to n tangib le contributi o n w ou l d perhaps not otherwise be give ive, it can reco g n i t i o n . This d istribu tion can be more or less extens nderly ing b e d o n e in a l o w-key or high-k ey way, and so forth. The u ins titutio nal d istributive princi p le is not up for negoti atio n, but its h money expression is (within l i m its) . So in a socie ty in whic lity can be threat ens to become a pre-em i n ent good, complex equa by mak ing fortified by bo osting the sphere o f recogniti on, especially d o not sure that the avenues o f recognit ion are open to those who itable stand high in the other sphere s . (If h onours are given for char mun ity activity, they should go to those who are activ e in com large service, say, not to those w h o are simply willing to write 19 cheq ues . ) I n a similar way, as Walzer him self has poin ted out, al t h e extent o f t h e spheres o f education and welfare reflect s poli tic d ne hoices. The distributive criteria for these goods are d ete rmi �

mt rnally to each s p h ere, but the size and shape of the budget, : which establishes h o w m u ch of the good there is to d istribute in the first place , is decid ed by the state . I f a str o n g form of equal citizenship could b e esta b l i shed, and . t0 Ineq uali ties i n th e d"Istn" · butwn of specific goods were al 1 o wed ·

offset o ne anoth er m · t h e manner envisaged by Walz er, wo uld . . social ega litanans · need to worry any fu rther about eco no m ic . . meq uaht y? Wo u ld b " g . 1 mcome d i fferences matter ag ains t the b ackg roun d of eq ua 1 . .In . · · nship Citize and compensating ineq u alit ies ot h er goo d s? I th m . k th at they still wou l d . Where inco me d i fferen ces are ve ry 1 . . arge, th Is Will al most inevitably creat e a . segr egat ed so ciety . .m w h i c h peop 1e hve • very different sty les of hfe and associate so c1a . . 1 Iy aim os t entu ely with those on sim ila r inc om es. The comP 1ex equality . hard . . ap pro ac h to social IS . equality to sus tain in the £ace of an m com d " b . e J stn uti o n such as the one that now exists in Brit ain . So we ha . . ve to tackle th e Issue . . "b of mcom e d 1stn utw n, but on the b . asas of r educi °8 d t·u . u erentials to a size that IS not destructive of socaa . 1 equality rath er than on the basis of attempting to reduce th em to zern.

What Kind of Equality Should the Left Pursue?

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At this point my argument rests on a kind of wager whose characte r I should spell out explicitly. The wager is this: if we can establish what scale of economic i nequalitie s people d eserv e . bv

virtue of their efforts, skill s , talents, the responsibil ities they bear and so forth, the magnitude s in question are not so great as to be destructive of social equality. It would be silly to try to put precise

figures on this, but purely as a t hought experime nt, imagine a society in which eco nomic enterpris es paid their member incomes s whose top-to-b ottom different ial was no greater than four to o n e . I f pay were profit related , this might mean a d ifferential of twice that amo unt between the top manage r of a success ful compan y a n d an unsk illed worker in a less success ful o n e . Could a society whose top inco me was £80 ,000 and whose botto m income was £ 1 0 , 0 00 be socially egalitar ian i n the sense I have been eluci dating? I thin k that it could , i n circums tances of equal citizens hip and Walzeri a n com plex equali ty, bearing in mind that t h e different ial b etween the two toke n individ uals will not in practice be a rigid o ne, but w ill vary over the course of their lives and according to the relative fortunes of their enterpri ses. Now if we ask people to say what they rega rd as fair inc ome differential s for people doing jobs of vario u s kinds, they will volunteer figures very much of that order. So the wager may turn out to be a reaso nable one. Rather than havin g to cho os e betw een d esert and equality, as it is often suggested we must, we could aim for a soci ety in which people's different deserts were properly recognised , but there was still overall social equality, or what I have been calling equality of status. But how to get the d ifferentials down to roughly the s i:r.e sugges ted in the previous paragraph? The Report's proposa ls go so me way in the right direction, but I beli eve that we h av e . ev en tually to bite the bullet and say that we won't get a soc ia Il y . j ust or an equal society withou t tackling the system of o�ners h iP . or and co ntrol that charac terises the modern capitarISt fi1 rm ves . . u execu top to d · Pa·1 corp oratio n . The offens ively mflated sa1 anes less th e of which we have recently ha d a I arge spate are more or er 1 0 pow aking in evitable resul t of th e co nc entrati o n °f decision-m thei r t o y responsi'bl e board s of directors w h0 are nominall rket ma of loyees. S orne f:orm shareholde rs but not to their emp the to s only way to reduce differential so cialism is, I believe, the •

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0 r e si ze that p e o ple genera lly believe to be fair.2 Since ma k t regarded s o cialis m , o nce thought to be a rather tim i d i dea, is now remai ns o by many o n the Left as dangero usly radical, equality to defe nd is a rad i cal i d ea . But at l east the equal ity that I 've tried to r ea s the e s o m ew here o n the m a p of p o litical possib ili ties, wh ua l ity of equality I ' v e been criti cising - materi al equality, eq ory sense resou rces - is so far o ff i t as t o be utopia n in the deroga t .

Endnotes

1.

In writing this paper I have drawn freely on th r ee longer pieces of work: "Equal i ty and Market Social ism ''in P K B a rdhan and l Roemer (eds . ) (1 993) Ma rket So cia lism : t h r Currrut Orhate. New York : Oxford U n iversi ty Press; ··c o m p le x Equality "in D �\il ll'r and M W alzer (eds . ) (1 995) Pl u ra l ism , fustirr a u d FrJittllity. Oxford: C l arendon Press; "Two Ch eers fo r Meritocracy". fouruul of Political Ph ilo sop hy (fo r t hco m in g ) R Hattersley "Balance o f Power , Th e Gu m·dimt, July 25 1 9 96. P · 1 5 ; G B row n , "In t h e R eal Wo rld", Thr Gu a rdia u , A ugus t 2 1 99 6 . p. 1 3. 'l'he Just ice Gap , Lond o n : IPPR (1 993) , p . 1 6: and Soc ia l Just ice: Strate gic.-; fo r Nat io11 a l Renewal, London : Vi ntage (1 9 9+). P · 1 8 · GA Cohen "Back t o S ocialist B asics", Nrw I.rft Rr11 irw. 207 (Sep t/O ct 1 994 ), p. 6. .

2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

"

ibid, p.

11. Eg W Let w i n (ed) (1 983) A g a i11 s t W Kymlicka (1 990) c

London : M a c m i l lan .

f;q u a lity,

n! : -OIItrmpo m nJ Politiral Jlhilosop l ·uJ . Oxfo ·

C) aren d o n P ress.

. (1 9 89) ME quahty of Re sources". Ph ilo soph y a n d Pub lrc Affa irs 10 2 83-345 F O w orkm or ' s oppos 11 .10n to son. a 1 .tsm s l L R Dw ork10, (1 . 991 ) MCon front mg the end of the socia list era . Ec:onomy and Soc:tct y, 20 3 1 9 · of socialism "in the same . • 4 - , a nd my reply "The rele\'ann assue pp. 35 0-62 . 9. o o J R awls (1971) A Tlre . if lustrce, Cambri dge. Mass : Han a rd U m_ versity Press, · . c:h. 2.'71 10. I rely here on A B Add the United �. Distribu tion i n Europe and R Dworkin '

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What Kind of Equality Should the Left Pursue?

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1 1 . This argument has been spelt out at greater length in M. Kaus (1 992) The End of Equality , New York : B asic B ooks, as part o f a more general argument for "Civic Liberal ism" as against "Money Liberalism". Although some of the problems and s o lutions canvassed in the book are distinctively American, I believe it deserves to be more widely discussed outside the US. The kind of equality that Kaus wants to defend is similar to that d efended in the present paper. Kaus goes on to argue, however, t h at reducing inequalities in income and wealth is essentially irrelevant to the pursuit of social equality, and here I part comp any with h i m , fo r reasons to be given later. 1 2. See G Sher (1 987) Oegert, Princeton: Princeton Uni vers ity Press , ch . 2.

1+.

15.

1 6.

17.

18.

19. 20.

On this point see AT "Talent Pooling" in J R Pennock and J W Chap man (eds .) ( 1 9 8 1 ) Nomos 23 : Human Rights, New York : New York Univ ersit y Pres s. It

is true that John Major h as o ccasionally expressed his support for "the classless society" but this turns out on closer inspecti o n t o mea n simply a meritocracy, i e a society in which y o u r social positi on depends o n your achievements and not your i nherited stat us. As Ka us remi nds us, one of the best evocations of what a society tha t had ach ieved social equality might look l ike can be found in Orw ell's description of revolutionary Barcelona i n Homage to Cat alo nia.

Quoted in R P Colema n and L Rainwa ter (1 9 79) S o cia l Standing in Ame rica , L ondon: Routledge and Kegan Paul, PP · 299-3 00. erts on . M Wal1.er (1983) Spheres of Just ice, Oxford : Mar tin Rob For a much fuller defenc e of Walze r's argum ent here, see my paper "Complex equality". Dem ocra tic State " M Wal zer ( 1 993) "Exc lusio n, Inju stice , and the

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40, pp. 63-4. . . 1. nd and S Estn n For d is cuss i on o f market socta tsm, see J Le Gra �� : Cla ren don Press. and (ed s) (1 989 ) Market Socialism, Oxford n C mu ty . in Market, Sta te, and own more elaborate defence aren o n rket sodali.m, Oxford: lhC'o relical foamdatioru of Ma Press, (1989). .

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What has Socialism

Sexual Equality?1 Anne Phillips

to do with

What has socialis m t o d o with sexual equality'? A t the most general level, that equality is central to socialism, and that equality i n cludes equal ity betw een women and men. But the m eaning of equality has been widel y contested, and this level o f general ity does not take us very far. Karl Marx was always rather s niffy about empty claims to equality , and his preferr ed objective - "fro m each acco rdi ng to his a ility, to each accordi ng to his needs" - seems entirely compatible w nh a divis ion of labour that allocates different respo n sibilities to women and men. Later socialists have been m o re willing make equa lity a core value , but they have d i sagreed over the appropriate balance betw een equality o f oppo rtunity and equality o f outcomes , and th ey have varied widely in their understanding o f what it i s th at has t o b e equalised . T h e idea that domestic work, for example, shou ld be d istrib uted equally between women and men, was a rel ativ ely late d evelo pment even i n feminist circles : as Ellen DuBois has not ed in her d i scussion o f nineteenth century suffragists, '"sh ari ng h ousework' may be a more uniquely twentieth-cen tu ry fe minis t demand than ' smashing monogamy '". 2 Equalising either housework or childcare certainly d i d n o t figure large in nineteenth century socialist debate . The so-called utopian socialists tended to favour co-operative arrangements for d omestic work or bringing up children . But this derived from their critique of the priv atised (self-interested) family, rather than any p reoc cup ation with redistributing work between women and men.:l Later in the century , Marxists tended to regard wome n ' s confinement t o the domestic sphere a s the key factor in their su bordination to men, and looked to the ful ler participation o f women in s ocialised production a s the means to their emancipation. In Engels' o ver o ptimis tic extrapolation from the em ployment of women in the textile i � d ustr y , this proc� ss wa . already well under way; in August Bebel s Women and Socwltsm,

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the emancipation t hrough w o rk had to be combined with a program m e for socialising domestic labour. Instead of each woman being c o n d e m n ed to her own private oven and sink, t here would be central kitchens a n d publ ic lau ndries, centralised heating arrangements a n d centralised cleaning services. That the cooks and the cleaners might co ntinue to be women was not, at this stage. consid ered an i ssue. was that The alternati ve argum ent from the ninetee nth centu ry deliver a genuinel y unconfi n ed free market should be enough to ued in s exual equality . This , largely, is what John Stuart Mill arg ed the his essay o n Th e Subject i on of Wo m en, 5 wh ere he ide ntifi earl ier subjecti o n o f women as the main survivi ng remnant of an ncip le social order, a n d increasingly at o d ds w ith the defini n g pri on etiti o f m odern society. H e took this to be the notion that comp li fe: and not birth should b e what d ictates a person ' s position in nts that instead o f our l i fe-chance s being d etermined by the accide ded o f b irth, what we d o o r beco m e should be a matter that is deci by free comp etition . "Nobody", as Mill put it, "thinks it necess ary to make a law that only a strong-armed man shall be a bla cks m ith. F ree dom and competiti o n suffice to make blacksm iths stron g arm ed men, because the weak-armed can earn more by engagi n g in occupatio ns for which they are m ore fit."6 What, the n. was add ed b y the plethora o f nineteenth century legislation tha t p roh ibi t ed wom e n from even entering the competitive arena '? If the pri n cip le ? f freed o m and competition is true, h e a rgue d , "we ough t to a ct as a(I If w e believed it an d not to ordain that to be born a girl mste of a boy, any m o re than to or a be born black instea d of whit e. . com mo ner ins tead o f 5 n erso p the a nobleman, shall d ecide . . posi tiO n thro ugh all l'1 fe - s h all re o m the interdict people from all . . eI eva ted soc ial P 0 Sit lons, and from all except a few resp ectab l e . ·

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As is appare nt from . other some of his w ritings, M i l l was not an unambiguous supporter of . . free competition u ch . He was also ver y m taken with the case f . or c o-operauve ownership, and he symp ath ised with many of the 5 . 1. oc•a 1St argument5 0 f h'IS contemporaries. As fa r as sexual equ al ity wa s co ncerne d ho Wever, he did seem to t hmk an unconfined free �· ---t. -a�t. - uncon n fi ed that .ts, by legislatio n that . d 1ctated dtfferential ttea� · for wo ·�·� m en and men - should be •

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What has Socialism to do with Sexual Equality?

enough to del iver the desired result. Mi ll neither anticipated nor desi red a world in which men and wo men would take o n the same range of work or responsibi l ities; h e d id not expect men to take an

equal share of do mestic work or childcare; and in co mmon with many econom ists of his time (and later) , he bel ieved that too great an influx of women i nto the labour market would drag d o wn wage

levels and make everyone substantial ly worse off. What mattered was that wome n should be educated and enabled to support themselves, freed from the l egal pro hibitions that li mited their education al and job oppo rtu nities, and released from the i nequities in marria ge law that made marriage a relationship between master and slave . But o nce marriage a n d motherhoo d had been tran sfor med i n to a genuinely free choice an d consensual

arra ngem ent, most women would surely opt gladly fo r their con ven tional role . If we take these as exemplars of the more sexual ly egalitarian win gs of the socialist and li beral trad itions, it is evident that both trad itio ns can generat e a commitment to sexual equality. Whatever th e historical errors or theoretical failings in Engels' Origin of the

Fam ily, Priv ate Property and the State, B no one reading his analysis of male domi natio n and female subjugation can doubt the im portance h e attached to achieving equality between women and men . And while the popularity of Bebel 's Women and Socialism ow ed m ore to its much-neede d vision of the future socialist society

th an its speci fic arguments on women , the book did go through more than 50 editions by the time of his death in 1 9 1 3 to become one of the most widely read texts in the German socialis t movemen t. M i l l ' s writin gs o n sexual equali ty attract ed less co nte mporary attent ion that his other works on po litical theory or political econo my, but his consis tent backin g for most of the centra l cam paigns of ninet eenth centu ry femin ism helpe d secure a �lose _ _ er rela tionship betwe en libera lism and first wave f� m1ms m . Ne1th g or a stron d Itself prove has the socia list nor the libera l tradi tion both can make some co nsistent suppo rter of sexua l equal ity; but claim to bein g its Mnat ural hom e".. . . earhe r peno d , for cla1m mg a If there is any basis. from thts it lies in the social ist critiqu e of s p ecial affinity with socialism, socialists to the peculiar alerted this and the way ·

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con straints o f the d o m estic sphere. Liberals were far more likely to d e fend private spaces agai nst public regulation, and much less likely to regard t h e h ou seh o l d as a p lace of confinement. Even allowing fo r Mill's strong condemnation o f marital slavery , this made them m o re incli n ed to accept some version of "separate spheres". Socialists, by contrast, tended to d istrust privacy as inherently individualistic a n d limiting, and in their celebration of collective activity a n d socialised pr oduction, they were considerably more d isparaging o f d om estic life. For many, this simply spilled over into a d isdain for women . For the m inority, however, who bothered to the so-called "Wo man Question", it generated more consistent supp ort fo r women 's entry into the labour market than

address

yet figured in the liberal tradition, as well as more imaginative proposals for transforming the cond itions under which domestic wo rk was carried out. The d i fference between the two traditions has sometimes been theorised as a d ifference between pursuing equality of opp ortunities and achieving equality of out comes: li beralism typically focusing on removing the legal constraints to free up equality of opportunities; socialism typically addressing the structural cond itions that are necessary to substantial equality Y But

in its origins, at least, the d i fference stems as much from the liberal defence of private spaces and the socialist critique of private confi nement . Though the latter o ffered a basis for allying fem ini sm to the socialist trad itio n , m ost of those active in the earlier fe minist

campaigns found a more congenial home within the libe ral cam p . Legal constrain ts a n d prohibitions were a particularly pres sing concern through the late nineteenth century and earlv t we ntiet h centurie s; a n d while few l iberals s howed an great ent h usias m for wo

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emanc ipatio n , those who d id gave active sup port to fem mist cam paigns. socta · r Ists, · . meanwhile, tend ed to pla y the class card to trum p any excessiv . · e preoccup ation . y with sexual equal tt · When Seli na Coo p er, for examp 1 e, argued the case for wo men s suffrage at the 190 5 La b our p arty Co n ferenc e , Harry Quelch of th e . . (Marxist) Soc1al . Democra ttc · Fe derauo n annou nced that MM rs Coo per has placed sex fi •rst we have to put Labou r first in every case. ,.10 In the hierarchy ' of soc1aI 1st concerns, sexual eq u a lit y .

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A rather different pattern emerged in the early years of the

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themselves more closely attuned to t h e socialist than t he li beral tradition. Debates through the 1 9 7 0s were o ften o rd ered through a three-way split between liberal, socialist and radical feminists and, in Britain, the overwhelming majority placed t hemselves i n the second or third camp. Previous campaigns had removed many o f the more overt legal i nequalities, thereby reducing some of t h e attractions of liberal feminism. But t h e connections that were m a d e with socialism were also specific to t h e historical moment, for they reflected a wider political context i n which soci alism had come to set the terms for radical social critique. Many of the early activists came from a prior i n volvement in l eft politics , and even i n distancing themselves from s o cialism, feminists often reproduced its analytical traditio ns . For example, one of the key texts in the development of a radical (ie n on-socialist) fem i nism was S hulamith

Firesto ne's Dialectic of Sex, 1 1 but Firestone employed a Marxist terminology to i dentify women as a d istinct "sex-class". Several years later, radical feminists in B ritain d escribed themselves, somewhat confusingly, as "revolutionary femi ni sts". In t h e

formative years of t h e women ' s l iberati o n movement, the socialist tradit ion still had a m onopoly o n the language of radicalis m. The la ter dis cov ery that the right could also be radical came as rather a sho ck . Where there was a more substantial theoretical basis to the p art nersh ip of s ocialism with feminism, it lay in the socialist . . eq uati. on o f d o m esticity with con f'mement , a nd the socia list prefe ren ce for whatev er was coll ective, public , and soci�l . �ew . . n ' . femm ists went along w1th the '1 d ea th a t wom en s ema ncip atio . n uctio . prod would o ccur simply through theu entry mto socia lised , . s men But the notio n that sexua l inequ ality was roote d m "',0 . Wit h t h e confi n ement to the pnvate h ouse h 0 ld fitted well of hous ewo rk . preoccupations of th e 195 0s and 196 0s: the criti que . . nothing m which e · 1 eye ve for exampI e, as a thankless and rep euu , as family ar nucle the of . ue new was ever created, or the en'ti q th e to Jty I' na perso and ty ri integ requmn · · 8 women to sac'nfice their . n re d chi! and them, despise w ho would come to . nurture of husbands theJr push to be reaching maturity would w hose first taak on .

