What’s to be done about
rising inequality? [link
here]
The great inequality of
income and wealth in the world, and within the United States, is deeply
troubling. It seems, even to many of us who benefit from this inequality, that
something should be done to reduce or eliminate it. But why should
we think this? What are the strongest reasons for trying to bring about greater
equality of income and wealth?
One obvious reason for redistributing resources from
the rich to the poor is simply that this is a way of making the poor better
off. In his TED Talk on “effective altruism,”Peter Singer advances powerful reasons of
this kind for voluntary redistribution: Many people in the world are poor, and
the improvement in their lives that richer people can bring about by giving
money is enormous by comparison with the small sacrifice that this would
involve.
These reasons for
redistribution are strongest when the poor are very badly off, as in the cases
Singer describes. But there will always be some reason of this kind as long as
redistributing assets increases the well-being of the poor more than it
decreases that of the rich. These reasons for eliminating inequality are also
based on an idea of equality, namely that, as Singer puts it, “every life is
equally important.” This can be seen as a combination of two ideas: the general
principle of universal moral equality, that
everyone matters morally in the same way, and the idea that, because all people
“matter morally,” there’s a good reason to bring about increases in their
well-being if we can.
It’s important to note, though, that there is another
sense in which these reasons are not egalitarian: They are, fundamentally,
reasons to increase the well-being of the poor rather than objections to inequality,
that is to say, objections to the difference between what some have and what
others have. The fact that other people are better off is relevant in Singer’s
argument only for the reason Willie Sutton was said to have given when
asked why he robbed banks: “That’s where the money is.”
The possibility of making the poor better off does not
seem to be the only reason for seeking to reduce the world’s rising level of
economic inequality. Many people in the United States seem to believe that our
high and rising level of inequality is objectionable in itself, and it is worth
inquiring into why this might be so. This inquiry is important for two reasons.
The first is because a justification for redistribution needs to include some
response to the claims of the rich that they are entitled to keep what they
have earned. What Peter Singer argues for powerfully is voluntaryredistribution.
A justification for reducing inequality through non-voluntary means, such as
taxation, needs to explain why redistribution of this kind is not just robbery,
like the activities of Willie Sutton and Robin Hood.
Second, if inequality, in itself, is something to be
concerned about, we need to explain why this is so. It is easy to understand
why people want to be better off than they are, especially if their current
condition is very bad. But why, apart from this, should anyone be concerned
with the difference between what they have and what others
have? Why isn’t such a concern mere envy? I will mention four reasons for
objecting to inequality, and consider the responses they provide to the charge
of mere envy and to the claims of entitlement. The first three:
1. Economic inequality can give wealthier people an
unacceptable degree of control over the lives of others.
If wealth
is very unevenly distributed in a society, wealthy people often end up in control
of many aspects of the lives of poorer citizens: over where and how they can
work, what they can buy, and in general what their lives will be like. As an
example, ownership of a public media outlet, such as a newspaper or a
television channel, can give control over how others in the society view
themselves and their lives, and how they understand their society.
2. Economic inequality can undermine the fairness of
political institutions.
If those
who hold political offices must depend on large contributions for their
campaigns, they will be more responsive to the interests and demands of wealthy
contributors, and those who are not rich will not be fairly represented.
3. Economic inequality undermines the fairness of the
economic system itself.
Economic
inequality makes it difficult, if not impossible, to create equality of
opportunity. Income inequality means that some children will enter the
workforce much better prepared than others. And people with few assets find it
harder to access the first small steps to larger opportunities, such as a loan
to start a business or pay for an advanced degree.
None of
these objections is an expression of mere envy. They are objections to
inequality based on the effects of some being much better off than others. In principle,
these effects could avoided, without reducing economic inequality, through such
means as the public financing of political campaigns and making high-quality
public education available to all children (however difficult this would be in
practice).
A fourth kind of objection to inequality is more
direct. In Paul
Krugman’s review ofCapital in
the 21st Century by
Thomas Piketty, he mentions these stats from the US Bureau of
Labor Statistics: “Real wages for most U.S. workers have increased little
if at all since the early 1970s, but wages for the top 1 percent of earners
have risen 165 percent, and wages for the top 0.1 percent have risen 362
percent.” (Krugman calls those “supersalaries.”) Again, the idea that this is
objectionable is not mere envy. It rests, I believe, on this idea, my fourth point:
4. Workers, as participants in a scheme of cooperation
that produces national income, have a claim to a fair share of what they have
helped to produce.
What constitutes a fair share is of course
controversial. One answer is provided by John Rawls’ Difference
Principle, according to which inequalities in wealth and income
are permissible if and only if these inequalities could not be reduced without
worsening the position of those who are worst-off. You don’t have to accept
this exact principle, though, in order to believe that if an economy is
producing an increasing level of goods and services, then all those who
participate in producing these benefits — workers as well as
others — should share in the result.
Peter Singer’s powerful argument for altruistic giving
draws on one moral relation we can stand in to others: the relation of being
able to benefit them in some important way. With respect to this relation, to
“matter morally” is to be someone whose welfare there is reason to increase.
But the
objections to inequality that I have listed rest on a different moral relation.
It’s the relation between individuals who are participants in a cooperative
scheme. Those who are related to us in this way matter morally in a further
sense: they are fellow participants to whom the terms of our cooperation must
be justifiable.
In our
current environment of growing inequality, can such a justification be given?
No one has reason to accept a scheme of cooperation that places their lives
under the control of others, that deprives them of meaningful political
participation, that deprives their children of the opportunity to qualify for
better jobs, and that deprives them of a share in the wealth they help to
produce.
These are
not just objections to inequality and its consequences: they are at the same
time challenges to the legitimacy of the system itself. The holdings of the
rich are not legitimate if they are acquired through competition from which
others are excluded, and made possible by laws that are shaped by the rich for
the benefit of the rich. In these ways, economic inequality can undermine the
conditions of its own legitimacy.
As Singer
shows, the possibility of improving the lot of the poor is a powerful reason
for redistribution. But it is important to see that the case for equality is
powerful in a different way.
T. M. Scanlon is Alford Professor of Natural Religion,
Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard University.
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