Equality of what?

4 August 2009

In the 1970s, at the very time the welfare state started to be retrenched across the developed world, political philosophers like Amartya Sen and Ronald Dworkin began to develop more and more ambitious accounts of the value of “equality”. These accounts have remained widely discussed in academic circles right up to the present, but they have not captured the attention of very many politicians.

The Open Left project provides an opportunity to evaluate whether any of these various philosophical accounts could be of any political use as the left reassesses its priorities for the next decade or so. That opportunity is lessened, though, by the (often unnecessary) abstraction and complexity of the arguments of the philosophers. What is needed is a more practically-oriented guide to the various positions; a guide that could help us begin to consider whether any of these arguments can speak to our present-day political concerns.

In a first move towards developing such a guide, it is helpful to summarize the four most influential philosophical positions to have emerged since the 1970s. They are:

Resource equality
First developed by the philosopher Ronald Dworkin, this theory calls for all citizens to begin their adult lives with an equal set of key resources, including an equal amount of initial income and wealth. Any other initial distribution, Dworkin contends, is morally unacceptable because it is vital to recognize that all citizens deserve true equality of concern and respect. Dworkin argues, though, that governments should not strive to maintain an absolute “equality of outcome”, whereby all citizens have exactly the same material resources throughout their lives. Instead, he insists that individuals should be allowed to do what they wish with their own initial endowments. If they choose to invest them wisely, they should be allowed to enjoy any positive returns. If they squander them, or invest them unwisely, they should be required to accept the consequences. It is a theory of equality, in other words, that accepts that people should carry responsibility for their own actions, even if those actions leave them significantly worse off than some of their fellow citizens.

Democratic equality
Many critics have found Dworkin’s position to be too harsh. If it was introduced in practice, they argue, it would lead to vast inequalities in income, wealth, and opportunity, all which result from the “bad” choices individuals make after receiving their initial endowments. If someone failed to buy health insurance in Dworkin’s ideal society, for example, then they might not be entitled to any medical treatment at all. One leading critic of Dworkin’s, Elizabeth Anderson, has argued that this means his theory fails to capture the essential value of equality. According to Anderson, that crucial value lies in all citizens being able to play their full part in a democratic society. Individuals thus need to be given access to whatever is required for them to be “equal citizens” with each other. Again, this does not mean full “equality of outcome”. Instead, it means that everyone, whatever their life-style or choices, must be guaranteed a certain minimum of education, health-care, income, and access to important decision-making opportunities. A government promotes equality, on this view, when it ensures that no inequalities, however they have been brought about, undermine the potential that each citizen has of making a real difference to their own society.

Capability equality
The Nobel-prize winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen’s theory called “capability equality” starts from a similar perspective. Like Anderson, Sen insists it is what people can do with their lives that matters, rather than what material possessions they have or how they have come to have them. For Sen, though, it is not just important that individuals be able to make a contribution to the democratic lives of their societies. Individuals should, instead, be guaranteed access to a whole range of what he calls “basic capabilities”. No-one can have a good human life unless they can do certain things: be that talk to their neighbours, work in a safe and secure environment, or appreciate nature or the arts. So government should guarantee that every individual is provided with whatever they need to be able to exercise these basic capabilities. The most difficult task here, of course, lies in drawing up a list of such basic capabilities. What do people in a society like ours have to be able to do in order to have a basically decent life? Sen suggests that we should begin a democratic conversation about exactly that question and once we have together decided what these capabilities are, we should set about finding public policies that can guarantee their provision.

Realist equality
The final position, which owes much to the late Bernard Williams, argues that the first three are all far too ambitious. They are too ambitious philosophically because they presume that we can answer a question – “what really is equality?” – that is too difficult for any philosopher ever to resolve. And they are too ambitious politically because they presume that governments in developed capitalist societies can still engage in a wholesale redistribution of wealth and opportunity when such governments are, in fact, thoroughly constrained by globalization and by the unwillingness of tax payers to carry the financial burden such redistribution requires. Realist egalitarians suggest, therefore, that we need instead to identify the most worrying inequalities in modern societies and target those for particular action. These most worrying inequalities can easily be identified as they are the kind that cause multiple serious difficulties for those people who suffer from them. The sorts of inequalities historically suffered by the very poor, ethnic minorities, and the disabled are of this sort.

All of these positions share a concern for treating citizens equally and have serious advantages and disadvantages. The questions of which of them the left should promote and what public policy proposals should then follow should be central to Open Left’s discussions.

Marc Stears is Fellow and Praelector in Politics at University College, Oxford.

3 Comments

3 Responses to “Equality of what?”

michael_green
August 5th, 2009 @ 11:52 am

Democratic equality is what the labour party's ideological ends always have been, and always will be.

Liberal republicanism is incompatible with democratic equality. Liberal republicanism is basically a strange fusion between resource equality and democratic equality in a desperate attempt to fuse liberalism with social democracy.

Democratic republicanism is basically democratic equality.

Social democrats, socialists and democratic republicans all basically strive for democratic equality.

Democratic equality is the only way to create a freedom for the individual, where citizens are in charge, and not the market or the state.
doranj
August 8th, 2009 @ 1:23 am

I think the following summary of the “realist” criticism of other egalitarianisms is intersting in light of the banking bailouts:

“they are too ambitious politically because they presume that governments in developed capitalist societies can still engage in a wholesale redistribution of wealth and opportunity when such governments are, in fact, thoroughly constrained by globalization and by the unwillingness of tax payers to carry the financial burden such redistribution requires.”

The head of Barclays, John Varley, responded with incredulity to the suggestion of an interviewer that the government might regulate bank bonuses. This, it was suggested, would be an unwarranted intervention in the market. But obviously, there would be no bonuses if the government had not intervened in the first place to recapitalise the banks….
treborc
August 8th, 2009 @ 10:57 pm

Tax simple really you control the bonus culture by taxation, 90% tax on anything over £20,000.

I do not want to be equal I'm not equal I've lost the use of my legs, I would like to be treated as human though, given enough to live on, no more struggling each week to pay my way. not a lot really 65% of my wage would be nice.

But we need a Tory government for that, not New labour.