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m others aside. F eminists in the 1 990s are far more likely to dwell on the double bu rden wo men experienc e in juggling the dema nds of paid employm ent with the care responsi bilities that co ntin ue to fal l almost e x clusively o n their shoulders . In the forma ti\'e the literature, by co ntrast, att ention was more typicall y focused on on way that w o m en were si l enced , margi nal ised , turned in the themselves , encourage d to l o ok to fulfi lment through fin d i n g In "right man", d i s couraged from any more public activity . m principl e , at l east, the liberal la nguage of i ndividua lity and freedo es issu . these offered an equally po werful resource for addressing n io at But l iberalis m was regarded as condon ing a sharp separ between public and private spheres , and turning a blind eye to what ns went o n in the h ouseh o l d . This hard l y tuned in with the aspir atio of those who were experimen ting with alternati ve form s of col lecti ve li ving and col lective childcare, nor did it have mu ch 10 say to those who were developing an analysis of male viol ence . (Not that this last was a strong point among sociali sts eit her . ) The d istance travelled since t hen is enormous. For femi nist s. the most i m po rtant m ilestones have been the fa ilure to esta bli sh sustain able alternat ives to the nuclear family; the stead y i n c rea se in wo men's paid employment, which has made the dou ble bu rd en s � much more c entral to feminist anal y s is ; and the dise ncha n t me nt Wit� that combi nation of fu ll time employment for wom en . un der· staffed a n d o ver-regu late d nurseries fo r c h i l d ren. wh ich charac terised so many o f the state socialist societies . In h er perio d isatio n of femini st approaches to motherhood (ba sed 011 ) Am eric an exp eri ence, b ut co mparable to what happen ed 111 B nr a ul Ann Sni tow l 2 notes t h e self-quest ioning of mother hoo d t 11at cha rac teri sed so many o f t h c key texts of the 1 9 70s: the atte mpt to detach bei ng a wom an from the requ irement to be a m oth er: but also the attem pt to d etach biological motherhoo d fro m th e . . . . . respo nsJbJ httes of caring for ch1ldr . . contrasts mark ed ! \· w1t h en. This a su b sequent celeb ration o f motherhoo d as generatin g d ·.i s t i. nCt valu es of nurture and care. In this later phase ' the . . e qum � ssenually femi nist prog ra mme ha s been a reorganisata'on of d paa em P 1oyment ( mo re substa ntia l parentnl leave more nAn ..- u·tne work for b o t b wom en and men. more flexib ility in employment patterns) 80 that b oth mot hers and ·

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What has Socialism to do with Sexual Equa lity?

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fathers can div ide the ir tim e equ itab ly bet we en par ent hood and work. Th e ide a tha t par ent ing cou ld be soc iali sed , eith er thr ough better social pro visi on of chi ld care ser vice s, or thr oug h col lect i\' e living arrang em ents tha t d r a w bot h par ent s a n n o n-p are nts i nto d respo nsibil itie s for car ing for ch ild ren , ha s giv en wa y to a mo re privatised scena rio , in wh ich ind ivid ual mo the rs and fat her s wil l be enabled to reach a mo re ega lita ria n div isio n o f the ir do mestic labour. Not tha t soci a l pro vis ion h a s d r o p p e d out of t h e programme: imp rovi ng and exp and ing nur ser y pro vis ion , fo exampl e, rem r ai ns a cen tra l fem i nis t con cer n. B u t fem i nis ts are l in clin ed to ess vie w car e wo rk jus t as a "bu rd en" to be l i fte fro sho ulders on d m the ir to tho se of the sta te. Th ey are also less pre par vie w sex ual ed to equ al ity as som eth ing tha t cha nge s w o m e n ' s l ive Wit h ou t mo re s s ubstan tially ch angin g the men' s . O v er the sam e per iod , soc iali sts hav e also m a d e the ir p eac e w ith priva cy. I t is no l o nger pre sum ed tha t soci al ow ner ship mu st be bette r tha n private; it is n o l ong er pre sum ed tha arrangem e t co llec tive nts mu st be bet ter tha n i n div idu one al s; it is n o lon ger pres umed th at peo pl e find thei r fulfilme nt in soc ialis ed pro duc tio n o r are less , ene d by wa tch ing a vid eo i n t h e priv acy of the ir h o me. Th oug h the current flurry arou nd com mun ity or com mun itaria nism testifies to con tinu ing anx ietie s abo ut the scal e of this shift , mos t social ists hav e back ed away from the critiq ue of priva cy that was so cha rac teris tic of the earl ier trad ition . Mos t, i nde ed , hav e re fa shi one d their socia lism to give more place to the i n dividual, a nd t he rig hts and freed o m s of this indivi dual (which may i nclude th e rig ht to opt out of trade unions or out of socialise d provisio n I n e duc ation or healt h) are now regar ded as e m m · e n tly suitable so ciali s t co ncer ns. . a t Wh ere d o es this leave any speCia 1 ffi mty · b et w ee n socialism and . . se xual equal ity? Oddly, it seems, muc h stronger . To d ay s soctahsts . ar e m ore consis ten tly attuned . to th e reqmrem ents of sexual equahty . . . . than their predecesso rs; an d m B ntam, . as elsewhere m Europe, tt . has b een parties on the left of the por ltlcaI s Pectrum that have b een ·

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. most willing to adopt measures o f positive acuon to speed up the . process of change.13 The Labour pany is certamly more tuned in than it b.- been to the issues and problems that confront women, . . as CfVideneed in its commitment to recruttmg more worn en as

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Equality

sed" represe ntati ve s , a n d in the impress ively "femini underp ins u n d e rsta n d ing o f t h e contem porary labour market that growing the Repor t o f t h e C o m m ission o n Social Justice . But this recent affi n i t y w i t h s exual equalit y may owe more to the associ ated co nvergence b et ween libera l and social ist values (and the socialist d o wn gr a d i n g o f class) than to anyth ing specif ic to the sexua l tra d i t i o n . W hat d o es social ism have to add to the project of dly broa a equal ity '? Can s ex ual equali ty can be achiev ed within iduals. libera l fra m ework that recog nises the equal worth of all indiv kind of regard less of their sex'? Or is socialism - and if so, what socialism - a necessary co n d i tion for sexual equal ity?

p o l i ti cal

Eq u a l ity in conte m po rary socialist thought

u ality David Miller argues that the attachment to (some kind o f) eq H we does not uniqu ely d istinguish so cial ists from their o ppo ne nts ; of) might equally well note that the attachme nt to (so me kin d nts. ne l ibert y d o es n o t u n iquely d istinguish liberals from thei r opp o p Today ' s socialis ts are very much preoccupi ed with the relat io nshi between equality and freedom, and most woul d like to arrive at some trad e-off between t hese two that weight s them rel atively evenly . One expr ession of this is the rather dispa ragi ng dismi ssal of strict equali ty (the "l eveller's strategy") that we fi nd i n th e R eport of th� Comm issio n o n Social Justice; another is the reco very o f its e�uahty of o pportuni ties as a far more rad ical strat egy th an . s cr ittc used to a d mit. Thus the C o m m tssw n on Social Justice argues fo r wh at S tua rt . Whtte 1 describes as an .. endo w ment egal itarianism" that eq ua t. ses th e .tnt. ttal . dis trib uuon . . . . gh ° f ca p a bt h ttes and skills ' prima n l y throu educ at' IOn an d traini ng 15 I t prese nts this as an attracti ve alte rna u ve to the more co nv . ention al re d'tstnb . ution of i ncome . If the alter nanv e worked i t wou 1 d short-ci rcu.1 t t h e equal isatio n-after-the-e ven t t hat charact erises pol"tct. es of progress·t ve taxati on Instead of wait in g c.o r the ine qua lities t . o emerge - and . th en tax mg the rich t o pav for t he poor - it sho uld b e P<>ss1. ble to n i tervene at an . . earlier stage to equalise h fe-chances . b opp and JO . ortu OJti es. W hat makes thi s parttcularly attractive in •'-�� Preae�t hnJiu· p romtses to ease the tensi I) �rca1 cl i mat e is that it ·

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What has Socialism to do with Sexual Equality?

of relyi ng on an i nterventionist state to deliver more substantial equality of incom e, people will be equalised to make their own choices , and make what they can o their li ves . f Such a strategy is in man y ways l imited : it seems to accept th e slots t hat are be coming available in an economy that d i v ides j o b s more starkly than before i nt o ful l-time or p art-ti m e , high-paid o r

low- pai d , relativ ely secure or i n herently transient, b u t calls fo r a more radi cal unders tanding of s o cial and j o b m o bi l ity t hat w i l l em pow er i ndividu als to m o v e more freely a n d equ ally between

: hese slots . 1 6 That said,

the equal o pportu nities that are i m p l i ed

m the stra tegy are considerabl y more substantial that the equal

rig ht to enter the c o mpetitive arena. They carry with them a strong co mm itme nt to elimina ting the early p atterns of disadvantage that weav e t heir way around children as they enter the educatio nal

syste m , and they anticipate extensive s o ci al i nterventi on to equal ise initi al endow ments . The Commiss i o n o n S ocial Justice g oes , in deed , consid erably further even than this, fo r i t construes eq ual opp ortun ities as i nclud i ng a l i fe-time chance to rega i n groun d tha t w a s l o st at an earlier stage. T h e idea is not j u s t to

eq uali se our starting positions, and then condone whatever i neq ualit ies subse quently emerge. The emphasis on "lifelong lea r ni ng� sug gests that so me o f the subsequen t i nequal ities must al s o be tackl ed p articularly those that relate to i nequali ties in edu ca tio n and skills.

The other modification to socialist thinking, heavily influenced b y dev elop ments in l i beral and libertaria n theory, is to say that i neq ualities are justified when they arise from individu al choice or effo rt, but unjust ified when they arise from "brute -luck". This p rodu ces a peculia r amalga m of what used to be viewed as distin ctively s ocialis t and l i beral traditi ons, for while the distinc tio n p o te ntially challe nges any inequ alities arisin g from inheri ted wealt h ones what (the brute-luck of being bo rn to rich p are nts) i t also cond as these long t so may b e very subst anua l mequ a lUes o f m eo rn e . , 1� n gam The emp has1s , � � deriv e from indiv idua l effo rt or choice . ,

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lity and freed om. !he meq uah ues . resol ving tensi ons between equa mak ing thetr equa l ch01 ces that have prevented in div i dua ls from inequ alities that arise fro m the should be elim inated; but the not. need of this personal choice

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Equa lity

but This is q uite a startlin g mo d i fication of egalitarian ideals, larly particu the standar d examp les o ffered in its defence are not to co ntrovers ial. Most p eople will say it is fair enough for John most earn m o re than B i l l if he has chosen to work longer hours; have people, i n d eed, will say it is fai r enough that those who at ch osen to sacrifice their early earning potentia l by staying on The . scho ol or univers ity should later benefit from higher incomes ine proble m , as David M i l l er has noted, is that it is hard to determ from taken what counts as genuin e choice , and he uses an exampl e the the differen ces betwee n women and men to i l lustra te some of me d i ffi culti es . We may all agree that John is entitled to more inco er long than B i l l if h e has chosen to work more intensel y and for d a, h o urs, but d o we rea l l y think John is entitled to more than Belin r who chose part-tim e w o rk i n order to combine it with looking afte re refo h er children ? The w o m a n who chooses to work part-ti me the "cho oses" not o nly a lower income overall, but very often a job that o ffers lower hourly pay a n d minimal job prote ction ; she makes thi s choice, however, against a background of structu ral cons trai nts that i nclude h er responsibilities to what are sti l l consi dered "her" chi ldren . Virtual l y a l l of our choices are structured in so me way by �h e society i n which we live, and there may not be much left that Is unamb iguousl y chosen. Why should people be requ ired to live _ Wit h the conseq uences of their "choice" when they had so little alternative? If i nequ alities are to be regarded as u njus tified whe n

they arise from circumstances beyond our control , doe s this n ot l ead us back to notio ns of strict equa lity? I shal l ret urn to th'IS questio n later . For the moment, I JUSt wa nt . to note that th e rene wed mterest m . equality of opportu mu es . co mb mes wi th t h e attemp t to d istinguish brute-luck from chos en . ine qua1 Itles . to en courage a c1 oser alliance between socialism an d sexual equa 1 Ity . Estab lis h mg equal opportun ities in education and employm ent has a1 . ways figured as a maJor m the femin iSt concern pro ject (and has o ft . en been d owng ra ed b y prevwu s socialis ts d be cause of its oven! . . . n . Y t d'IVIdu ali sfIc b as1s). The renewed emphas is on equal opponunities then pro VIdes a st . . rong 1mk . to Issues o f sexual equahty. The brute-tuck looks even more co ngeni al, for any inequaliti es that to the good luck of being b orn a boy or the bad 1� v. born a · rI fall self-eviden y tl ; t :' ; ;. . .,. . gt .

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What has Socialism to do with Sexual Equality?

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into the category of unjustified inequaliti es . (The argu m ent is then remin iscent of Mill 's argumen t in Th e Su bjection of Wo m e n .) So while the recent shifts in socialist thinking have moderated the

stricter egalit arian ism of an earlier perio d , they have also been peculiarly favourab le to the argu ments for equality between women and men . Much of this , of course, reflects the accommodatio n socia lists have n o w reac hed with kev elements in the liberal trad ition . Th is suggests that it is the �arriage of socialism with l1'berarIsm that now o ffers the best hope fo r sexual equality . Se xua l equ ality as stri ct equ ality

So far , so cosy What I want to argue, however, is that sexual . eq uality is one area where we continue to need strong notions of stri ct equ a lity. None of the economic i n equalities between women and men is particularly hard to explai n , for whether we l ook at the sex ual d i s tributi on of full-time and part-time empl oyme nt, or the d isproportionate number of women i n jobs that require minimal training, or the difficulties women experience i n reaching the higher levels on any career ladder, they all point to the unequal d i vision of car e work that requi res so many women to interrupt their working lives, or opt fo r part time employment . There is also , of course, overt discrim ination , but we do not have to resort to any great co nspiracy theory to explain the wage gap between the sexes. Un d er lying all the sexual inequalit ies in the labour market is the persis tent associ atio n between women and care work, and I can sec no way out o f this short of equalis ing this work betwee n women and m en . This i s an argumen t for strict equality. As long as boys and gi rls contin ue to grow u p with such d ifferent expectatio ns of the way they will balan ce out work a � d e m fam ily this will in evita bly affect the choi ces they mak · . en d owm ents" As long as wom en cont inue to find d eve I opmg · t 1 1e1r carmg for the youn� . them selve s with t h e p ri mar y res po nsib il i ty for te into systematic transla t h e S I· Ck o r t h e eJ d erly , this will inevita bly t. If the post-w ar ex pansw n of . d 1sad vantage on the labou r marke . . tells us anythm g, It IS that the sexes cannot wo men • s em p 1oyment job oppor tuniti es when they aH· s c� � rofou ndly be equal in their . es of ea rc b1ht1 their domes tic lives. Unless t h e respons1 '

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not work are equalis ed betwee n women and men (which depends ng o nly on the l evel of s o cial provisi o n , but also o n major restructuri income, 's women of the hours and conditi ons of paid employ ment), luck of positi o n , a n d conditi ons will co ntinue to reflect the bad being b o r n female.

lities The argum ent is m ost power ful as applie d to sexua l inequa male in the labour market , but it also extends to such matters as and nity violence against women. The associ ation between masculi violence aggres sio n - and the much higher i nciden ce �of male be towards women than female violence towards men - can hardly ger . explained by the fact that men are, o n average, b igger and stron ntial pote fy denti i to I f this were the explanat ion , we would be able le rapists s i m p ly by height a n d strength . The more probab res explanation lies in the markedly d ifferent expectatio ns our cultu n lay on wo men and men, most of which relate to the sexual divisio to es of resp o nsibil iti es for care. Requiring men to rock their babi sleep o r look after parents with Alzheimer' s d iseas e may not , of itself, reduce the incidence of rape. But it does not take great theoretical sophisticati o n to perceive the connecti on betw een the sexual division of carework and the norms of masculi ne beha vio ur. I am not claim ing that a more equitable d istri butio n of ca re � ork between women and men resolves all problems of sexua l mequality fo r while I d o see the sexual d ivision of labour as cru cia l

in sustammg · and oppressions, I woul d not wa nt · · · sexual h terarchtes to present equal ity in employment and care work as the o nly f�mi �ist concern . Nor would I want to argue that a more equi tab le d tst n b utio n between mot h ers and fathers resolves all probl ems. o f •

care work : I think there is a great deal still to be said about th e closures of the n uc1 ear famt 1 y ; and even if we set this to one std e. . a stgm. fica nt n um ber 0 f pa rents (overwhelmingly wom en) are . .mg b rmg up chil dren o n th etr · own, and depend crucially on so cta · I . . pro viSi on t,or child-c are and er. other services. I am sayi ng, ho wev . that a n y mequah. ty between wo men and men is un jus tifie d. Whatever other cone 1 ust ons w e . fied an d . rn aY reach a bout JUSti un j ustified inequal i t i es o f . mcome ' or JUstt' fit ed and unJusufied . inequal ities of power there can be no iustifi . Catton for a d tstn bu uon of income or power that is skewed by sex an y more than for on e .

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What has Socialism to do with Sexual Equality?

Similar conclusions emerge if we switch fro m in dividual entitlement to co nsider the s ocial d istri buti o n of i n co mes as a whole. In his discussion of comprehensive egalitarianis m , David Miller shifts the basis o f the argument away from what i n d ividuals might or might not be entitled to, and towards the degree of inequality that a society can accept as compatible with recognising equality of status. What we may d eserve then becomes of secondary importance. Whether the poor are "d eserving" or not, there is a limit to how much a society premised on equal status can condone people living in abj ect poverty ; whether the rich are "deserving" or not, there is a limit to the range o f income d i fferential that is compatible with an egalitarian society . There is, i n Mil ler's view,

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requirement for strict equality, and he rules this out as

Incompatible with personal autonomy. Societies can and must live with a certain degree of i ncome i nequality, but i t is impossible to regard all citizens as enjoying equal standing when the d isparities become too grotesque. As applied to specifically sexual i nequaliti es , however, this argument seems to confirm the case for strict equality. It certainly implies that the i n come differentials between women and men sh oul d not be so large as to u ndermine any notion of equal sta n ding betw een the sexes . But the notion of equal status woul d h ave to go con · I that siderably further, for any ·mcome d1· rrerenua . seemed to be tied u�le ncompa i be to one's sex or race would surely . Wl th equa 1 Ity · o f status . An ega1 1tanan · t y m·1 ght b e able to hve soc1e · . . · With a one to fo ur income differen tia · 1 , b ut cou ld it l ive wtth the . . g b orn black ' had cond emne d not iOn tha t being born female, or bem . . o ne to the lower half of that scale '? A n d ·r 1 1't coul d not hve wn h . . butc d m . . th is, would this not imply that the sexes must be d1stn . ro ugh l y equal p ro po ru. ons acro ss the full range o f mco m e inequ alities '? . tO me, I am aware that Th ough this all seem s tern' bJy o bVIOUS F or mo st people I think the . It .IS n ot so obvwus to everyone else. . . . w hen it is applied to the twn vJc mo re con . argument carnes h when it is applied to t he an t s . . d 1stnbuuon o r et hnic group . can be established that one's If it and men. . . . dJstnbuuon °f women elated to the colour of one's skin, . r market are r chances 10 th e labou d. (When people defend racial this 85 unjustifie most people wiU tee '

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that what appea rs i n eq ualiti es in empl oyme nt, they tend to argue ) But if it can to be an effect o f race is in realit y an effect of class. et are related be estab lishe d that o n e ' s chan ces in the labou r mark im ity, for they to o n e ' s s e x , m a ny peop le still view this with equan en's role as see it as a "natural" enou gh cons eq u ence of wom emplo y ment. It m o t h ers , and t h e way this affects their patte rns of unfai r. Indeed, may be unfor tun ate, but is not neces sarily seen as that wom en it is far m o r e lik ely to b e seen as a matte r o f the choices men do see h ave made . It is not o nly m en w h o will say this, fo r wo man y (v ery themsel ves as h aving a choice in the matter, and inte nsiti es sensib ly) opt for the p l easu res o f moth erhoo d ov er the to wha t o f contem po rary employ ment. The issue then comes back ne choi ce counts as genuin e choice . Do we say this was not a genui s ettin g because it was made w i t h i n certain constra ints? Or is that virtu ally such a high standard for choice that it ren ders the term meani ngless? If we say that nothing c o unts as a choice unless it was made from a full range of options, we are, I think , emptying the word of its meaning. All the cho ices we make are made within certain

constraints, but that does not mean they were not choices. I cannot

choose to be an opera singer because I do not have the necessary voice, but that does not sto p me feeling I make genu in e cho ices etween the other options at my disposal. I can n ot v ote for m y· Ideal p arty becau s e that party does not exist but that does n ot sto p ' me feel ing I make genuine choices between the parti es that co ntest . an elect ion N eith er o f t h ese restn. ctiOns, ho wever, marks me out from anyone else. We all lack the necessary talent s for so met hin g . we wou ld hav e like d t o pursue ; we all have pol itical aspirati O ns . th at no part y has yet p romised to meet. The point abou t sex ua l or . 1 . . . racia meq ualit y is th at th e range of choices has been restri cted m . . a bl an k et fas h"Ion by the ch aractensucs of sex or race: the a ccid ent · of b emg born fem ale or bl ack · mto a s ociety where this still

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rapid ly decreasing conseq uences in the field of educa ti o n . It sti ll has very significant effects , howev er, on the respon sibiliti es the individ ual assum es fo r care work , and on the posit io ns the individual occu pies in emp loym ent o r polit ics. Sex rema ins a majo r pred ictor of an ind ividu al 's life-ch ances , and wher ever this is the cas e, there is a prim a facie case for equa lisati o n . It is not just a matter, as the Repo rt of the Com missi on on Socia l Justic e puts it, of men taking on "som e (my empha sis) of the caring resp onsibil ities p reviously carried by women " . 1 7 Any inequa lity that arises from bei ng femal e shou ld simp ly be ruled out of cour t. To rep hrase this, we might say that there is no signifi cant space between equ ality of opportuni ties and equality of outcomes when it com es to sexual or racial equali ty. I f the outcom es turn out to be stati stically related to sex or race, then the opportunities were clearly not equal . If we assume that talents and predi lectio ns are rou ghl y equ ally d istribu ted among the sexes, then the only ex p lana tio n for a d isprop ortio nate concentra tion of men i n certain kin ds o f activiti es and a dispropo rtionate concentration of women in othe rs must be the social structures and conventions that con stra in our develop ment. The very fact that men and women end up occupying differ ent positions in the distributio n of work and in fl uence and inco me is evidence enough of unjusti fied inequality. What els e, short of some genetic imbalance, could explain it? (I w ill not co nsi der h ere the further questions that mig ht arise if a . fu tu re gen eration of psychologists managed to prove som � gen �tlc d istinctio n , a n d whether that would then count as a just.l fi cauon fo r sexual i n eq uality. I do not see that it would, but gtven the . . . 1m mense diffic ulties in separatmg out genet'JC from enviro nmen tal . t h ere factors , it is not a p roblem th at IS J'k ' e 1 Y to face us ) Wherever . ' b utton dtstn the in is a systematic differentiatio n between the sexes . of job s or care work or influ ence or income s - this a 1 erts us to . . ualitie s we can posstb ly JUSU' fy unj ustified inequality. The on I Y meq a re those that relat e to features othe r than sex or race. ' d 1·udgeme nt on t hc W I er 1ssue. Up to t h .I S po int 1 have reserved ' . on we may make between ncu d I h ave argue d �ha t: whatever tsu . eq alities ' sexual and racial inequalities . JUstt' f'1e d an d unJU Sttfi ed J n u . nd ca mp . Let me now make some will always all into the seco sex and race be regarded as Should . e issu 'd er a ttem pt at thf; e WI ·

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that it was the excep tiona l ? A n d if s o , w h y ? I sugge sted earlier marked them blank et natur e of sexua l and racial inequ al i ties that rtunities or out from o t h e r chan ce restr i ction s on our oppo derive from outco mes: that we can accom mo date i n equal ities that phys icall y individu al v a r i a t i o n s ( b e i n g t o n e-d eaf, being but cann ot u n co o rd i n ate d , b ei ng g o o d or b a d at maths) , ons. Yet in accomm o date those that deriv e from blank et injun cti birth . All either case, we are dealing with the acciden ts of inequality inequalities o f power or i n come must arise either from an rita nce of i n socia l con d i tions , or else from an unequ al inhe incl ude th e capacities and talent s , a m o ng which we must surely the firs t capaci ty for hard work . 1 B From a sociali st persp ective, fo r the se looks self-evi d ently unjust. The second also seems u nfai r, seco nd. thi ngs are hardl y under our contro l . Th e proble m with the away. h o wever, i s that we canno t just legis late all these di fferences val ue for if we d i d , we would end up elimi nating much of what we i n life. It is not really fair, for example, that those with a gift fo r language sho uld be better placed to influence d ecisio ns tha n tho se who fi nd i t hard to articulate their opinions , and it is particu larl y � nfair when the class bias in educational op portu nities sk ew s thi s m favou r of certain social group s. But even if we man aged to e) t m .mate the class bias, there would still be diffe re nc es of p erso nality and ability that made some i ndividua ls more pe rsua si ve aII tha n oth ers Th e on 1 Y way to . . ehmmate this would be to en d 1 pohucal discussion, and we would hardly be happy with thi s. 'J Ir may also seem u n fau, · to follow a line of argument much lov ed b Y R o b ert Nozick ' 2 0 . . .1 e that an .md tvtd ual born with a Grec ian p roft s h ou ld h ave a better se ' b u sn x ) 1 £e t h an an ind ividual born with a nos e B ut 1·r t h e o nly . w ay to deal With this is to al loca te se xu al partners at ran d om . thereb y ertmmating · any element of perso naI cho ice we wo u ld h ard . ly be h ap py W tth . . thts . We cannot legi slate aga inst all accidents o f b' . . nth, an d t0 thIS ex tent, we are stuck Wit h som e inev itab le level 0f tneq uality What w e need .ts some way o f . . . . : d t s tm gui sh m g the inevitable . . tn dtv . tduat van· auo .JUSt mor e luck ns (some peopl e a re y than others) fro . . m th ose asso c1ate . . . d w1t h mo re bl ank et InJun cuon s. From a . . SOctth ahst perspectiVe , this secon d category would certainly includ e e disabllities that flow fro m '

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What has Socialism to do with Sexual Equality?

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one's class; it should also inclu d e th e d isab ilities that fl o w fro m one's sex or t h e colour of o n e ' s ski n . I d o n o t pretend t h a t t h i s is a n easy distinction, for all differences b etween i n d i viduals lend

themselves to a group

classification (the class of people who are tone-d eaf, for example, and by virtue of this group characteristic, are denied the chance to work in the music busin ess) , and what one person defines as bad luck will be perceived by another as a blanket injunction . I also recognise that arguments for strict equality can b e modified by

pragmatic concerns . I would argu e, for exampl e, that inherited inequalities of wealth are alwa ys unjustified , but given the wid espread desire to pass on to one' s child ren the ben efits built up through one's life, it may be i mpossible to get majority support for 100 per cent tax on inheritance. In similar vei n , I would argue that

sexual inequalities in power or income are always unjustified, but I would accept a s t rategy that s tarted with some i n itial redistribution and worked up towards equal shares; or that started with i ncreasing the p roportion of women in male-dominated occupations, and built up towards full gender parity. In this, as in any area of social policy, one cannot hope to do everything overnight. The final aim, however, must surely be to eliminate inequalities associated with sex . I can see no normative basis for stoppi ng short of full sexual equal ity. Soc ialis m as a condition for sexua l equa lity

. . and I t IS at this point that the special affim •· tY between social ism . as lity, equa al s exual equality comes more sharpI Y to th e fo re Sexu . . s h" 1p auon 1 re I und erstan d it d epends on a maJOr res truct uring of t he . . . . ' . On from b etw een paid and unpmd labo ur so as to detach this diVISI cann o t 1 1 . uy equa Sexua men. . · u· o n b et ween warnen and th e d IStmc . d provJS . · n o f services (more JO · . . se be ach ieved simpl y t h rou g h so c•ah , heels more homes for w on 1 . , more h om e helps an d mea s nursenes can while these for , . ble d or the menta1 1 Y ill or the elderly) th e d •sa for women and men , they d o so . I Y help eq uah se con ditions . certam working in the pnvacy . . s .b.l"ti a I a es fro m women espon r care tang f by s h I n employed by the state . There are o (usu ally) wo me o f t hel·r hom e t . . . fo r none of u s wants a world m rategy, st to this ·

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which care work is entirely institutio nal ised . The strategy also leaves u ntouched the differential roles of women and men. It will still be women w h o do the work; it will still be women who depend on the services . W h e n these are threatened or removed ; it will still be w o m en who have to carry the consequences. The longer term sol utio n lies combining s o cialised care provis ion with a new balance between paid a n d unpaid w o rk . This ultim ately depends on restructuring the hours and patterns o f employment, for men as well as for women . wha t The kinds of p o l i cies necessa ry to ach ieve this range from in bly is already p r a ctised i n s o m e social d emocra cies (nota y would Sca n d i na via) to what we can hardly begin to imagin e. The could be include substantial periods of paid parental leave that yers to taken by either mothers or fath ers ; a requirem ent on empl o al e) offer reduced working hours to any employees (male or fem or sick who carry majo r respo nsibilities fo r caring for the young , w old; additional rights to periods of unpaid leave that would allo ir people to break their employment without losing their right to the . urs ho j o b ; a n d , most impo rtant o f all, a major reducti o n in the and alteration in the shifts, of male employme n t , so tha t mal r wo rkers are equal l y enabled to assume their caring respo nsib iliti es. To put this more generally, the necessary changes woul d involve a final, much belated , recognition that the typical wo rk er is no lo nger a man with a h ousewife in tow, and a reordering of t he pri ori ti es of employ ment to recognise that all of us have a great dea l to d o

outs ide the facto ry a n d offic e. Left to its own d evices , an unregulated market econ om \' ca n neve r d eliver th 1s. ' The mar k et 1s · no great respecte r o t se xua I . . . d 1stm cuo n whe n ·It comes to employment p ractices: there has been . no wn. ngm g of han d s over t h e declme · o f male emplovm ent ·111 tI 1C old bases of man ufactunn g mdustry and the simultaneous in creas e ·

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fema le emp loym en t; th e market has not stepped in to rest o re . masculi. ne pnd e But wh'1 Ie we m ay well rely on the forces o f fre e comp enu on to equalise . par t'tc1 pau o n rates between women a nd me n, we can not rely on these forces to reshape the hours an d 1 cond ition s of w ork . t IS, . . . es o f m d eed ' one 0f t he ap pa l hng Ironi the present period that h'18 h 1evels of une mp1 o ymem coincide with an extraordinary intensification 0f work for those luck y eno ugh to ·

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fin d job s, a nd th at the very i nsecurit ies o f the j o b m arket ha\'e exposed people to long er and m o re unso cial hours . The mark w et i l l hap pily releas e a sig n i fi ca nt proportio n o f a d u lts fro m t h e con strai nts o f p aid em p l o ym ent , b u t i t d oes this l n o y to d o o m ot hers to workah olic exce ss, and we can not reali stica lly rely o n t h i s market to estab l ish sensi ble d i visio ns betw een p a i d emp lo yment , care w ork, a n d l eisur e. O n l y a d i rect p o l i t i ca l i n i ti a , t i v e underpi n ned by a strong comm itme nt to s exual equali ty, could put t he necessary ch anges i n place . Havi ng said that, the kind o f socia lism requi red to achie ve this may not be part i cular ly rad i ca l . Whe n Karl Marx exam ined the st rugg les in nine teent h centu ry B ritain to reduc e the lengt h o f the Working day, he argued that when the restrictions were impos ed , th ey ulti mately turn ed out to capita l's advan tage. Emplo yers were fo rce d to aband o n the rather primit ive approa ch to p rofits that depen ded on len gthen i ng the workin g day, and turn thei r attenti o n to raisi ng the p ro d u ctivity o f lab our. (In Marx's terms, they had to sw itch thei r effo rts fro m abso lute to relative surplus value.) The res ult Was fu r t h e r and o ften spectacul ar i m p ro vemen ts in p ro fit abi lity bu t left to their own d evices, the employers would n ever h ave agree d to shortening the working da y. It took a major p ol itical initi ative (and as i t happened , one that particularl y res tricted the emp loyment of women workers) to force them i nto a n e w rou nd of economic d evelopment. Reshaping employm ent patt e rns so that they fit with the new realities of the labour market mig ht well have similar effects; the kind of sexual equal ity I �m . des crib ing migh t then turn out to b e com pafble with a capital ist ' . eco nom y . It is not com pa t"ble howev er ' With a hands -off non I . .I nte rv entio n i s m that a l l o ws t h e 1. m m ed iate req u i reme nts o f e m p l oy er s to d i ctate the hours an d patte rns o f w o rk. . . W hat I am d escn b mg here is proba bly m ore accura te 1 y . socta rIsm, but it does i m pl y a d escn" b e d a s soc1a . I-d e mocracy than . . . ra d t ca l l y d i fferent sea Je of values m w h'JC h production is tailored _

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1 e ta kes equal priority alongside social nee d • an d caring for peop . d serv i ces . Socia lism in this (rather - ble goo ds an produ c mg marketa ondition for sexual equality, fo r free i n g attenuated) ense 1s a prec ls i n education or women in em ploym en t :w gir f o nides up the oppo _d h ecessa ry structural c hang es that can deliver does npt proVJ e t e n

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Equality

l i fe-long equality, a n d we n e e d a more decisive challenge to market p rinciples. It is i mp o ssible to eliminate all inequalities between people; it is undesirable to elim inate all differences . But both differences a n d inequal ities have to be detached from the accident of being b o rn m a l e or female, so that the cho ices we make and the inequalit ies we condone reflect individual, rather than sexual. to

this

e (1 996) I ssue 4, Lawrenc

an d

variatio n . It was the l iberal tradition that first gave vo ice ideal, but it is socialism that could make it reality .

End n otes

1.

F i rst published in Wishart .

2.

E llen DuBois ( 1 9 7 5 ) 'The Radicalism o f t he Woman Suffragl' M ovemen t : N otes Toward the R econstruct ion of Nineteenth· Cen tury Femin ism" Femi11 i.�t Studil's 3, 1 /2 . p66 .

3.

F o r the Owen ite approac h to these issues. see (1983) E v e a n d the New Jemsalem, Virago .

4.

Soun ding.�

lor B a r b a ra Tay

First published in 1 88 3 , subsequently revised in 1 89 1

and

J!N;j

5.

Written i n 1 860, published in 1 869 .

6.

J S Mill, '"The Subjecti o n o f W om en", i n ( 1 9 7 5 ) , p44 7 .

7.

ibid ,

8.

First pub lish ed in 1 8 84. T� is is largely how I formulated the co ntra st in an ea r l i t• r . discussio n of femtm · · sm an d equalttv. See mv introd ucti on to A 11 n t· . . P .tlhp s (ed) ( 1 9 8 7) Pemi11ism a n d r:q u a lit!� B a s i l B l ack wel l .

9. 1 0.

OU P.

Mill Th rC' C' fs.�a ys.

p448.

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Jill Lidd ingto n (1 984) Th e I ife a n d Tim C' .s of a Ht•sfH'rt a iJ/c : e el: Seli na Coo per 1 864- 1 946 , V t rago, p 1 6 ;J -. 1 1 . Shu1am.nh . Firesto ne ( 1 97 1 ) The Dialec apt' . tic of SC'.r, Jon a t h a n C , . 1 2. A nn Snn ow (1 992) an F em m1s m and Motherhood: An A m e n c Reading'" I<' M

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See Pippa Norris ·co p . m anng Legislati ve Recruitme n t t n I p Lovencl Sqe. uaki ,and _ , . . N _ Otns (eds) · (1 993 ) Gend e r a n d Party Polit ics. , . See DaYicl See

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What has Socialism to do with Sexual Equality?

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1 6 . For 1 7.

18.

1 9.

a fuller discussion o f the weaknesses o f this strategy , see my "Whose Community'? Which Individuals'?" in D M iliband (ed) (1 994) Reinventing the Left, Polity Press.

Social Justice: Stragegies for National Renewal (1 994) Vintage,

p21 .

See Stuart White's essay i n this volume p 59-82. See Ron al d Dworki n (19 88) "What is Equality'? Part 4 : Political Equ ality" University of San Francisco Law Review, 2 2 .

20. Robert Nozick (1 974) Anarch y, State a n d Utopi a, B asil B l ackwell .

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1 23

Equality in a Mu lticultura So ciety l

Bhikhu Parekh

Broadly speaking a n d subject to the qualifications to be d iscussed later, equality implies equal treatment of those judged to be equal

in relevant respects. It presupposes a broad agreement on what

respects are relevan t in a given co ntext, what kind o f response is appropriate to them, who are equal i n respect to them, and what treatment counts as equal. The agreement is not easy to obtain even in a culturally homogenous society; in multicultural societies it is exceedi ngly difficult. This paper d i scusses the kinds of d i fficulty the concept of equality raises in such societies and the ways in which them might be resolved. Rather than d iscuss the question i n abstract theoretical terms , or by means of hypothetical and largely u nreal examples which

rarely capture the complexity and nuances o f practical life, I shall examine the real d i l emmas d i fferent societies have faced and the w ay s in w hich they have endeavoured to resolve them , and then · bn· efl Y draw · f 10 ns · For ou t their important theo retical Imp 11ca co nven ien ce I and · m, · shall take most of my examp l es from B nta refer to oth er societies as and when necessary. Costs a n d adj u stm nts e

full-time supp l y . Ah mad, a d evout Muslim, was emp I oyed as a . y (ILE A) · 1 Init iall y · n A utho nt teach er by the I nner Londo n E d ucatJo sque for him to h e tau ght i n a d istrict that was too far fro m a mo a yer. When he was atten d it for the customary F n. d ay afternoo n p r to a mos que , he insi sted I ater transfer red to a sch oo I that was c1 oser . n This mea nt that he was on atten d ing it every F nd ay aftern oo . of an hour on st three-qua rters abs ent from the scho oI for the fir teachers . 0 n other by d be covere Friday afternoo ns, a nd ha d to to allow refused school he t teacher of I LE A ' s i n structio ns th e bead to ned comply, decli hmad en A way. Wh him to be absent 1· D this teacher for our an f d a h a If part-ri me come a ILEA a sk ed him to b�

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days a week . Since t hat invo lved a reduction in his salary, he resigned a n d took the matter to an Industrial Tribunal. I L EA argued that since A h mad was u nable to meet his d con tractual o bligati o n to teach on Friday afternoon s, it was entitle Muslim to ask h i m to go p art-ti me. It also poi nted out that its other rs, teachers were perfectl y happy to forego Friday aftern oon praye er oth to and that A h mad ' s absence caused much i nconven i ence that teachers a n d to his p u p ils. It was argued on Ahmad 's behalf not other M u slim teachers ' complian ce with ILEA 's i nstructions did or t devou affect the valid i ty o f his case, for they might not be as e cou rageous as h i m . It was also argued that all teach ers wer t norma lly expected to and d i d , i n fact, cover one anoth er, and tha his A h ma d ' s c o n t r actual o b l i g a t i o n s could n o t override l funda m ental right to freed om o f worship. The Industrial Tribuna ent m d ismissed h i s ap peal , a d ecision later supported by the Em p loy Appe al Tribu nal.

The matter w ent to the Cou rt o f Appeal which, again , reje cte d his case, but this ti m e by a majority d ecision. Lord Scarman , who was symp athetic to Ahmad, argued that unlike Jews or Chri stia ns. a Muslim 's day of prayer fell on a working day and that this p laced _ at him a d isadv antage. If a Muslim were not to be given tim e off for p rayer , he Would never become a full-ti me teac her, an d th at would caus e him economic hardsh i p . The edu catio nal syste m ble . therefore had a d uty to make smtable arrangem ents to en a Musl ims to att en d F nday l'I C · p rayer even if that i n volved extr a p ub ex p enditu re in employ ing a few more teachers. Since ILE A ha d . . f d to do so s car mle man conclu ded that it had d iscrim inated aga mst Ah mad and tre at ed h 'Im unfair ly. The other two judg es too k a . d I' ffere nt VIew . L ord D en nmg, while "upholding religio us free do m to the full" argu ed that Ah rna d' s Insistence · · on taking ume o ff eve rv. Fri day on full pay a mo unt ed to an unfair plea for "p referent ia l '

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freedom in the intere st of the rights and freed oms o f other s. A h mad went to the Euro pean Comm ission on Huma n Right s and lost. Ah mad's case raises an impo rtant quest ion. A libera l s ociety is com mitted to the value s of equal ity and fairness. At the same time it has a speci fic cultur al struct ure and identi ty which it gener all y wishe s to preserve a n d which limits its capac ity to treat its mino rities equally . To ask it radica lly to restru cture its identi ty in order to acco mmo date all mann er of minority p ractic es is both to be unfair to it and to rend er collec tive life unacc eptab ly chaot ic and costly . This mean s that there is a tension at the heart of li beral society . It wish es to main tain its cultur al identi ty, but it also wishe s, as a part of its cultu ral identi ty, to remov e such inequ alities and unfai rness as its practic es cause to its minor ities. Since it canno t ign ore eith er deman d , it needs to strike a reason a ble balanc e b etween th em. The nature of the balance d epends on a number of factors such as the impo rtance of the minorit y practic e to i ts way of life, th e kin d, extent and cost of the changes required in the so cie ty's way of life, and the society's capacity to make the changes with o ut serio usly damagin g its coheren ce and stability . The balance Will naturally be struck differently i n different societies and by the s am e soc iety i n different contexts. Since it involves a fair and sens itive w eigh ing up of different considerati ons, the balance ca nnot b e corre ct o r i ncorrect o r even right or wrong but reaso nab le or unreasonable. Broadly speaking it is reasonable if it ta kes full acc ount of all the relevant facto rs, gives each due i mportan ce and can be defended in an open , free and equal debate. The p oi t beco m es clearer if we take the case of Ahma�. Like o ther Brit ish citizens, Ahmad h as a ng ht t0 religio us behef and . p ractice, includ ing the nght to atten d p n·d ay 's comm unal praye r. Unlike Christians whose religio us hol iday falls on a Sunda y. . Ahm ad's falls o n a workm g d ay, an d he is there fore at a ons remov es 0 ff o n Friday afterno . . time disadvantage. Giving h1m d s not pnvl 1 �ge oe I� re su a e m ising the d isadva ntage and is an equal _ hl m n him nor gives him for it neith er confers more rights o . : . . others wnh shares he right adduaonal resources to exercise the . � met are lthout s t n me e r Unlike Christians whose religious requi . n Musli ms need specml exemption o n ext ra euons on their pan of worsh1p. I LEA Fri da y aftern 0onS in Order to exercise their right

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and other therefo re had a duty to view the dem ands of Ahmad to do Muslim teacher s w i th t h e requi red d egree of sympat hy , and had r, howeve all it could do to cover for their absenc e. ILEA . well Its o b ligation s to its pupils and non-Mu slim teacher s as Ahmad financi al resourc es were l imited , and it could not cover for cost. e and other Mus l i m teachers if that i nvolved an excessiv ration s Th e reason ab le balan ce b etwee n the confli cting consid e Ahmad's would seem to be that ILEA should have accomm odated ning request by suitably coverin g for his absence and in return assig r an h i m alternat ive respons ibilities . This n eed not involve eithe for ers, additiona l expenditure or an extra burden on other teach t par they h elp o u t each other i n this way all the time as a normal cost , of their duty. However, even if it d i d entail some additi onal his cise I LE A should have undertak en it partly to help Ahmad exer nd right, partly to earn his and other Muslim teacher 's good will, a it that partly to send out the m essage to its non-Mus lim staff nd respects religious d iversity and is opposed to religio us s ocial a o th er forms of discrim i nation, an i m portant consid erati on in a multicultural soci ety not yet free of racism. If the additi onal cost was excessive , or if ILEA could not release Ahmad becau se his pupils were unruly, or because other teachers could not be spared. or because he was himself a supply teacher whose whole job was to cover for o thers, o r because this was likely to set a precedent it might not be able to follow i n future, or for some other legitimate reason, it could rightly refuse Ahmad ' s request and ask him to forego his right or bear the cost of exercising it hims elf by wo rkin g for only four and a half days a wee k . The duty to take full account of o thers' rights and inter es ts d evo ves not only on ILEA but also o n Ahmad , for he cann ot . . con s tstently ask 1't to b e reasonable while himself rem am m g . unre asonable . If Friday prayer was flextble, as i ndeed it is, or tf h ts . ab sence confl tcted w 1' th oth ers nghts or impeded his sch oo l's . . ab .11 tty to dtsch arge its obl'tgat10ns to tts pupils and their pare nts, . . h e s h ould not msts t on his right an d go to the mos que after scho ol h ours as many of his Musl im calleague . s dtd . He canno t insist o n . exerct. smg h'1s nght while expecting oth . s ers to suspe nd theu . Th e pos .t u o n I have sketched differs fr om those taken by the th ree ·JU d ges For Lord Scarman ILEA hed a duty to do a l l that was

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neces sary to acco mm odate Ahm ad . For the other two judge s its duty was only limited to makin g appro priate intern al arran gements and exclud ed incur ri ng any addit ional cost. The more defen sibl e posit ion would seem t o be that I L E A h a d a duty to go a reaso nable way tow ards enabl in g Ahma d to exerc ise his right of worsh ip con sisten tly with the right s o f o ther teach ers and pupil s and the demands on its resour ces , and that if he asked fo r more, it was his respo nsib ility to bea r the add itio nal cos t. Simi lar questi o ns have also come up in other countries, and som etim es the courts have taken an excess ively narrow view of wha t con stitut es reason able acco mmod ation of minor ity emplo yees unable to w o rk o n certain days or to d o certain kinds o f jobs. In 'l'WA IJ S Hardison (1 9 77) , the US Supreme Court held unreasonable any req uest that involved the slightest additional expenditure or den ied othe r emplo yees their shift and job preferences on some days of the year. This is an excessively restrictive view o f the requi rem ents o f reasonable accommodation . It takes no accoun t of and makes no attempt to acco mmodate people with distinct and reasonable rel igious n eeds , and virtually denies them certain

avenues o f employment . It is also unfair because it takes a narrow view of the rights of religious and cultural minoritie s and a very b ro ad view of those of the rest . One way to deal with such situatio n s m ig ht be to build into the employee 's employ ment co ntract t h e requi rement that they should be prepar ed to . . acco mm o d ate the reasonable rehgwus a n d cu ltura l requ irem ents o f thei r fello w-em ploy ees. Acco m odating differ ence

. . ple of eq u a l i t y bt•ea m c I n Ah ma d . s case th e apph cauon o f the princi . . d"JUS tm en ts on the part of his con tentious because it req U.i red a . nghts and those of his p u p il s a nd colteagues, a ffected their . . na 1 co st to his em p l ovcrs. The p r in ci p l e . m vo lved a poss i b l e ad d mo . e h ot1 y co ntest ed even when none o f t h ese of equality can becom the qu esti on is simply one of tolerating d i ffert•n n·. IS mvo J ved a nd Parliament passed a l a w cmpcJ\n·r i n g t h e 1 72, British _ . I !' 9 f Transport t o req ui re a l l m oto r c\'dtsts to \\'l'a r cras h Mtnister 0 s ca rn p;ugnetI agamst 1 1 . 2 Wh en the Minister d '1 d so s·kh 1 helmets ,

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Equality

fined twenty One of them broke the l a w , and was convi cted and a crash helme t. times b etwee n 1 9 7 3 and 1 9 7 6 for refusi ng to wear turba n was a Whe n he claim ed in self-d efenc e that wear ing a replace it with religi ous requi reme nt for h i m and that h e could not ed. He did not a crash helme t, the presid ing j udge was uncon vinc s requi rement chall enge the asser tion that the turba n was a religi ou reaso n they for Sikhs , and was conte nt to argue that if fo r some moto r-cycles . In were unab le to wear helm ets , they could not ride helm ets or his view the law d i d not comp el peop le either to wear the latter, to ride moto r-cycles, and only requi red that if they did was to rn they must wear h e lmets . Since the judge 's only conce did. Sikhs apply the law as it stoo d , h e was corre ct to argue as he supp ort, campai gned against he l a w with conside rable pop ular that, if arguin g that the turban was as safe as a crash helme t and any one they could figh t for the British in two world wars witho ut motor­ consider i ng their turbans unsafe, they could surely ride fro m cycles. The law was amende d in 1 9 7 6 and exemp ted the m wearing crash helmets . ary The British Parliament was right to amend the la w . Its prim is purpose was to ensure that people did not die or, since inju ry costlier to the state than d eath, suffer serious inju ries riding dangerous vehicl es. It hit upon the helmet meeti ng c erta i n standard s as the best safety m easure. H ow ever the helm et was only �ontingently related to the b asic objective of av erting de ath and . InJury . If anoth er headgear served the purpose equa lly well , th er e :-v a� no good reason to d isallow it. The helmet was imp ortant no t m Itsel f but as an em b o d I. ment of what the law regard ed as the . .1mu · · · · mm m nece ssar y protectiOn. Smce the turban largely sat isfi e d . . t h at cnte non it was accepted as legally equivalent to the hel m et. Alt h ough n ot reall y a h e I met, .It becam e one i n law . . b Th Is ecam e evi dent i n the su bsequent development of the la w as i t relate d· to s·k . 1 hs . The Con struct wn (Head Protecti O n) Regula tion 1989 requues all th ose work.mg on const ructio n sites to wear safety hel mets . H owev er the E m ployment Act 1 9 8 9 , . specifi cally exemp ts s I· khs, and requues t h at no employer may refuse to emplo y them for n ot agree. mg to we ar safety hel mets. Th e . . law grants that excepti on b ecause tt ts persuad ed by its ow n scientifi c tests that the turban offers an a ccePtable though not equal •

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protection, and is thus l egal ly equivalent to a helmet. An impo rtant implication of this argument is that if a turbaned Sikh were to be injured on a constructi on site as a result of another person's

negligence, he would be entitled to claim damages for only such injuries as he would have suffered if he had been wearing a safety hel m et. The law is concerned to protect workers on the construction

site, and prescrib es the h el m et as an adequate protection. It takes the hel met as its point of reference in judging other head gears. It does not allow anyone to work o n a constructio n site without an

accep table head gear; o n this point i t makes no compromises. How ever, it is willing to compromise o n the helmet if two condi tions are satisfied. First, the alternative head gear should be

shown to offer an equivalent or at least acceptable level of protection. And seco n d , those opting for it should themselves bear the responsibility for such additional injury as it may cause. The law lays down the absolute and non-negotiable minimum and uses it to regulate the range of cultural diversity. So far as the m inimum requirement is concerned , it places the burden of injury on those cau sing it. The burden of additional injury is borne by the victims w ho, for cultural reasons, choose to m eet the minimum requirement in their o w n d i fferent ways. Such an arrangement respects d i fferences w i t h out v i o l at i n g t h e principle of equa l i ty and accomodates individual choice without placing unequal financial and other burdens on the rest of their fellow citizens. In Britain, Sikhs in the police and armed forces are entitled to wear turbans , and no one thinks that this is unjust or that it privileges Sikhs. I n Canada it has led to a heated d ebate. Although most major pol ice forces across the country allow Sikhs to wear an Moun ted Police did not . When it turba ns, the R oyal Canadi them. a group of retired officers mounted finallv decided to allow inv olvin g 9 ,000 letters and a petition signed a str ng o p pos ition They argued that the R CMP should be, and b 201 ,000 p eople. be, free from political and religious bias and t hat, s ould be s een to . turban was a religious symbol, i t �undermined the smce th e Sik h's " . nature of the force and vwlated other Canadians' n on-re11 81· 0 us l right to a secular state free of religious symbols". "c o ns tituti ona since Sikhs insisted on wearing the turban, their Fu rtherm ore plied that they valued their religion far more than their demand i m

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p o l ice duties. In the eyes o f the cntics, Canada had taken its m u lticulturalism too far and should insist on the traditional Stetson. The matter went to the Trial Division o f the Federal Court of Cana d a , which ruled that the o bj ection to the tu rban was "quite speculative a n d vagu e", and that the turban d id not compromise the n o n-religious character of the R CMP. Three retired officers of the R C M P a p p e a l ed to the Supreme Court, which dism issed the appeal a n d uph eld the Sikh's right to w ear the turban . Alth ough the o b j ection against the turban smacks of cultural i ntolerance and treats Sikhs unequally, it is not wholly devoid of m erit. The RCMP is a p o werful and much cherished nat ional symbol a n d , since Canada has few national symbols, there is something to be said for reta i n ing the Stetso n . However, one could a rgue that p recisely because the RCMP is a natio nal sym bol. it should allow the tu rban to symbolise the cou ntry's officially endorsed mul ticu l tu ral identity. Furtherm ore, several provincial forces as well as the Canadian Courts a n d House of Commons allow S i k h s to w ea r turbans with no suggestion that t h is comprom ises the discharge o f their o fficial duties, diminishes their loyalty to the state, or d etracts from the country's secular character. Th ere is no reason why the RCMP should be different . Besides, wearing a turban d oes not signify that the wearer values his religion more than his professional integrity, nor d o es his rep lacing it wit h a Stetson indicate the o pposite . Pushed to its logical con clusio n, · the crit icis m of th e turb an would Imply · that thos e wea nng t h e tra diti ona l Ste ts on are l 1' ke 1 y to 1 be partial to whites and hos t .! e to oth ers. On e wo u ld t h ere fore have to replace the Stetso n Wit h a cultu ral ne utral h ea d gea r , w h ich w o u l d have the d o u b l e d.1sadvan tag e o f sau· s f . ymg ne1ther the Sikhs nor the whit es a nd . 1eav mg t h e bas ic pro bl em unso I v e d . Again, it is not at all tru e th at . Canad a .1s com mitt ed to a narro w and bland form of secula ris m . If it wer e ' it would have to change Its · co at-of-arms, d isal low pra yer in the Federal par1.t nment ex p un ge refere nce to God in th e . swea ring- in cerem ony 0 f C ab met m m1 · · sters, and so o n . Since opp onents of the turban are unsympath �.�c to � these changes, thei r obje ction is clearly specious and cliscri tnatory. . The diversity o f head dress ba . s ratsed probl ems m other socie�ies well, espec ially in relation to the ' as attn.•ed forces and th e pohce, .

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the symbo ls and prot ectors o f Gold m a n 1 ·1 d cnwv. . . S11neha · natwna ,. . . a n orthod ox ra bb'I servmg m t h e secular capaci t\' of a cl i n i ca l psychol ogist in the US A'1r F orce, was ask e d to resign when h e . . . . , refu sed to sto p wear mg h IS yarmulke wh1ch the A1r l· o rcc deci d ed was agai nst its standard d ress requirement, When the matter . reach ed the supre rne court, 1t upheld 5-4 the d ecisio n o f the Ai r Force . 3 Sh ortly th . erea fter t h e N'mth C1rcu1t Court o f Appeals, . . . bas mg Its dec isio n on th e G o 1 dman case , upheld the Army's right to refuse to pro cess th e en 1.J stment application of a S ikh whose . turb an did not con fo rm to Its d ress requirements.4 When the ban on the yar mulke was WI' d e1 y c: nticJsed , the Secretary of State argued that t he unif rms o f s a th e armed fo rces were ''cherished symbols of . ervJ ce, pn. de, histo ry and traditio ns", and that allowing variations . m the m Was b oun d to " o p erate to the d etriment of o rder and . . . . . d iSCip li ne" fo s t er unit egrade "d . "resentment and d iVISiveness" ' oo h�� if an d to reduce com bat effectiveness.s The Supreme Court de cisi on r'lg htl Y outraged many members of Congress , which by a . SIZea ble majo rity asked the armed forces to intro duce greater ·

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fleXI'b 1' l lty ' m · their d ress cod es . The re i s much t o be said in favour o f uniforms in the a rm ed fo rce s. Since the armed fo rces are clos el y identified w i t h the state and symb o lise its unity, unifo rms reinforce the consciousn ess of the ir nati onal role and create co rporate ethos and iden tit y. And it goes Without saying that the y s ho u ld be suitabl e fo r com bat. How ev er, all th i s has to b e bala nced agains t other e q ua l l y relevan t con sid erations . If the yarmu lke, turban and other rel igious h ead

d be dre sses were to b e d isallo wed , Jews, Sikhs and other s woul to serve ity n rtu den ied b o t h an aven ue o f emp loym ent and a n oppo is a cultu ra l l y d ivers e their coun try. Furt herm ore, the U n ited State s nt relig ious faith s. Ther e is no society mad e up o f peop le o f d i ffere nal symb o ls, i nc l u d i ng mil itary o bvio us reas on why its natio c fact. Besid es i f differen es o f mere uniforms, shou ld not reflect that col l ective solida rity and unit head dress are likely t o detract from and facial feature s are accent , colour c o h es ion , the differences of to ban blacks , Jews, have would we more, and l ik el y t o do so even c es . All this means or f armed the from joining As i an s and others it should be open ed, discard the uniform should not be that w hile religious , genuine odate ropriate modification to accomm to app

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they do cultura l and other requ iremen ts , provide d of course that n ot compromis e m i l itary effectivene ss . areas of The contro vers y conce rning u n iforms occu rs in civilia n similar and life as w e l l , wh ere it raises issues that are at once b oth symbo li sm is differe nt. Since n o q u esti o n o f nation al u n i ty or Ho wever, involve d, the controv ersy has o n l y a l ocal s ignifica nce. their life it i nvolves far more people , usually wome n, and affects chan ces to a much greater degree. hosp itals, Many Asian wo men ' s refusa l to wear uniforms in ictory stores and school s has led to much litigati on and contrad nurse, a judgem e nts in B ritai n . A Sikh woman who , on qualify i ng as miz) over inten ded to wear her tradition al dress of a long skirt (que was baggy trousers (shalwar) rather than the req uired unifo r m , Healt h refused a trai ning place on a nursing cou rse by her the Authority. The Industrial Tribunal upheld her co mplain t o n nt ireme ground th at since her trad itional dress was a cultural requ and did n ot impede the discharge of her duti es , requir ing her to replace it with a u n i form was unjustified. The tribunal was overruled by the Employment Appeal Tribunal , whic h too k the

opposite and much criticised view. Since rules abou t nurs es' unifo rms are laid down by the General Nursing Council, the latter promptly i ntervened u n d er government pressure and made more flexible rules. This enabled the H ealth Authority to offer the Sikh woman a place on the nursing course on the understanding that as a qualified nurse her trousers should be grey and the shirt white. <> Cases involving bans on trad itional d resses, beards, etc. have occurred in schools, stores and other public places as w ell , and have l ed to contradi ctory judgeme nts. Sometim es th e cou rts took one view, and were overrule d on appeal. The discrepancy aro se becau se they used two differe nt criteri a in decidi ng such cases. Some times the courts asked I·f the ·JO b · requ uements were plaus ·1 b 1 e or unde rstan dable , that is, if "good reaso ns" could be given fo r them . On othe r occa sions they thou ght that · d · · · suc h a cntenon · r1e JUStl . . almo st every thmg , and msisted that the 1·ob requ· uement s h ou ld b e . . obJecti Vely necess ary, that is they should b · . e m ' d 1spensa ble for the . JObs co ncerned and there should be no alterna . . t 1ve ways of domg . . the JOb. It sounds p laus1ble to say that surgeon . s or th ose w o rkmg . . m chocolate factones should shave off their beards, for 1 . oose h a 1rs

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could easily cause infect ion or pose a risk to publi c healt h. On closer exam in ation the requi reme nt turns out to be o bjectively unnecessary , fo r beard s do not mean loose hair and , if neces sary, they can always be covere d by suitab le clothi ng . After all, we do not ask peopl e in these jobs to shave hair of their heads and arms. Although the test of object ive necess ity is reaso nable, it runs the ri sk of taking a purely i nstrum ental view of the job requir e ments an d strip ping the o rganisa tions co ncerned and the prevaili ng way of life of their cultural id entity . Take the case of hospital nurses' uniforms. One could argue that since the uniforms are not obj ectively neces sary for doing the requi red medical tasks, anyone may wear any thing. This is to miss the crucial point that the uni form sym bolis es and rei nfo rces the ethos and self-co nception of the organis ati on , is a highly visible and concentrated expression of the coll ectiv e spirit of the nursi ng professio n, stru ctures the exp ectati ons and b ehaviour of their patients, and so on. The instrum enta l view of rationality i mplicit in the test of objective necessity is also likely to provoke resentment against th e minori ties, whose dem and s m ight be s een to und ermine a much -ch erished traditi on. It is also unjust b ecause, while it respects the cult ral i denti ty of the m i no rity, it ignores that of the wider co mmum t . . . . Th e con ce pt of o bJective necessity shou ld th ere fo re be defi n ed m a cultura lly sensitive · fICC to both the manner, and sho ul d d o JUS . orms . ority mm . and the establis hed ways of hfe. Th'IS means th at umf part are ey th e s h o ul d be kept in hospitals, schools an d w h erever els . e a d'JUS tme nts. of the tradit i o n , but s hould be open to appropnat the . 1 tur a l i s es S u ch cul tural acco m m o datio n n e J'th er d ecu ally ctic ecle d nor org anis ations concerned an d ren d ers th em bl an d

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it co m ica ! . I nstea m ulti cultura lises them an d re ders the m d a n es valu . t h m i n ority reco nci les the prevai l i ng tra dJ U on WJ nging cha to t h e tra ditio n . p ra ctices , both preserves an d a dapts int o the su1ta bl Y . ion . ontY egrat ·nt 1 m m circum stances a n d facJ.1•1tates . iet y. ope ned up mams tream so c .

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Equality

cases d i s cussed so far, it was relatively easy to identify which respects were relevant a n d of what the equal treatment consist ed . I n a culturally d iverse society, situati ons sometime s arise when it b eco m es diffi cult to decide w h ich respects are relevant, whether two to ind ividuals b elonging to d i fferent cultures are equal in respect them , and what counts as their equal tre atment. I shall take each o f these i n turn.

I n B ritai n as i n all w estern and many non-wes tern societies, the r law lays down that a ma rriage is void if it is contrac ted unde ner. duress , a concep t not easy to define i n a culturally neutra l man sen cho tally A B ritish Asian girl, w h o had married h er paren ed ask husband becaus e of the th reat of ostracism by her famil y, the court to annul her marriage on grounds of dures s. The cou rt decl i n e d , arguing that this would not have amou nted to duress for a white B ritis h g irl, and that duress only occurred when ther e was a "threat of i m m i n ent danger to life and liberty. " This w as a culturally insen sitive interpretati on of duress and was rig htly critici sed. Not su rprisingly the court did a complet e volte fa ce a few years later in d eciding the case of another Asian girl, It took t he view that althoug h acute s o ci a l pressure did not amou nt to d uress for a w h ite Brit ish girl, it d i d so for her Asian counterpa rt, a nd

d ecla red her mar riag e void . The Asian girl is clearly treated d i fferentl y , raising the qu esti on whe ther the d 1' fference amounts to privilege on her part. pn· m a f�cze, It would seem that s he is offered an addition al grou nd fo r ' diss oluti on of m arn age , an d IS thus pnvdeged. Howe\· er, t h IS IS . . not the case Equ a rIty requi res that those who are equal m releva nt · resp ects sho uld b e t reate d equally . The law lays down that fre e . ch otce or abse nce of dure ss is the basis of a valid marria o oe . Si nce . . ostra ctsm by the famt.1 Y VIrtuall y amounts to social death and h e nce . . to duress m . . . . Asi an soc·tety m a way It does not in whit e B no sh . s ocie ty , the d'ff I erenttal treatmen t 0 f t h e Asian and white girls d o es . not offe nd aga·mst t h e pr mcip le 0f eq ua l ity . It does not give the Asi an girl a new gr . oun d for divor . ce, but Interprets . the extst m g ground •

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in a cul turally senstti . . ve manner . Sometimes the recogn ition of cuitural . difference d o es invo lv e unequal rights. Take the cas e of Sikh . ( 1 who are allowed by t h e law to carry a suitably covered ki..... ). d.,.. �r� Ao.SQuJU . · · ' -� m pub bc places ·

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on the groun d that this is a mand atory symb ol of their religi o n . I f other citizen s asked t o be allo wed t o carry a kirpn n, their reque st woul d be turne d down on the groun d that the right is given only · to tho se for wh o1n · · · · · carrymg It IS a re 1 Igwns requireme nts. Short of . . relig io us conv ers ion, they cann ot acqu ire that righ t. This raises the questio n of whethe r non-Si khs can legitim ately · · com plai n o f d Iscnm · matw · n or unequal treatmen t. There is no . dJscn. minat ion invo lved both becaus e their religio us require m ents are n ot igno red , and because they do not suffer ad versely as a result � f the law resp e cting those of the Sikhs. As for the complaint of Ine qual ity, there is a prima facie i nequality of rights in the sense �hat Sikh s can d o what others cannot. H o wever the alleged In equ ality grow s out o f the requireme nts of the p rinciple of equal res p ect for al l , and is not so much inequality as an appropriate tran slation of that p rinc i p l e in a different religious context. When a Musl im is al l owed time off for com munal p rayer on Friday aft ern oo ns but not a Sikh, the latter cannot legitimately complai n of inequal ity. Since their religious requi rements are different, their equ al righ t to religion entails different treatmen t . In deciding w hethe r two ind ividuals or communities are treated equally, we need to cons ider not what specific actions they are or are not able

to un dertake, but whether these are derived from a more general ri gh t w hich they both equally enjoy and which is concreti sed diffe rently in their cases. This is like two individu als who both enjoy the right to equal med ical attent ion but who receiv e differ ent treatm ent depen ding on the nature of their il lness. Equal i n relev ant respects

. respect is r e l e vant in a given contex t , Som eum es we k no w what i n di vi du a l s are equal in respe<.:t I ICU It to decide if two · d'ffi but fin d Jt rst su rfaced in France i n 'JJ 'aire du foulard which fi · Take t•a« to at. 7 Three Musl •i m gtrls . smce. ever It d nte u ha has and tember 1 989

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Equality

the and the headma ster had refu s ed to compro mise. Worried about hijab trend of events, he objected to the Muslim girls wearing the of laicite the in the class room on the grounds that it went against he the French state sch o o l s . Si nce the girls refused to comp ly, ty barred them fro m attendin g t h e school. As a gesture of solidari to ijabs many Musli m girl s through out France b egan to wear h tion school and the m atter acquired national importan ce. The Educa ruled which M i nister, Lionel Jospin, consulted the Conseil d ' Etat that that t h e h ijab d i d not violate the principle of laicite, provided or the girls d i d n o t engage in "pressure , provocat i on, proselytism l loca propaga nda" , t h e d ecision on which was to be made by the the education authority on a case-by-ca se basis. The vague ness of ut b nce ruling not o n ly fai led to give the h eadmaster clear guida e publicly revealed the ambiguities of the o fficial policy. Soon ther

were more i ncid ents of h ijab wearing and protes ts by Musl ims. f provoking counter protests by secular Frenchmen. The stand-of was finally resolved when one of the girls voluntaril y, and the oth er two under pressure from King Hassan of Morocco , agre ed to d ro p the scarves to the s h oulders i n the classroom . The issue flared up again in September 1 994 w h en the principal of a middle school in Nantua barred two girls from the school for wearing the h ijab. The Education Minister Francois Bayrou ruled that while wearing discreet religiou s symbols was acceptable, osten tatious symb ols which in themselves constituted elements o f prosel ytism or d iscrimination were unacceptable, and that the h ijab fell und er that category. Head scarves were now banned as a matter o f pu bli c policy and school decisions to the contrary were declared void . The national debate o n the hijab went to the heart of the Fre nch concept ions of citizens hip and nationa l identity and divi d ed the ,

countr y . Severa l in tel lec tu als of the l eft expres sed the domin ant view when in a letter to Le Nouvel Observateur they urged the gover nmen t not to perpe trate the "Mun ich o f Repu b lica n Edu ca tio n and asked the teachers not to ca p itu late . For them, as for a large body of French m en, F ranee wa s a one and indivisible . natio n based on a singl e culture To be ·1 ts Citize · · n was to transcen d , mdee d to shed , one' s ethnic and other cult ura I paruculanues an d . . . to be ass1m1la ted mto the French culture Eve F ry rene h Citizen · · s to od m a duect and unmeditated relationship w" 1th the F rench nauon "

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Equality in a Multicultural Society

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and enjoyed equality with the rest. Unlike the ethnically o bsessed "Anglo Saxons" who cherish "the right to b e different" and end up ghettoising their minorities and fragmenting their nations, France recognised no ethnic m inorities and rejected all forms of ethnic and religious self-consciousnes s . As Jean-Claude Basseau , former head of the French Office of International Migrations and advisor to Pasque, put it "When someone emigrates , he does not simply change country, he also changes history. Foreigners arriving in France must u n d erstand that their ancestors are the Gauls. They have a new fatherland". For the majority o f F renchmen, the school was the central tool of assimilation i nto the French culture and could not conceivably tolerate eth nic self-exp re s s i o ns . The h ijab was p articularly objectionable because it symbolised both a wholly alien culture and the subo rd inate status o f women. Wearing it implied a refusal to become French, to integrate, to be like the rest. Since laicite was a hard won princi p l e of long historical standing, the French state could not co m p ro mise with it without damaging its identity. As Serge July, the editor of Liberation, put it, " .. behind the scarf is the question of i m migration, b ehind immigration is the debate over integrati o n , a n d behind integration the question of laicite". A small but influential b ody o f French writers took a different view. Danielle Mitterand , t he President's wife, observed, "if today, two hundred years after the revolution, the secular schools cannot welcome a l l religions i n France, all forms of expression, that means there has been a setback". Alain Goldman n , the Chief Rabbi of Paris , sup ported the wearing of h ead scarves, saying t h a t "acquainting l i ttle French children with 'difference' is an excellent p e dag ogica l tech nique. They learn to know and respect others". nd anti-racist spokesmen argued that French unity S e vera I l ·,beral a ded in a re cogn i ti o n rather than d en i al of s h ou Id be gr oun d tha t t he state s ch o o l s laicite shou ld be broadly . d i fferen ces , an . for mmonty cultures. Thanks to such . ter p reted to make ro om . . m ground gammg for the past few years, Fra n ce n ee b h ad . views hich a la dif ference oit movement in the ea r l y 1 980s dr th e itn essed . had W� i ca mpa gn le of the mid 1 9 80s, mb both of wh ich o•·ore En se a nd the encouraged the teaching of mother tongues i n y sit r v e i d ted '1 . . celeb ra d a I ess assimi auomst view o f e d u cau. o n and a n d fos tere . s I o o s ch '

,

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Equality

Fr e n c h n a t i o nal

i d e nt i t y .

Although the as s i m i lationist view

eventu ally triu m p h ed in the h ijab controversy, the pluralist view not only received a respectfu l heari ng but also won a few converts. The p ri ncipal argu m ent against allowing Muslim girls to wear the hijab was that it violated t h e principle of laicite, an essential compo nent of French national i d entity, a n d was thus incompatible with the French self-understanding. Although the argument is not conclusive, for n ati onal id entity is a histo rical product and needs to be redefined w h en the circumstances including the social composition of the country change, it would have a considerable force if the French education system had lived up to the principle of laicite. This was not i n fact the cas e . France not only allows but publicly fu nds Catholic schools where /a icite is obviously not

a

value. More to the p o int, s tate schools allow Catholic girls to wear the cross and other insignia o f religious iden tity. Muslim spokesmen argued that allow ing t he cross but not the hijab was discriminatory and a m ounted to u nequal treat m ent. n. D efenders of the ban, i ncluding the Min ister of Ed ucatio t rejected the Mus l i m charge o f discri m i nation on the grou nd tha the h ijab was not equivalent to the cross, and that the two gro up s of girls were not equal in relevant respects . F irst, unlik e th e "discreetly" worn cross, the "ostentatious" l! ijab was inten ded to p ut pressure on oth er Muslim girls, and entailed "proselytisat ion". Secondly, unlike the freely worn cross, the h ijab symbolised and rei_ �forced women's oppression. It was worn under parental and

socml pressure and perpetuated Muslim patri archy. Thirdly, unl ike �he uns�lfconsio usly worn cross, the h ijab was a polit icall y an d I b · · · · I deol ogic ally mot ivate d assertion o f re 1·Igious ·Identity mspi rct Y . . the nse of fun d a menta1 ·1sm amo ng French Musl ims and their hom e . ·

countnes .

Alth oug h ther e Is · a good d eal of humbug , m isplaced anx i ety and fa1 se a1 arm 10 these argum ents , th e y are not totally devo id of substanee . B oth th e cross and the h lJab . . are religious symbols, and h ence b ases of equa l claim s H o wever , religio us symbols cann ot ed . be defined and co mpar . m the abstract for th ey acqune . different meanin gs and symbo l'Ise d'ff I erent thi ng . d'1fferent contexts, and might sometim es even cease to be . nature. We need to religaous 10 contextu . alise them and to compare. th . em not abstractly or "in .

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Equality in a Multicultural Society

1 39

thems elves" but in terms of the character and signifi cance they might have acquired at a particular p o i nt in time. The questio n i s not whether the hijab i s the I slamic equivalent o f the Christian cross , but whether , i n contemporar y France, wearing the hijab has a bro adly s i milar religious signifi cance to wearing the cross. We cann ot therefor e d i s mi ss the ban i n the name of an abstract right to equality o f religious freedom ; i nstead w e need to take seriously the th ree arguments made i n support of it and assess their validity. As for the first argument, the hijab is certainly visible even perh aps oste ntatiou s , but there is no evidence to support the view

that it was intend ed to proselytise among non-Muslims o r to put religious pressure o n other Muslim girls b eyond the minimum that is inherent in the wearing o f religious symbols . Conversel y the cross is not necessarily d iscreet for Catholic g i rls do sometimes display and even flaunt and talk about it, and it i s clearly visible when they engage in sports, swimming and such other activities . The second argument which contrasts the freely worn cross with the coerced h ijab i s no more persuasive. It privileges choices by adolescent girls and d isapproves of parental pressure. There is no good reason to accept this biased view. Indeed if we did, we would have to ask if pupils had chosen their subjects or careers and were working hard, engaging i n extra-curricular activities and so o n , freely or u n d e r parental pressure, a n d t o disallow all that fel l under the latter. Even if we accepted the distinction between choi ce and coercion, the argument would remain suspect. We have no means of knowing that wearing the cross was a free choice by the girls involved and not done under parental o r church pressure. Conversely we have no means of knowing that Muslim girls wore the /l ijab under parental o r communal pressure. It was true that t h e v had hit he rto avoided it. However. it is quite possible that they i r identitv differently o r felt more confident about 110\\ def1· ned the the father of the two Creil girls said that the deed ex ressi ng it. In lrijab was theirs and that he had been trying the d ision to wear to convince t hem out of it. Since he might be saying this under ressure or to avoid embarrassment, we might refer to the remark a young girl who was inspired by the three Creil girls to start wearing the head scarf in 1 994: �1 feel completely l iberated by the veil. As so o n as I put it on. I as i I 'd blossomed . The veil · ,

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felt

f

1 40

Equality

belief allows a w o m e n no l o nger to be a slave to her body. It is the body". that a woman can go far through m eans other than using her incing, unconv This m ea ns that the third argume nt for the ban is fo r wearing the h ijab n eed not be a form of i d eo logic ally based a self-asser ti o n . As for the fears ab out the rise of fundame ntalism, and term that w as n ever c l early defi ne d , they were specula tive girls i rrelevant to t h e argument . Only three out of sco res of Muslim only not had worn the h ijab, and the father of two of t hem had by no history o f religious activism but was positively embar rassed French the of the publicity . Th ere was not much evidence that most of Muslim Community was b ecom i ng religiously militan t. Some

them d i d s h o w sympathy for traditi o nal values , but that was their choice, was s hared by many s ections of the mainstream Fre nch society as w ell, and hardly amounted to fundamenta l ist militancy. The issues raised by the h ijab are not confi n ed to France. In B ri tain, the s tate funds thousands o f religious schools , but it ha s

constantly rejected Muslim requests for similar schoo ls on one fli msy ground or another. fl Its real reasons , often stated in private and sometimes hinted at in public, are mainly two . First , the stat e funds religious schools b ecause it expects that in addition to groundi ng their pupils into the basic principl es of their religion, they will also d evelop their analytical and critical faculties, provide secular knowledge, and prepare them for life i n a democratic and secular society . This is a difficult balance to strike , which no n­ Musl im religious schools have been able to ach ieve after a lo ng struggle. Since Muslim schools are bound to b ecome nurseries of reactionary and militant i d eas in the current fundam entalist phas e of Islam, th ey are u nl ikely to achieve the basic ob j ectives of educati on and may rightly b e d isallow ed . Second ly state fund ing o f relig ious scho ols ·I n B 't · · 1 ' · · h1stonca · n am 1· s t h e result of spec1f1c . · tY n ow cucum stance s. Brif1sh so c1e realises that such schools are undes irable . Since it canno t renege on Its past commit ments t o . ·

·

exlstl. ng schoo ls, it can at least stop perpetuating the probl e m by . g to fund r efusm new ones.

Opponents of Muslim school s therefore argue that no ·mequa h· t v . . volve d .m . m IS . · denymg state funding to Mus1· 1m school s whtle . . . . g to provtde contmum It to other religious schools. E . reqmre . s qua 1 tty . that equal treatment be gtven to those wh o are equa1 . m relevant

Equality in a Multicultural Society

1 41

respects. The relevant respect h ere is the capacity to provide a balanced religious educatio n . Since Musli m schools lack the capacity, they cannot be treated on a par with other rel igious schools. The second argument has a different thrust. It d o es not say anything about whether o r not the two kinds of schools are equal in relevant respects . Rather it asserts t hat the state has decided to change its policy on funding religious schools. Since it cannot abrogate its past co m m itments, it must continue to fun d Christian and J ewish schools. Although this i nvolves treating Muslims unequally, such i nequal ities are inherent in social l i fe and cannot be avoided. Long-established groups often enjoy rights based on past co mmitments and pol icies . When the policies are changed , they retain the rights which are no longer availabl e to their success o rs . O pponents o f state funding for Muslim scho ols make the imp orta nt theoretical point t hat equality s hould not be understood in purely fo rmal and abstract terms. Just because some religious

communities enjoy state-fu nd ed scho ols, it does not necessarily follow that d enying them to Musl ims amounts to i nequality, for they m ight not be able to fulfil the socially prescribed objectives of edu cation or the state might sincerely wish to discontinue such schools. Rather than accuse their opponents of being anti-Mus l i m , ra cists , et cetera, o n the basis o f a n abstract a n d u ntenable vi ew o f i nequ a l i ty , w e need t o see i f their two arguments h a ve a n y merit. Their first argu m e n t is suspect. To say that I s l a m is currently going th rough a fu ndamentalist phase is a gross exaggerat ion, true at best of some and not of all Mus li m countries. More to the po int, it is not at all true of B ritish I s la m . Since the British government allo ws p ri va t el y funded Musl i m schools , it evi dently shares t h is s c ep t ici s m . a nd is wrong to raise the bogey o f funda m en ta l i s m o n l y e fu n d in g is i n volved . There is a l s o a r i s e i n C h ristian w h en s t a t lis rn . but the British government shows no s igns of nta · e fu n d a m . w n or issuing suitable wa rni ngs to state-funded Christian c I os m g d o . the right to i n s pect Is Furt hermore. t h l· govern ment enjovs sc hoo . te s ch o o l s . especially t heir curric u l u m , pedagogy and an d reg ula os. a n d has enough power to counter such fo rm s of en era l eth m as m ight arise in Muslim schools . The power i s alis ent m da n

�

greater, a n d its exercise more acc eptable . if t he state bou nd to be

1 42

Equality

B ritish also funds them. The second argum ent is no better. The s state certai n l y has the right to change its policy on funding religiou new to schools. This i nvolves n o t only denying state fu nding mutually schools , but also phasing out the existing ones over a not shows agreed period of time, s o m ething which the B ritish state it is the s lightest sign of doing. There is no evid ence either that the putting pressure on them to b eco m e s ecular or even to reduce two the religious content of t h e curriculu m . Since neither of state argume nts advanced by the governm ent is valid, the denial of funds to Musli m schools amounts to unequal treatment. ce In the l ight of our discussi ons o f the hijab controv ersy in Fran be and the state funding o f Muslim schools i n B ritain, it shoul d d an clear that equality between cultures is logically differen t from cannot b e u nd e rs to o d along t h e l i n es o f equality betw een i n d i viduals . Unlike the latter, it is d eeply embed ded in and i nseparabl e fro m the w i d er cultural and politi cal relatio ns betw een

the commun i ti es involved. And the cultural com mu nities ofte n contain a wide variety of views on a subject and cann ot be homogenised and reified. The case for intercultu ral equali ty sho uld not be made i n such highly abstract and historical terms that it ignores genuine differences b etween communities i nvolved or fails to address the deepest anxieties of the wider s ociety. I suggest that we should take a contextualised view of equali ty , iden tify what respects are really relevant, and d emand equal treatm ent o f tho se shown to be equal in these respects . If the h ijab really is differen t from the cross, which it is not, then Muslim girls may legi timately e den ed the right to wear it without i ncurring the charge of m ��uahty. And i f Muslim schools d o really run the risk that th eir cnucs fear, which they d o not, or i f the British state does really wish to d i sconti nue religio us schoo ls, which it does not then they may l �git� mately be denied state fund i ng withou t o ffend ng agai nst the prmc 1ple of equal ity. aking such a conte xtual ised, polit ically and his to rical ly . sensi tive, and nuanced view of equa lity , . no d ou b t, creates Its own prob lems. We leave too much space for . specious reasomng, . alarm ist fears and political i nenia and we al so run th e nsk . of not knowm g how to compare differences how tQ se parate relevant from urelevant differences, how to assess the context . and so on. It 1s

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Equality in a Multicultural Soc1ety

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therefore tempting to take the more d ependable route of insisting on the general right of equality, and to argue that since Christians and Jews have a right to their schools, Muslims too must have a

right to state-funded schools, If what I have said is co rrect, the

temptation should b e resiste d . I f we ask the law to take such a mechanical and simpl istic view o f equality, then we cannot consistently ask it to take cultural d ifferences into account i n the case of Ahmad, the Sikhs and the marriage of the Asian girl discussed earlier, and that would o bviously lead to i njustice. The question therefore is not whether Muslims have a right to religious freedom but what, if anything, that right entails in a specific context, and that invo lves d eciding what features of the context are relevant and whether Muslims are equal in respect to them. The movement from a gen eral right to equality to the right to a specific treatment in a specific context, that is, fro m

a

general right to

religion to the right to wear the lzijab in a school, is not d irect and deductive but contextually m ediated . It is not therefore enough to appeal to the gen eral right to equality. One also needs to show that there is equality in the relevant features of the context and that it entails i d entical treatment. As we saw, once we move away from the simple assertion of the right to equality and take a contextu alised view o f it, we are obvi ously open to the danger o f a la r m is t fears and dishonest and racist reas o n ing w i t h the consequ ent i njustice to minorit ies. The o f publicly fu nded French ban on the h ijab and the British denial d by anti-M uslim Muslim schools were at least in part motivate this way to do t h is One . against guard to need we and sentim ents ,

is to in s is t that equality req u i res identical treat ment and to place the o nus of just i fication on those seeking to d e pa rt from it . Thus l d be assumed t o be entit led to state-fu n d ed Britis h M usli ms wou be up to t h e g o v er nme n t to prove to t h e d l u o w it sch oo l s and ce n rned w h y su c h s ch oo l s m i g h t be den ied t o co all of facti on satis

th em . We migh t go further and allow t h e u n convinced m in o r i t ies t o e t h e courts aga i n st the deci sions o f t h e government . Part app a l t o on why B ritish Muslims t•o n t i n m· to fee l h i t t e r has to do reas o f th e t t hat there is n o a p p e a l against t h e go\'ermm·nt's fac w i t h t he and hen ce no o pportunity to c h a l l en ge i t s n·asons and t o cisi on.

de

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Equality

expose its p rejudices . Another measure would be to develop

a

suitable public forum where such complex issues can be debated between the representatives o f different com munities. The kind of consultative forum that the F rench have developed is a good example of this.

Equal treatment Sometim es it is difficult to decide what constitutes equal treatment because s everal d ifferent forms of treatment fit that description. England has long had an established church, which enjoys rights not available to other religions. Twenty six Anglican bis hops sit in the H ouse of Lords; the Church of England alone has the right to officiate at such state ceremonies as coronation and royal weddings and to p erform pastoral duties in the armed forces; the reigning monarch is the "defender of the faith", a n d their children must marry only the Protestants , and so o n . England also has a law proscribing blasphemy against Christianity. s I n the aftermath of the Rushdie affair i n 1 98 9 , British Muslim began to complain that these arrangeme nts privilege d Chris tianity and treated no n-Christian religions unequally. 9 The com plaint received two very different responses. Some, mainly the conservatives, rejected it on the ground that since Britain was both a Christian society in the sense that Christianity meant much to most of its citizens and was a source of many of their moral values, and a Christian state in the sense that a historical settlem ent betw een �he state and the Church of England had made Chris tian ity an mtegral part of the former ' s corporate identity, Christi anity rightly _ enJoyed · 'I eged status. Being woven into the very struc ture of a p nvi . B ritish nati o nal id entIty, · could not and should not be trea ted as It . JUSt one re l i gion amon g many 0 thers, mainly but not only the . I 1 be ra1 s, co n ced ed the Mus rIm ch arges of discriminati on an d . .mequa ht y ' but respo nded in two d'ff 1 eren t ways. Most of the m agre�d that the prin ciple of equality required dises tabli shment of the Angl ican church, but disagreed about the anti-hiasp hem y law. Some favoured the aboliti0 n wh ereas others urged . its extenswn to all rel igions ' arguing that e'th I er course of action fullY respected the demands o f the p ri ncipl e of rei'tgtous equahty. .

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Musl im spok esme n rejec ted the conserva tive argu ment on three grou nds. First , no histo rical settl eme nt coul d claim perm anence. It was a prod u ct o f its time and subj ect to revis ion in the light of new circu msta n ces. Seco nd ly, taken to the logical conc lusio n, such a p ositivist argu m en t justifi ed all mann er of existing privi leges and practice s and d en i ed justi ce to n ewco mers . Thir dly, the principle of equal ity, which Britai n claim ed to upho ld, requi red that all religio ns shou l d be treat ed equa lly, irresp ectiv e o f their age, histo ry and m em bers hip. As fo r the li beral argu ment, Musli m leader s endors ed the extens io n o f the anti-b lasphe my law but not its abolit ion . If the Chu rch o f Englan d did not n eed the protect i on o f the law, it did not have t o avail o f it, but there was no reason to deny i t to those in nee d of it. Further more abolitio n of the anti-bla sp hemy law g ranted Musli ms negative or formal but not positive or real e qua lity ; indeed since there was a vast i n equality of power and status b etween the two religious com munities, the abolition was lik ely to make no d i fference to the securely established Christianity bu t bou nd to have d isproportionately adverse effects on minority rel igi ons . Muslim spokesmen also argued that their religion was un der parti cular threat in the current climate, and that it was p erfe ctly fai r to grant special p rotection to the weak. After all, t � e anti-discrim inatio n legislation, which singled out women and ethmc . rnmorltles for specta1 protectio n , was ba sed on that pri ncipl e, and .

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so at a d i fferent level was the welfare state. We then have four d i fferen t i nterpretati ons of the conce pt of . . equa l treatment of all rehg w ns. p·1 r st the state is not to persec ute . . l ege one that happe ns . o r suppress any r ehg w n but m ay r i ghtly privi . . . . Second , 1t should identity and to be an mteg ral part 0 f us h istory . . . . . Third ' it should not mstltut lona 1.rse an d 11 Prot ect all rehg wns equ a Y · . · . An d fourth ' i t should protect one un der threat •

Pro tect any rehg JOn . . . extra protection to md 1 v r du a l s under in the sam e way th a t 1't grants . . · This raises the questiOn as to wh1ch of threa t or m spec 1· aJ n e ed ·

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four ·1s th e " corr e ct " or rather t h e most rea sonable t h es e . . . . . . er p retation of the principle of rehgwus equality. The question IS

mt

sy to answer. If we d efi me t h e pnnc1p I e m terms o f equa I n ot ea 1 g h ts ' on ly the second and third i n t er pretat i o ns q ual i fy , a n d forma r i . . 50 e u a lly. If we d efine 1 t m te r m s of equal outcome or eq u a l l y q do ·

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Equality

effectiv e p rote cti o n of all religio n s , then the second and the fourth but not the third would qual ify . In either case the first interpretation would seem grossly d iscrim inatory and would have to be rejected . The discu s s i o n is further complicated by the fact that religious equality is an am biguous con cept . It could mean equal respect for religions taken as collecti tJe wholes, or equal respect for the religious beli efs and p ra ctices of a l l in d iv idu n l s; that i s , it could mean either

equality of religions or equal right to religion. In the first sense of the term, all but the first of the four interpretations m entioned above satisfy the principle of equal ity; in the second sense, the first interpretation not only qualifies but m ight even have an edge over the oth ers . O nce the religious beliefs o f all individuals are equally respected, which the fi rst interp reta tion secures, no apparent i njustice is done to m i norities if the religion of the overwhelming majority of the citi:.r,ens is g iven some precedence over others . This i s especially so when that precedence has been long enjoyed, is built into the very structure of the state, and has no apparent adverse effects on religious minorities. Since both equality in general and religious equality in particular can be differently d efined , all four interpretations are valid in their o w n d i fferent ways . N o n e can be d eclared i l l egitimate or unreaso nable on the basi s of an essentialist or allegedl y "tru e" concepti on of equal ity. How then can we choose betw een th em ? · . w e 0 b vwusly need to step outside the narrow and for mal d iscussion of equality, and tak e into account such external b ut highly relevant factors as the context of its applicatio n, ot he r polit ical valu es th a t are JUst orta nt . · as I. mporta nt as .If not more Imp than equa lity and th e ch aracter of th e pol itical system. . As we saw r eligious equa 1.Ity means equal ity of rioht to rchg w . n "' ' . or equa hty of religi ons . Th e former is beyond dispute in a lib era l . ty . . socie ' whic h shou ld give a ll .Its Citi7: . . ens equal rights to relig w ns . be 1.Ie fs an d prac uces The se . cond kmd of equality is not so sim ple. . . Like all other s ocieties B nt . am has a d't s tmc t history, traditi ons , way of life ' and so forth ' and h ence a s pect' fiIC cultural characte r that . . .It IS makes it the kind of SOCiety . . and disfmgu1shes It from othe rs . Among other things it ·1s pro foun d ly sha d bY Ch nsua . . mty, . as .IS . . pe evid ent in i ts mora l life mYths. pohttcal . •

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literature, art and self-conception. Since ·

an . d moral discourse,

Brital., cannot

leap out of

Equality in a Multicultural Society

1 47

its cultural skin, to deny the Christian compo nent of its identity i n the name o f granting equal status t o all i ts religions i s unjust because it denies the bulk of its citizens their history, and is likely to provoke widespread resentment. It is also dangerous because when sentiments and sensib i l ities that are deeply inscribed in the way of life of a com munity are denied legiti mate public expressions, they often tend to reappear at other l evels i n ugly forms. While all this is true, it is equally true that Britain has undergone marked demographic changes in recent decades. It now has a sizeable number of religious minorities with their own distinct histories and traditi ons, about which they feel just as strongly as the rest of the British citizens do about theirs. The minorities are an integral part of B ritish society, and deserve not o nly equal religious and other rig hts but also an official acknowledgement of their presence in both the s ymbols of the state and the dominant definition of national identity. The acknowledgement cannot be equal, not so much because the minority religious communities are numerically unequal as because they have not shaped the British identity as decisively as Christianity has , are not an equally deep and p ervasiv e p resence in B ritish political culture, and do not f rm . an int egral and central part of B ritish society as does Chrisu a mty. . As i ndi vid uals , all B ri tish citizens should have equal relig ious nghts b ecause they are equal in relevant respects . H ow ever ' they hav e not played an equal part in shaping , a n d are not equally centra 1 . to , the country's national Jdenuty. · . th ey are not eq ua 1 10 this s mce . . . . res pect, they c a n n o t demand equ a l recogm uon m J't s self. or und ersta ndin g and self-defi m uo n n or co mp1 am 0 f ineq ual ity , . . .IS d em.cd t hem. They a r c , .In JUSt ice when equal pub I I. C recog n i tJOn . ty an d deserve and ca n . so cie however , an integral part 0 f B n"tish . . n by the Brit ish sta te. nght ly demand some pu bl'I C rccog mtJO . eq uality under stood etau on o f rcl ig i o u s r p mtcr e Any reaso nabl . these facts , and . take accou nt of both . , . as equality of reI 1 g 1. 0 ns must . . . ·a I f demands o Britam s h 1 st o m IegJUmate 11 reco ncile the uality, of bot h the majorit y and the Y. cl ple 0f eq identity and the P nn tations menuonc d ca r 1·tcr d o<.· s terpre . f the four JD . . . min oriti� · of 1dcnuty but 1gno cs t h e nce mporta the 0 e6l i _ . the other th ree d � t h e o p p os i te m t hc_• r cnv n

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t�,� fr,Ji1>� t�i cit� w,a�different

only way to reconCile t h e tWO demands

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both

1 48

Equality

public to accept the privileg ed state of Christia nity and to give rightly recogni tion to other religio ns. Christia nity may therefore y, but identit e remain the central co mponen t of B r itish co llectiv arily other rel igions must also receive adequa te, though not necess and equal , recogni tion and represen tation in the i nstitutio ns , rituals ps, bisho cerem o n i es of the state. Along w ith the Anglica n House represen tatives of other religion s could be appoint ed to the the of Lords; s tate ceremon ies such as the coronati o n and the rememb rance day could have a no n-Christ ian compo nent; and monarch could patro nise non-Ch ri stian festivals and events; y icall istor h so on. In so doing British society both retains its nt re acquired rel igious i dentity and publicly acknowledg es i ts cur to de deci multi-relig ious co mposition . B ritai n may, of course t ren disestablish the Anglican church, but that is an altogether diffe matter and is no t required by the principle of religio us equa lity. So l ong as it retains the established church , it may legitima tely priv ilege Chri stianity provided that other rel igions receive their due. As for the anti-blasphemy law, i t is only contingently related to the established church. In an earlier era the two went to geth er ; i n today ' s freer cli mate t h e y n eed n o t . They can therefo re b e uncoupled , a n d the anti-blasphemy l a w d iscussed separately . As w e s a w there a r e four possible ways of dealing with it, namely, to keep it as it is , to abolish it, to extend it to all rel igions, or to protect only the religion u nder threat. Anti-blasphemy law relates to people's rel igious beliefs and p ractices and seeks to prot ect th em against scurrilous, abusive or offensive attacks. It pertai ns to t he right to religion rather than of religions. Since the religio us belie fs and practices of all citizens d eserve equal respect , the fir st alterna tive which privileg es C hristian ity is discri mi nat ory a nd d eserves to be rejecte d. The fact that Christ ianity is the religio n o f . the maJ· ority or centr al to nat 10na 1 1·d entity · ·1s relevant m · ot h er c� ntext s but not in this one, for here we are conce rned with ci vil nghts and not with the pol·t· I Ica 1 expre ssiO · n of natiOn al Jden uty. . . . Smce every rehg1 0n can claim to be unde r th · reat an d smce we h ave no mean s of adjud icatin g these claims in a co 11ecuve · 1 y accepta bl e manne r, the fourth alternative is also ruled out Th·Is 1 eaves us wit · h the second and third alternatives. Since Christian·1 t · Y enJoys cu 1 tura 1 . . . and poh u cal pre-emmen ce, and since minort" t 1 ·

·

·

·

Y

•

re 1g10 ns are .

1 49

Equality in a Multrcultural Socrety

relatively powerles s, abol ition of the anti- blas phem y law has a disproportio nate l y adv erse effect on them . Un less ther e are othe r reaso ns for abo lish ing the law , the thir d inte rpretation that it should be exte nde d to all relig ions has m ost to be said in fa\'o ur of it . The anti- bla sphe my law cann ot, of cour se, be d iscu ssed in isolation from the larg er que stio ns abo ut the plac e o relig f ion in publ ic life and the stat e's rela tion to it. I f we took the view that relig ion has no role in pub lic life o r is not a desi rabl insti e tution or is of no conc e rn to the stat e, then the anti -bla sphe y m law shou ld be abol ished . If, on the othe r han d, we took the view that relig io n ha s an i mpor tant contr ibu tion to make to publi c life , that its voice need s to be hear d alon g with secu lar and othe r voic es, that it should be subj ected to the disci pline of publ ic deba te rathe r than left to sulk or be manip ulated . by irresp onsib le l eaders , and so on, then the state w o uld need to respe ct and guard it again st point less and abus ive atta cks . Whether o r not to retai n the anti- blasphemy law depen d s on our ans wers to these and related questio ns. And it is o nly w hen we have a nswered them that the principl e of equal i ty beco m es op er at ive . I m plica tio n s

I n the p revio us sections I have d iscussed specific cases a� d hig hli ght ed both the kinds of problem s the principle of equahty . . . rm. ses m a cultura lly diverse soc1ety an d t h e ways in which they . 0 ut mi ght be resol ved It would be useful to co nclu d e b y dra":mg . . O n . USSI so m e of the general theo retical imp ! Icatw n S of ou r diSC " . . 1 tho ug ht has Alm ost from i ts v ery b eg ·m n ·mg Western p o 1 ltlCa • y, a n d has given rise b een p reo ccupied w i th the q uesno · n of equa 1 u subj ect. The to an unusually rich a n d van· e d d1. sco urse on the . m ajor weakness. S mce disco urse ' h ow ev er , h as su ffered from one umred ta nce of culture or a ss m ost writers e ith e r .1gno red the impo r Jty . y, thei r discussions of equa a culturall y homogenous soctet d d th e 1 ega 1 civil ough they iscusse · ity. Alth . I ack ed cultural senst ttV ed the d" ·

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commumt1es. r OJ cu ltures o rather cultural

1 50

Equality

W i t h such exce p t i o n s as Herder a n d the Romantics , hardly anyone

has e x p l o red w h a t , if a n y , cultu ra l rights citizens can justifiably

d em a n d and w h ether cultural com munities can be bearers of rights . Furthermore,

althoug h

p o l itical

thinkers

discussed equality of

ind ividuals, they paid little attention to the question of equality of

cu l tural communities . They asked w h et her, why and within what

l i m its a l l human beings or citizens s h o u l d be t reated equally, b u t d i d not raise thes e q u es t ions in relation to cultures . Agai n , altho u g h they d eveloped a large v o cabulary around the i dea of equ ality

inclu d i ng such concepts as equal consid eration, equal respect, equal treatment, equality o f o p p o rtun ity, equal rights and equality before

the law, they genera l l y analysed these concepts in the context of a

culturally homogenous s oci ety . As a result their analysis does not

rea d i l y apply to d iscussions of inter-cultural equality and has only a limited value in dea ling with the p ro b l ems of multic ultural soci eties . I n this paper, I have b riefly sketched how we mi ght g o

about constructi ng a cultural l y sensitive theory o f equ alit y . pts as Since h uman beings are culturally embed d e d , such co nce fore equal resp ect for persons, equal opportunity and equa l ity be the law n eed to be i n terpreted in a culturall y sensit ive ma n n er. Unless we appreciate that human beings need to be loca ted ag ain st their cu ltural backgrounds , and their actions interpreted in terms

of the systems of meaning characteristic of their cultures, we

misunderstand them and do them injustice . Ind eed in assimilatin g them to our system of meaning, we d en y their d is tinctive i d entity

a d can hardly be said to respect them . For example, it was recently � d i s covere d that eth n i c m i nority can d i dates for j o b s w ere systematic ally underscored a n d rej ected because their ha bit of n ot looking th eir int erviewer s in the eye led the latter to co nclud e that they were shifty and devious and likely to prove unrelia ble . B y failing to apprecia te that the can d idates belonge d to a d i ffer ent cultu re fro m their s and n ee d e d to be und ersto o d in terms of it, th e . . mter v!e s ende d up treat ing them une q ual l y with their w h ite � competitors.

Like the conc ept of equal resp ect, ha t t of equal opportunity al so to be .Inter prete d in a cu 10 lt u ra ll Y sensit . . ive . mann er. 0 pportumty IS a subJect-dependent concept tn th e sense that a . a resource, or a course of action is faci. 1 Ity, . iu&t a mute and passiv e

need s

·

.

.

·

·

151

Equality in a Multicultu ral Society

poss ib ility and not an oppo rtu n i ty for an ind ividu al if she lacks the capac it y, the cultu ral d is p o s i ti o n , or the neces sary cultur al kno wledg e and res o u rces to take advan tage of it. And simila rly a cours e of actio n is not an optio n to her if it does not form part of her view of the world and is mora lly or cultur ally too costly . As we saw, a Sikh is abstra ctly o r "in princip le" free to send his son to a s chool that disallow s a turban, but fo r all practica l purposes the scho ol is closed to him. Requ iring the ortho do x Tew to give up his yarm ulke, or the Hindu or Muslim women to wear skirts, in ord er to be eligib le for certai n kinds of jobs is to close these avenues of emp loym ent to them . The capacity i nvolved here is cultural in nature and, sinc e i n some cases it is bound up with the individ ual's sen se of iden tity, it sometimes has the same force as a physical disabi lity. I n a cultur ally diverse society, equal opportunity requires that the avail able options should be more or less equally accep table to m e mbers of different communities. Amartya Sen's otherwise useful concept of ind ividual capability is defined in abstract and tra nscultu ral terms , ignores cul tural constraints on the indi vi d u�l an d o ffers only lim ited help in discussions of intercultural equahty ,

and fai rn es s.

. on n °f the law and so Eq ual ity b efore the law, equal pro tectw . . . . law A a re also cu ltu rally mediated an d call for cu ltura l sensitiVIty . ua IIy, but in fact b a nn mg the u s e of d rugs apparentI Y treats all eq . . . . drugs are religi ous . It d Isc n m mates agamst th o se c10r whom .some ote and Mariju ana ey p . or cultural require ments, as m the case wi th farians. Thi s Rasta the res pectively for the Ame n. can In dians an d t rather that bu use ' n their does n o t m ean that th e law m aY not ba reasons strong have . . . q ua l J.mpact and . It shou ld appreciate t he lf u n e Umted States ps. The two grou . . . fo r denyi ng exemp tiOn to the . . .JsJte cultural s ens i ti V Ity w h en 1 t eq u go vern ment showed th e r Je ws and Catholics during o f w1·ne by . I use exem pted the cerem oma the p rohibitio n period. 1e 0( eq uality requires that the la w should ciP Prima facie th e P11·n_ tion a nd content. H oweve r, situatio ns do be u n i fo rm i n its t ea tm en t. Given t he horri ble nature arise when it a�QQ d the persisten t streak of anti-sem itism in its sense for G e rman y to single out a ttacks of th e H e nt and to treat these as cases shm pu ni of on '

.

.

·

·�':rent r

.

152

Eq uality

or aggrava ted assault. In a soci ety in which specific cultural , ethnic religious minorities have long b een demonised and are frequent but targets of discrimin atory treatmen t, discrimin ation against them more not agai nst oth ers m ight be d eclared illegal or subjected to s evere penalties . At one level the d i fferential treatmen t of these

nly groups appears to confer a privileg e on them; in fact it is o rest d es igned to equal ise these especiall y vuln erable groups with the of the community.

ity I n thes e and other cases we are concerned to ensure equal s acro ss cultures , and that is not easy . In a culturally homog enou and society i ndividuals s hare broadly s imilar n eeds , d ispositions desi res . Si nce equal treatment here m eans a broadl y i denti cal treatment, the p ri n c i p l e of e quality is easy to appl y, and

d iscriminatory d eviations from it are easy to identify . I n a cultu rally diverse soci ety, i nd i vidual dispositions , n eeds, capacit i es, and so on vary consid er ably, and d ifferences confront us at each stage . In order to treat such i ndividuals equally, we need to id ent ify and i nterpret these differences , d istinguish those that are relev ant, ass ess their comparative significance fo r the individuals concerned , and arrive at a form of treatment that is broadly equal. More often than not, equal treatment here will mean differential and not id entical treatment, raising the question as to how we can ensure that the d i fferential treatment is really equal a n d n o t a cloak fo r discrim inati on. Although there i s no foolproof cri teri on of it, we should look at equality of effect (which i s no t the same as equ ality of outcom e) rather than at the formal identity of rights . Our earl ie r discu ssion s show w hat this impl ies.

Thanks to the centuries of discourse on equality in the co ntext of a homogen ous society, we have b ecome so accustom ed t o equati ng equa l ity with i dentic al treatm ent, and d i ffere nti al �reatm �nt with inequality, that we feel intellectually disorientate d _ m cop � ng With cultu rally diver se socie ties. On the one hand , we . appr eciate that peop le are different . . , i n th eu need s an d capacm es and that our treat ment of them shou ld take . full account o f th IS. 0 n the othe r hand every form of differential treatment , espec1a · 1 1y of . . . cuI turaI m m o nu es arouses our deepest fears an . d a n x i et ies , lest It . . ,

·

·

. should lead to an InJUStice or privilege A g oo d d eal of o ur resistance to state support for mino rity languages and cultures and ·

.

Equality in a Multicultural Society

1 53

even to some form of affirmative action spring s fro m this unease . I f w e a r e to ensure fairnes s a n d equalit y in cultura lly diverse societi es , we need to do two things: first, we must appreciate that equal treatment m ight have to be differen t and not identica l in its content , and second , we need to develop approp riate concep tual and institu tional tools to ensure that differen t treatme nt does not lead to unfa ir d is crim i natio n or privi lege. A good society should aim to ensure equal treatment to all its citi zens , i nclud ing its cultural minorities. However well-intent ioned and gen erous it m ight be, its capacity to do so is limited. First, i t has a sp ecific character or identity which it has acquired over the centuries and which is deeply woven i nto its way o f life. It is ther efor e n ecessari ly partial to a specific way o f life and cannot treat all its co nstituent ways of life impartial ly. Although it can and should periodically redefine its identity to accommodate new needs and demands, it cannot do so beyond a certain point without losing its c o h e rence and causi ng widespread disorientation and res entment. A s ociety needs to be sensitive to both its past and its pres ent, to the claims of both its majority and minorities, and to find ways of reconciling the demands of equality with the need to retain its sense of h istorical continuity . What sometimes gives multiculturalism a deserved ly bad name is its tend ency to undermine a society 's identity and cultural coheren ce and to reduce it to a charac terless collect ion of discret e group s in the name of l comm unities within giving a fu l l eq uali ty of status to all its cultura d s ta t e n la nd b a ral t u ne the frame work o f a cultur ally ised by a wid e is character society Secon d , a culturally d iverse them of all ran e of someti mes quite deep d ifferences, of clai ms on it. However sensitive a society m i g h t he, its moral .se 5 are li mit ed . and it cannot be eq u a l l y sensitive o r en erg all differences. It cannot be equ al ly tolerant of them sym path e t"1 c to to make the constant ch anges in its practices . er. n or wi lling . all esth · · · · accommo d auo n requires. A n d smce ir e sts . fs that th I Ic e b d 1· an · ifferen t cu 1 tures IS 1m1ted Its capacity to fi me tunc 1" g of d u nd er�ta �d ; qu a l it y to their d i fferences is also l i m ited. A ll t h i s P1 o f e . the p nn c• ety can ever ensure full eq ua l i ty to al l us cultural oci that n o s ns a e 01 does not at all mean that it should not constantly es. Th i s · no n n 011• wa rds th at go a l or tha t u n j ust l y treated minori t ies shoul d .

making all

kin�s

·

·

·

,

.

•

stn ve

•

to

,

Equality

1 54

not put constant p ressure on it, but rather that we should not take too harsh a view of its li m itations and that its minorities should bear this fact in mind i n fo rmulating their demands. Finally, altho ugh cultural equality is an impo rtant value, it is not the only o n e . U n ifo rmity, efficiency, respect fo r the rights of others, c o l l ective interests of the o rga nisation concerned, social harmony, a climate o f trust and goodwill, and spontaneous co­ operatio n o f others are also important collective values, and demands for equality need to be balanced against them. Much of what makes human life valuable dep ends on the goodwill and spontaneous co-o peration o f o thers, and falls outside the ambit of claims and rights. A cultu ral m inority that s tridently insists on its rights in disregard of their cultural, o rganisational and other costs risks l o sing in the long run far more that what it gains in the short run . And so does a majority that brazenly takes advantage of its vulnerable and powerless mino rities , and exaggerates its incapacity to m ake such changes in its way of l i fe as are required by their legitimate demands and can be easily accommodated. The language of claims and counterclaim s , i nsistence on one's due, and so forth, which are all inherent in the ultimately atomistic principle of equality, do have an important place in social life . But they must not be allowed to o bscure the central fact that our lives overlap at countless points , that we are p rofoundly influenced by how others lead their lives, and that every society is ulti matel y sustained and i ndeed made bearable by the spirit of charity, good will, and mutual respect and acco mmo datio n . Endnotes 1.

�h m� d's

case is describ ed in detail i n Sebasti an Poulter ( 1 9 80) f.ngl rsh Law and Ethnic Minor ity Customs, Lond o n : Butterwo rths, pp. 247 ff.

3.

For details, see Poulter, OJl dt.

4.

K halsa

2.

5.

Gold man

v

Weinberger 475 US 503 (19 86).

v . Wei nberg er, 7 8 7 F 2d. 1 2S 8 , (1 9 86) . Cited i n Glor i a T. Beckley and Paul Bern stein (1 991) "Religiou s Plurali_ sm, Equal Oppor tunity and the State" . . • Th e wester n Polttr cal Quarterl!J, Vol 44, p.202.

Equality in a Multicultural Society

1 55

6.

For details see Poulter, op cit.

7.

For useful discussion, see Anna E l isabetta Galeotti ( 1 993) "Citizenship and Equality: The Place for Toleration", Political Th eory, V o l 2 1 , pp . 5 8 5-60 5 ; and Norma Claire Moruzzi (1 994) "A p roblem with head scarves; Contemporary Complexities of Political and S ocial Identity", Political Theory, Vol 2 2 , pp 653671 .

8.

See Tariq Modood (1 992) Not Easy Being British, London: Trentham B ooks .

9.

See B hikhu Parekh (ed) ( 1 990) Law, Blasphemy and the Multi­ Faith Society, London: Commission for Racial Equality.

10. For a fu ller philosophical discussion, see my "Cultural Diversity and Liberal Democracy," in David Beetham, (ed) (1 994) Defining and Measuring Democracy, London: Sage.

1 57

The Attractions of Basic Income B rian Barry

!he startin g point for this essay is a fa miliar story: the worldwide

� ntell ectual

malaise o f the politica l l eft. This is not necessa rily Inco mpati b l e with the electora l success of parties of the left but i n offi ce their perfo rmance seems i n creasingly ind istingu ishable from that of their rivals. P o l iticians are busy people for whom fifteen min utes thinking about one subject is a l o ng time. With extremely rare excep tions, they do not o riginate ideas. Rather, they pick them up from others and adapt them to their own purposes. If politicians

of the l eft are ad rift, this is a refl ection of the lack of a coherent alter nati v e to the prevailing market-oriented ideology. Out of the many statements of the problem that I have read, I choose fo r its comprehensiveness and succinctness that put forward by Henry M i lner, whose diagnosis runs as fol lows: Des p i t e the defeat of state socialism, people in the industria lised world have not been won over to rightist sensibilities. Eyewitness accounts in the media continually evoke the immortality of extreme inequality. The ideal - the enlighten ment version of the good society as a community of free and equal people - is still very much alive. But we Jack a theoretical framework through which we can convert our sensibilities and ideals into practical, real-world choices that decrease i nequality. For all the writing and discuss ion, inguishable social-democratic or egalitarian the re is no dist y to replace the failed Marxist one, no p oli tical econ om s of institutional arrangements in a socictv ysi al sys tema tic an . . basis of their performance m producing the n o ce of free choi . . 1 butmg resources. n · y - dist a n d - fai rl ·

.

. the m agnitude of the challenge outlined by Milner, it th . Faced Wi w from mtellectual engagement with politics. .IS temp ting to wi th. dra . . . . . o nse IS no t mcons1st ent wu h contmumg to g1ve time a resp h c u (S

.

Equality

1 58

least and m o n ey to w hichev er pol itical party one regards as the have obnoxi ous. ) This is a path trodden b y many ex-Mar xis ts who variety of rational ised their feelings of futility by embrac ing some that, postmo dern though t . The driving force here is the assump tion total if there is no single formula for social transfor mation (eg the . abolition of capi talis m ) , there is nothing worth saying n to This passivi ty may b e contras ted with an opposi te reactio ic what is in essence the same diagnos is: that between them econom ons and electora l constrai nts rule out anythin g except slight variati is on the status q u o . The alternative to i ntellectual passivi ty e ther let i ntellectual hyperactivity: in the absence of any big idea, of b e an unlimited number of little ones. The upshot is a myriad , proposals for incremental improvem ents to existing institutions uch each of which is argued for i n d ep endently on its own merits. S an approach is entirely honourabl e, and if the diagnosis is accurate, it is hard to see how anything better can be hoped for. It is as well , however, to be aware that this i s scarcely a formula for the

revitalisatio n of the left. Even if we are too disillusio ned to be beli eve in a New J erusal em, must the l i mits of our vision be confi ned to a slightly b etter-organis ed version of what we have no w '? The result i s , i n a n y case, clear to s e e . As far as t h e vast majority of the population is concerned , politics is reduced to the positional manoeuvres of p o l i ticians, l eaked internal party documents, politicians who stray from the party line, and similar trivia . Meanwhile, enthusiasts for the m inutiae of policy, a few hundred peopl e at the absolut e outside - constantly reappear in differe nt combinati ons to issue reports recommen ding the tweak ing of welfare benefits and taxes, some slightly new managerial twist to the Nation al H ealth Service , and s o on. The sam e names and the same propo sals come round and round again in commissio ns set up the Labo ur party , the Liber al Dem ocrat s or the Row nt ree Trust, repo rts b y orga nisat ions such as the Institute for Fisca l Studies an d the Instit ute for Publi c Polic y Research . or, o f a 11 e1 se fa1· 1 s , e d Ite d collect ions of essays by the same people a n d contammg th e same ideas. The point is, however that all this · · y h as freneu· c activit virtually no Impact outside the circle of those e . . ngage d m 1t. . A case m point is the fate of the Repon of the c . omm 1sswn on . . · S oc1a 1 Justice. 2 Th1s was set u p amid a good deal of . pu bl'ICJty by ·

·

•

.

.

.

.

The Attractions of Basic Income

1 59

John Smith, the then Leader of the Labour party, but when it

�ven �ually

appeared its repo rt utterly failed to capture the public

Imagmatio n . Within a few weeks it was forgotten. No doubt the Commission was un lucky, as far as internal Labour party politics was concerned , by the unexpected death of its patron while it was still deli berat ing. But its very vul nerability to this kind of chance illustrates one of the reasons for its wider failure. As its mem bers were prepared to say in private, they spent a good deal of time looking over their shoulders at the Labour l eadership and tailored their reco m m endations with an eye to accep tability. This extremely narrow concepti o n o f the constraints o f political feasibi lity inevitably made for an i nvertebrate d ocu ment. It was perhaps inevitable that those who d rafted the report were reduced to cobbling together proposals originating from the various pressure groups associated with d i fferent mem bers of the Comm ission . There were a l o t of other things wrong with the Commission o n Social Justice, begin ning (as G A Cohen shows elsewhere in this book) with its highly d ispiriting discussion of the concept of social jus tice. (I shall co m e back to this later.) But for the present purpose the most salient error was a fu ndamental misconception of the app ropriate timescale. Instead of setting an agenda for a generation, what it produced looked more like a set of draft white papers fo r an i ncoming governm ent. The l esson that has to be learned is the o n e provided by the success of the pro-mar ket think tanks. They hamme red away at their theme with scant regard for narrowl y­ conceived political feasibility . In this way they succeeded i n creating intei iectual climate in which previously unthinkable i deas an became thinkable and then in due course capable of being put into pra ctice. Unless the counterparts o f these pro-marketeers are willing from their current short-termism . there is no chan ee to mo ve away ng th e political ini tiative . of th eir sei zi this essay is to p resent in brief com pass the case My o bject in . m easure which would when fu lly implemented make a fo r a smgle . d iffe ren ce to the quality of many people's lives . The s ign 'fi ca nt is an income paid unconditionally to all adults: e in q uestion · m ea ur · . inco m e or ( as It ca 11 l'tI) C ·l l ·l 7.cns meome. l t I· S · · IS someumes a baSI C of con ditionality that marks a departure from any welfare the Jack ial i nsurance systt•m of t he fa miliar k i n d . O n e wa .v of � re or soc

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Equality

1 60

looking at it is as an extension to adults of the principle of child benefit, w hich is an unco n d itional payment of precisely the kind envisaged. Nothing is build into the definition o f basic income about the level at which it must be pitched. Those who advocate the introductio n o f the m easure n o rmally assume that it will initially be set at a relatively low leve l , so that those with no o ther source of inco m e would still n eed to have it supplemented by the usual welfare state benefits . However, many of the attractions of basic income come into play only when it reaches a level at w hich it is sufficient to live on. By the same token, the o bjections to basic income also have a far greater force if it is set at subsistence level than if it is below that l evel. (By "subsistence level" I mean the same as "enough to live on", putting on one side for the moment any controversy about h o w that is to be assessed.) Although there are real merits in even a low level of basic inco m e (as I s hall argue later) , the most i nteresting and important questions concern the pros and cons of subsistence level basic income. I shall t herefore focus on these, while accepting the common presup position that any move to a system of subsistence level basic income would have to be phased in over a period to be measured in decades, rather than years . I have mentioned in p assing that basic i n c o m e has its suppo rters . The idea has been rediscovered at i ntervals ever since Tom Paine put forward a version of it in the Rights of Man. a It is the policy of Green parties in Europe and has a Euro pe- wide organisatio n dedicated to its propagati on, the Basic Incom e Europea n Network . In Britai n , the introduc tion of basic inco me is . the policy of the Green party and was for several years the po licy of the Libera l Demo crats, thoug h so little was made of it that few . peop le seem to have not'Iced Th ere IS also an organisation , , . . Citize n s Inco me which puts out a new sletter and resear ch publicatiOns conta ining mater ial favour a . ble to basic mco me. . Desp .ite all this, my own expe rience h as b een that, even amo ng . · h some mterest i n public pol'Icy t h ose Wit Issue s , the very idea of . . . . . bas1c mcome 1s unfamiliar. Why has such an esse . ntiall y simp le idea . failed to make the breakthrough into mam stream polit ic al . discourse? My conJecture is that too little effort has been expe nded .

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The Attractions of Basic Income

161

o n explai ning the m erits o f the proposa l and sho wing why appar ently attract ive al ternati ves are no n-starte rs. Only after all that has been done i s i t appropr iate to get i nto details about how preci sely the tran siti o n to basic income might be staged, how it could b e paid fo r , a n d so o n . Instead of this, there is a great tende ncy in the literature to d o wn play the radical potential of basic inco m e and to treat as central to the p roposal what is a technical

by-p ro d u c t of it: the way in which it would streamline the benefit and tax s ystem. It is quite true that as it stands this system - the word dignifi es i t too m uch - is a nightmare. Nobody believes that the sum of all the parts amounts to something admitting of rational

justifica tion . Nevertheless, it is i mportant to emphasise that basic inco m e i s n o t just another idea for rejigging the existing system. Rathe r , it w ould b e seen as offering a genuinely new deal - a d i ffer ent way of relating indi vidual and society. Another d o m i na n t feature in the advocacy o f basic income is a tend ency to get s u cked prematurely i n to elaborate computations. This is quite enough to choke off interest among all except the most d edi cated of p o l icy buffs. It is, moreover, out of place. For no tax and benefit sim u l ati o n , however conscientiou sly carried out, can make a l l o wa nce for the changes in behavio u r that would arise

u n d er an altered regime . A subsistence-level basic income would s and face people with an entirel y different set of oppor tunitie can specul ate about incent ives from those facing them now. We be irresp onsible would t i but d, the way in which they might respon h a compu ter throug rs numbe of lot to preten d that by crankin g a e. scienc we can turn any of that into hard Th e und erlying arith metic of basic income is ex t remely s i m p l e ,

it. Let us take "su bsistence" to mean an d it i s worth u n derstanding gh to keep body and soul together but enough t o enou ly n ot m ere icipant ' s soci i n ne ty, not d ebarred by p ov e r ty art p be an a cti ve _ _ _ ll 1ts part soc1al, m pohucal fu and eco nomic g a fro m p la yin .. . ety f o approach es ( 'me I u d'mg opmwn van . sun·c\'S) . u t ro ' ns A ins tlt . . the notiOn on that subsistence so defmed ed req u i r es g er v ha ve co n . . r o h t f at e average h m one s society t . . et alf us take this me h an 1·nco · ·m co m c is t o 'fh en, 1'f t h e b as1c · ro n o f su b s1stence. er i t r c . as our . ' amount, It must take one q uarter of t h e everyone w1th t h IS

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provr'de . al in co me to supply Jt. How can th1s be pard natiOn .

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1 62

Equal1 ty

is: in any number of ways. But

a

s t raightforward and perspicuous

way o f thinking about it is to i magine a twenty-five per cent tax rate on all income . This would vield a sum equivalent to one

quarter of the national income a �d thus balance the books . The rate required would be higher if s o m e income were exempt (eg tax

relief for private a n d o ccupatio nal pensions and mortgage interest) but propo n ents o f basic in come no rmally assume these should go, as I d o . W e would still b e left with the need t o raise mo ney to support all other exp enses of g o ve rnment, central and local, such as d efence, police, education and healt h . In round figures, let us suppose that to pay for t hese services income would be taxed at fifty p e r cent and the rest raised by other taxes - includ ing, perhaps, some innovative taxes on anti-social activities such as travel by air or

p r i vate car,

p o l l u ti o n ,

and

currency

and

stock market

spe culation. This is as fa r as simple arith metic can take us. What it leaves open is the level of national i ncome at which the econom y would s ettle with these arrangements and therefore the absolute l evel of the basic i n co m e . On a v e r y pessimistic p rojecti o n , the availab ility of an y uncon ditional income would result in s uch a catastrophic d ecline in the national i n co m e that the economy would reach equ ilibrium only at a point where the basic income was insufficient to keep · body and soul together. An optimistic projection w ould emp hasis e in contrast the way in w h i ch the availability of an unco ndit io nal income would enable people to price themselves into jobs, so t hat the overall level of productive activity would be a good d eal high er than in a welfare state system. This is where we cannot get awa y from speculati o n about the behavio ural consequ ences of a major chang e in the struct ure of op portu nities and incen es. tiv I bel� eve that it is possib le to show why the optimistic scen ario . ts plaus tble. But it would be absur d to be dogm atic. What can be _ is that satd it woul d be easy to gain better evide nce once basic inco �� was intro duced at a l ow level and gradu ally raised . If the pesstm tsts turne d out to be right there woul d b e two opttons open. One w ould b� t o leave the inco me unco nditi o nal, but hold its l evel below the pomt at whic h it started to become . attractt" ve ( or perh aps . even p hystcal ly posst. ble) to live on it . The other would be to SWJt · Ch •

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1 63

The Attractions of Basic Income

to a closel y relate d idea that has been put forward under the name of "part icipat ion i n co me" under which the prospe ct of a life of pure self-in d u lge nce on a subsis tence- level would be ruled out by req u iring reci pient s to make a contrib ution of some kind or be ready to tak e paid employ ment. (I shall discuss this later, but even th e presen t sketch w o u l d be incomp lete withou t i ts mentio n).

Since I have b een so b o l d as to talk openly about a flat tax on all inco me of fifty per cent (which woul d , of course, be made higher on larger i n c o m es) , i t w i l l perhaps be clear now why I emphasise d th e imp orta n ce of not allowing one's thinking to be stultified by

sho rt-term i s m . At this stage, there are two things that need to be sai d . The fi rst is to repeat that any move towards a subsistence­ le vel basi c i ncome would inevitably be spread over a period m eas ured in d ecades. If basic income at lower levels became popular, t h e taxes to pay for its extension would presumably be accep table. The o ther p o i n t to be made is that there is something fu ndamenta l l y i rrational about the way in which tax rates are cu rren tly thought about. What is required is a change of Gestalt, and o n e way of helping to bring it about is to focus people's minds

o n the mecha n i cs of basic income. W hat I m ean buy this is that fifty per cent tax rate is thoug ht

on . of as a lot , yet about one thud of t h e 8 fl'tish population rely ort, supp me (inco other mea ns-tested benefits of one sort or an . fa m i l y cred it, h ou s i ng benefit, a nd s o o n) Because o f t h e way 1 n ·

. . ' it is because m a dd'tion . w h i ch these benefits w ork to ge ther , a nd . .

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th e same time d r n w r n g

. com e tax whil e at q ui t e possible to pay m on t h ese . a 1 tax ra tes that peo p le a m ean s-tested benefiIt, the marg m . cent up t o o n e h u n d red p e r cell ! . bene fits face ru n from seven ty per . a d d itional i n co m e u n less . m 1.Itt1 e or no Thus , earnmg m ore bri ngs of means-rested benefi t s free break . h as t o earnings are so h 1g

rned .w i t h b o t h cq u i t y a n d reaso ns conce . eve, There are, 1 beh worried about h t g h rnargma l ra x r a t es . g far m ore incentiv e for bem S omebo d y ea rn i n g £:J per h o u r ones. . SS than hig h on l o w ea rnm fi n ishes up w i t h 60p a n h o u r ; rate x a e . h1Y per c n t t . # es_ a. n e•s w h o 1ac . g £30 per ho u r sull gets £6 per hour. w h i ch i s . --"'""" e4n1Jd . • on which a n y hod�· c a n get exercis as•s b he T ed 'Altt . ·. h tax rates m the seco n d case b u t n o t 1 1 1 t h e fi m rst B h• out

altogether.

�'7sible.a ginalonly ;·• ·�.,-� ,r ab

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Equality

benefit is by m a k i n g e\'L•n·t hing turn on t h e withdr awal rate of a vable as against t h e r a t e o f i m p o s i t i o n of tax . Yet it seems inconce i not t h a t the same conside rat i o n s of equity and i ncentiv e should

a p p l y to bot h . I have expressed t h e hope that the introduction o f a basic i ncome would facilitate the breaking down of this i rrational compartmentalisat i o n . My reas o n fo r being ho peful is quite simply

this . Within the framework that ma kes a distinction between taxes a n d benefits, a basic i n c o m e must co u n t as a benefit . But then the tax that reduces its net value as i n come increases should be seen as t h e rate of withdrawal of a benefi t a n d compared with the withdrawal rates of means-tested benefits . Of course, at a certain p o i n t the net value of t h e basic income is reduced to zero . (With a fifty per cent tax rate this occurs when other income is exactly double the level of the basic i n co me.) At that point, then, we are presumably to think in terms of a tax rate rat her than a benefit withdrawal rate . But surely it would be very hard under these conditions to attach any great significance to the difference. With any luck it would become apparent that the only effect of m oving u p the i n come scale was that i t would be less and less burdensome as i ncome rose to pay a higher rate o f tax . Perhaps it would after a long time become a source of wonderment that people had fo r s o long put up with a system in which those with the lowest i n co m es faced exceedi ngly high marginal tax rates, those in the middle, the lowest marginal t ax rates, and those in the top few per cent of the income dist ri buti o n a somewhat highe r ra te bu t still o n ly half or less than faced by most of those at the b otto m . Is basic i n come a B i g Idea'? If we require of a Big Idea that i t s hould b e a pan acea, then it is n o t . B u t o n that exacting crite rio n there are no Big I d eas. The archetypa l B ig Idea for the left is , as I have already sai d , the complet e abolitio n of capitalis m . But that would �o ntribute n othing to questio ns about the organisati o n of the na� w nal health service o r the educat ional system and would _ have httle direct i mpact o n housin g policy or transport p o 1 Icy. · o reover , as the sad examp les of the Soviet Union and China Il lustrate, there is nothing in the abolition of ca · t 1· PI a 1sm t h at rna k es for an enlighte ned approac h to environ m ental ques t'Ions. Am o ng . the many Issues that would still be left open is the advisa bility o f

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The Attractions of Basic Income

1 65

intro d ucin g a basi c i n co m e , wh ich mig ht then take the rath er attr acti ve for m of a div iden d on the nat ion 's cap ital . Thu s, basic inco me w o u l d sti l l leave the polic y buffs with plent y to d o . Yet at the same time it woul d be unwi se to unde restim ate the signi ficance of repla cing the exist ing mess of cond ition al benefi ts and grant s with a n u ncon dition al incom e set at a level that w ould enabl e to l ive o n it. The profo undest social ist thinkers have reco g n i sed that social equali ty is not only a matter of limited dispa rities in incom e but also turns on giving each person the d i g n i t y t h a t co m e s fro m i n d epend ence. Depen dency - the d ep ende ncy of a worker o n an employer or a woman on a man has rig h t l y b een seen as the enemy to be overcome . I do not think it too fan cifu l to claim that those who learned their socialism from Will i a m Morris and R H Tawney may recognise the introducrion

o f a subsi stence-lev el basic income as a practical way of achieving s o m e of their central a i m s . Indeed, if we can manage to strip away th e app a l l i n g legacy of "rea l l y existing socialism" and go back to

M arx' s origi nal u topian vision, it is not absurd to suggest that a s u b s isten ce-level basic i ncome is a far more plausible institutional e m b o d i ment o f it than anything Marx himself ever came up with .

I have said that we should not expect any single measure w het her it be the abolitio n of capitalis m or the introduc tion of a . . . public b as1c m co m e - to prov1'd e a solutio n to all the questi ons that . g pomtm out, worth it is t B u out. b p o l i c y anal ysts worry a . . ated amelior a 1f be would m the never th eless, th at many Of Thus, for exa m ple place. , in were sub sisten ce-lev el bas1c m co me . . o for h t e s grants w1shmg to nance the whole q u estiO n ° f mainte . would be auromatJcally taken care tion duca e ary Purs ue pos t-secon d red to live on the basic ineonw would h a \' c of' s i nce any one prep a . o f u sing it to support them while s t u d y i ng , w h e t h er . the o ppo rtu nitY . convcntwnal academ ic subjec ts . r field o f study . th ey ch oo se as thei . . . . rrently fund ed on a h1t and m1ss bas1s ( me r eas m g l y n11ss) ·

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or those cu 1 sueh as act·ng

ballet or art. This would sti l l leave t h e fu n d i ng of . . be settled . Undoubtedly. there arc good a rg u m cnrs tu tU o n f,ees to . . . . tultlon fees rcpa1d o ver a perio d favour of havmg in uity � m eq . be nefi ciari es, and there are a vanety of pcrfcctlv p r a c ti ca l by th e . tha t could be set up to achJCv e th1s. But it is worth schem. eS . . tcnan g that, by rem o vmg the cost of mam cc fro m the stress I n •

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Equality

equa t i o n , a basic i n come would ob\'iously make the task of supporting the cost of higher education much more manageable. Aga i n , let us suppose that . over a t i m e-span m easured in decades like that ap pro priate to basic i nco me, the main thrust of a sensible transport policy would b e to phase out the private car and make the train the norm for long tri ps . This would clearly require public subsidy and control

of a kind hitherto unknown in Britain

(regard less of owners hip) so as to make the railways the servants of the wider public interest. If people are to give up cars altogether, public transport has to run on regular s chedules from early in the morning until late at night, as it d o es in many places on the continent of Europe already. Moreover, stations need to be manned during all the h ours during w hich trains stop at them , to avoid the bleakness and sense of insecurity generated by empty platform s . I d o not think it is a mere hangover of steam-age romanticism to suppose that the j o b of statio n master or ass istant station master to a s mall station could be made to appeal to enough people to mean that it would be unnecessary to pay a lot to fill them. Within a regime that gave everybody en ough to live o n to begin with , even low earnings would make for a net addition to income and provide a margin above subsist ence level. A iob that was manifestly worthwhile, and seen by everybody as such, might well get takers at rates of pay that nobody under the current d ispensation could affo rd to accept. Jobs of this nature would suit the kinds of people who are among the most lik ely to be permanently unemployed at present: those over the age of forty with a limited amount of education. There are other jobs in which reliability rather than either brilliance or physical strength are similarly at a premium. Little imaginatio n i s required t o think of ways i n which the amenity of life could be enhanced by the creation of jobs that might prove sufficiently attractive to require only a relatively small sup plement to the basic income to fill them . (Bear in m i nd that it is not necessary fo r a j ob to appeal to all those capable of doing it - only as many as are needed to fill the vacancies.) Voices are raised , very properly, about the amount of vandalism and unchecked anti-social behaviour that goes on in public parks. This would be dealt with by the recruitment of an adequate corps of park-keepers. Again, such jobs

The Attractions of Basic Income

1 67

m ight well req uire l ittle material reward to make them preferable to spending the day doing nothing. The same may be said of wardens in the coun tryside. These are enough examples to make the point. Under a basic income system those running labour-intensive institutions such as schools and hosp itals would be faced with an enormous incentive to design jobs that were congenial enough to encourage those with mediocre fo rmal qualifications to take them at more of Jess nominal pay rates. Part-time work might well prove especially attractive, and would not run into any of the difficulties thrown u p by the existing benefit system . It is not necessary to second guess the details to see the potential for the revamping of work that is offered by basic inco m e. It is, adm ittedly, possible to discern among the policy buffs and the politi cians a dim recognition of the craziness of the present syste m , in which the unemployed are faced with a choice of idleness or crimina lity. If they want to retain their benefits, while hundreds of thousands of jobs that cry out to be filled do not exist because it would not be p rofitable to pay those doing them enough to make them b etter off than they are unemplo yed. Periodically the proposa l su rfaces that, instead of paying people to be idle, it might be sensib l e to pay the equ ivalent amoun t to employ ers in return for ge only a short-term creatin g new jobs. But these propo sals envisa ht of as only small- scale s u b sidy (say six month s), and are thoug churn the pool of lon g ­ to hing somet do interv ention s. They might little to achieve the very do would term unem p loyed. But they yment to a purely local o bjecti ve of reducing i nvoluntary unemplo phen omenon . (The Swedes, whose "active labour market p o l i cy·· that the d evice is one that incl udes job subsid ies, have recognised rate is in any ease ru n n i n g unemployment if the only wo rks well per cent.) The point of snapping the whole three at only two or onal benefits and replacing it wi th bas ic inc-o rn e apparatus of conditi underwriting low-paid jobs i s then perma nent. oney m the t is tha yet at the same time nobody is forced to universal; and auto matic attractive enough. Provided the basic income if none is take a job ely adequate, we can then say that nobody is exploit ed , is genuin w the pay. For the job is freely chosen in preference to lo r howeve e alternative of not having a job. n acceptabl

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1 68

Equality

Let me co nclude on a m o re specu lative note, with a brief exploration of basic income and market socialism . Once we leave behind the ba nd of i n it ia tes who staff the think-tanks, make up the commissions, and keep the co nventio nal wisdom of the centre-l eft i n circulation, w e are hard put to it to fin d anything except these two i d eas. It is therefore natural to wonder about their relation: are they in competition with one another, are they mutually supportive, or what'? An initial problem facing any such inquiry is that the term "market socialism" is used to refer to an enormous range of imagined eco nomic systems . Perhaps the only feature that unites all self-styled market socialists is that they do not look fo r coordination between firms to be carr ied out by a central planning bureau with the power to allocate materials and labour or set prices. I n place of this kind of i m perative coord i nation, they anticipate that markets will carry the main burden . Out o f the various possibilities , more or less far reaching i n scope, I want to focus on one relatively modest form of m arket socialism that seems to m e to bring w i th it certain characteristic attractions and drawbacks in an instructive way. Although it is doubtful that there is any interesting s ense in which it is socialist, it does nevertheless m ake some connection with the ethos of guild socialism , which I take to have had its ethical roots in a concern fo r the collective autonomy of workers an d an end to "wage slavery". Let us extract from this two i d eas : first that those who work for a firm run it, according to some system of governance chosen by themselves; and , second, that wages and salaries are replaced by payments (not necessarily equal) that divide up what is left after m eeting expenses and setting aside whatever amount is agreed on for investment. L e t m e stipulate , i n order to give the discussion some d eterminacy, that a state bank is set up with the mission of lend ing money to grou ps of workers who want to by out some existing firm or start a new one and manage it co-operativel y. (It would be reasonable to set a limit of a few hundred workers, at least until experience with forms of governance had been gained.) The bank woul d , of course, be expected to back only what appeared to be sound prospect s , and I assume that it would demand a realistic rate of return on its l o ans. In fact, all that would differentiate it from

The Attractions of Basic Income

1 69

an ordinary commercial bank is that it would be less risk-averse m ore closely invo lved in monitoring and advising the firm, an

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m ore c o m m i tted for the long term . (Even those features would distinguish t h e model bank from a B ritish commercial bank more than they w o u l d d istinguish it from a German or Japanese bank.) The appeal o f such a scheme is apparent, and I believe that it would b e well w o rth creating a bank along those lines, even i f i t w e r e funded i n itially with only a few hundred million points. I t w o u l d h o l d t h e promise to the participants of combin ing li beration and personal responsi b i l i t y i n a way that the standard employment contract d oes not lend i tself to. If it succeeded, its example would exert a beneficial pressure on conventionally organised firms to o ffer a b etter deal to their own workers. And, from a purely i n stru mental p o i n t of view, it would be a way of introducing flex i b i lity into the economy while averting the usual counterpart of flexi bility, exploitation. However, i f any such scheme were introduced against the backgro u n d o f the existing tax and benefit system it would run into two snags. The first is that a new firm (or an old one, especially i f it h a d been b ought o u t to forestall i t s closure) might well take many m o n t hs before it could cover more than payments to its suppliers and the bank. The workers would not be eligible for welfare state benefits

because they would not meet the criterion of being

available for work, so the only way of carrying on would be to add the cost of paying the workers to the firm's debt. This would be a daunting prospect and m ight well discourage most potentially viable co-operatives from getting started. The second snag is that firms run in the way described here

would be a potent source of income inequality. It is true that w i t h i n­ firm disparities would probably be less wide than would the ga p

between employees in similar jobs in conventional firms: both sociological theory and such experience as there is of workers' co-operatives support this prediction. But there would i nevita bly variance i n the profitability of d i fferent firms This . be a v ery large d t h rough d i rectly into la rge differences between the w o uld fee aym en ts made to people doing similar jobs, d epending on the

firm. Clearly. one has to accept that, i f the "market" :uccess of their market s ocialism is to work, there must be rewards

eleme nt in

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1 70

Equality

s u l-ces s .

Hut surely t h e "socialism" should at the very least mean

t h a t t he s cale of these rewa rds should be t empered by the d emands of solidarity , a n d the current tax system has little to contribute to that . I can now return to the question with which I began this

d i s cussion of m arket social i s m : what is its relatio n to basic inco me? My suggestion is that basic income would facilitate market sociali sm b y taking care o f the two snags just outlined . Thus, let us suppose that a subsistence-level basic income was already present by the ti m e a scheme for lend ing m o n ey to workers ' co-operatives was

introduced . The bank might make it a test of the serious intent of appli cants fo r fun d i ng that they should not seek to borrow mon ey to pay themsel ves but should be prepared to live on the basic income until the fi rm was profitable enough to pay them. This would usefully s o rt out those for who m forming part of a work ers ' co-op erative was genuinely valuable from those with no such co m mitment. B ut fo r those who were prepared to go ahead on thes e terms, it woul d keep the burden of d ebt down and thus remo ve a major d eterrent fro m fo rming a co-o perative i n the first place. From

the sid e of the bank , it would have the great advantage of limiting its ex posure to any particular co-operative and enabling it to make any given allocation of fun ding go further. As far as the second snag is concerned , the system of a basi c income at subsistence level and the associ ated taxes to pay for it m ight be regarded as a tol erable solution. Let us suppose that a co-operativ e was able to cover its outgoings and p rovide its work ers with a life they found worthwhile, but d i d not have enough left over to pay them very much . Then they would have the basic inco m e to add to the (post-tax) inco m e they received from the firm . Conversely, i f the firm were lucky enough to make a lot o f mon ey for its workers , an equita ble system of incom e tax would ensure that their good fortune was shared with others . I am not to be taken as sugges ting that, if there was nothing else to be said fo r basi c incom e, it would be worth introd ucing it simply in order to make market social ism work better . If I am right, howev er, there are many other reason s or suppo rting basic incom e, it can then be regard ed as a plus that 1t would make an exper iment with marke t social ism more likely to succeed.

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The Attractions of Basic Income

1 71

I make no pretence of having done more in this essay than explore a very few of the ramifications of basic income. I could have talked about its transformative potential for the voluntary sector and its role in relation to care for children and elderly or infirm relatives. I could have explored the reasons for the affinity between green politics and basic income, and discussed the possibil ities of basic income as a vehicle of transfers from rich countries to p oor ones. My objective here has been a modest one: to suggest that the idea of basic income is worth taking seriously as a way forward for the left.

End n otes 1.

Henry Milner (1 9 94) Social Demo cracy and Rational Ch ain•: Th e

Scandinavian Experience and Beyond, Lo ndon: Rou tledge, p4.

2.

Social Justice: Strategies for Na tional Renewal, Lond o n : V i n t a ge ( 1 994).

3.

T

Paine Rights of Man H Collins (ed) (1 969), Harm o ndsw o rt h :

Penguin.

If the political left is to think about equality in a new way, it has to connect emerging philosophical debates to political practice. Equality is one of the core principles of socialist thought, but, like socialism and liberalism, it is open to question. This book is a collection of essays by distinguished political theorists, exploring the idea of equality from all ang les. It is the first stage in a new way of seeing equality and moves the debate on equality forward. It examines many nuances and contexts, including the dialogue between the traditional and new left, critical positions on the p hilosophical foundations of the Commission on Social Justice, explorations of sexual and cultural equality and equality of diffe rence, and how this might translate into political practice.

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This book is of value to all students of political theory and all those interested in discoverin g the contemporary

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relevance of equality in all its forms. It forms a bridge b etwe e n p h i l o s o phy, p o l itics a n d policy-m aking , develo ping a new politica l languag e to take us into the future. seminar The c ontri butor s were all mem bers of the IPPR

chaHenges . group which met to discu ss the ideas of

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