(in)equality

VOX voxjournal.co.uk

THE STUDENT JOURNAL OF Issue XX - Spring 2013 POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND PHILOSOPHY Published termly by the Club of PEP at the University of York

Issue XX - Spring 2013

(in)equality

1

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Editorial Inequality, as the dark side of diversity, is an ubiquitous aspect of human life; it exists in economic, social and political spheres, from the personal to the supranational and global scale. Such inequalities create powerful divisions along the lines they have drawn and the different approaches of dealing with inequality have even provided the primary grounds for categorising political ideology on the left-right spectrum. In choosing the theme (in)equality for this issue of VOX, we hope to explore some of the causes, manifestations, repercussions and remedies of inequality in multiple contexts, but also to highlight that at its core there remains a sense of equality that urges us to ask these questions in the first place.

This issue’s debate takes us back to the topic of microfinance addressed by Dreyer and Dimitriadis in ‘Money’, in an essay which according to Dunaiski and Kovacs wrongly presents this form of self-help development as a ‘silver bullet’. The first article on inequality summarizes the seminal work produced by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson in their book ‘The Spirit Level’. Important and powerful, this article sets the tone for the important debates that have come to define the role inequality plays in policy making today. Quite the opposite, Niemietz downplays the extent to which governments (especially the English one) can (or should?) try to level the playing field, because people who are “worlds apart” in terms of “skill levels, ambition, work ethic” cannot be equalized through large income re-distributions.

Next, Schinaia also addresses the importance of inequality in policy shaping, but he applies his critique not just to outcomes of unequal access to education in different systems, but also to methodologies of measuring (perhaps defining) educational inequality. Fletcher presents an impressive analysis of community membership distribution and questions to what extent borders are justified, and subsequently, in what sense the argument of cultural preservation holds to scrutiny. Interestingly enough, Yang’s article follows Fletcher’s in more than one way: Fletcher’s starting point - the “fixed” injustice implied by birth right and birth location - is questioned by Yang and argued to be so powerful so as to justify action to redress it. Lastly, we would like to thank Professor Catherine Wilson for answering our questions in such a compelling and thought-provoking manner.

This issue marks not only the twentieth edition of VOX, but also the last one for this editorial team. We would like to thank all of those who contributed to VOX over the last year and wish the next editors to work with an equally committed and talented group of people.

Kathrin Eichinger & Madalina Secareanu Editors

Editorial Team Editors: Kathrin Eichinger Madalina Secareanu Layout Editors: Widya Kumarasinghe Tørris Rasmussen 2

Sub-Editors: Alex Fullerton Rohit Maini James Paton Amna Riaz Judith Weiß

Reviewers: Irina Florea Matthew Kilcoyne Peter Smith External Liaisons: Andrea de Mauro

VOX

THE STUDENT JOURNAL OF POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND PHILOSOPHY

voxjournal.co.uk

ISSUE XX - SPRING 2013

(in)equality MARKET OF IDEAS

PAGE

Is Microfinance A Silver Bullet?

Maurice Dunaiski & Roxanne Kovacs, Dimitris Dimitriadis & Phillipp Dreyer

ESSAYS

5

PAGE

Dysfunctional Societies: Why Inequality Matters Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett

11

‘But It Works In Sweden!’ - The Case Against Naïve Egalitarianism Kristian Niemietz

16

A Different Dimension Of Inequality: Education Giulio Schinaia

22

The Inequality Of State Membership Louis Fletcher

26

Applying Luck Egalitarian Theory To Global Justice Jessica Yang

32

INTERVIEW Prof. Catherine Wilson Matthew Kilcoyne & Judith Weiß

VOX is a student academic journal that aims to provide a platform for the exchange of ideas and insight into the debates relating to Politics, Economics and Philosophy (PEP).

PAGE 36

VOX is published triannually by the Club of PEP at the University of York and distributed on York’s campus as well as other universities world-wide.

VOX is available electronically on voxjournal.co.uk and the Apple iBookstore.

3

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.’’

- Aristotle

44

Photo by Mike Johnson - TheBusyBrain.com

Issue XX - Spring 2013

Is Microfinance a Silver Bullet?

A debate between Maurice Dunaiski and Roxanne Kovacs, and Dimitris Dimitriadis and Phillippe Dreyer following Dreyer and Dimitriadis’ article ‘From making baskets to making a living’ in our last issue.

The debate in this issue is centred on the reaction of Dunaiski and Kovacs to an article published in ‘Money’ (From Making a Basket to Making a Living- Autumn 2012). The initial essay, co-authored by Dimitriadis and Dreyer, presented the social and economic merits of microfinance in a light which Dunaiski & Kovacs consider

unrealistic and even undesirable for the sake of sustainable development and the subsequent discourse surrounding it. On the contrary, Dimitriadis and Dreyer reject these criticisms and defend their argument on a basis which can only reflect the very different yardsticks the two sides use to appraise this controversial development tool.

Maurice Dunaiski is a third-year Politics with IR student at the University of York.

Philipp Dreyer is a third-year P h i l o s o p h y, Politics and Economics student at the University of York.

Roxanne Kovacs is a third-year P h i l o s o p h y, Politics and Economics student at the University of York.

Maurice Dunaiski and Roxanne Kovacs: I don’t remember exactly where I read this, but a wise old man from India once said that, if he would see strangers coming to his village with the explicit intention to do good, he would take to his heels and flee. Inadvertently, this anecdote came to

Dimitris Dimitriadis is a thirdyear Philosophy, Politics and Economics student at the University of York.

my mind when I read Dimitriadis & Dreyer’s exposition on microfinance in the last VOX edition (Autumn, 2012).

Like no other, the international development sector seems to attract people with good intentions. And surely this is commendable. What worries me – and presumably the wise man in the village – is that good intentions of5

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Market of Ideas ten go hand in hand with ignorance. In last two decades has improved the lives development practice this tragic com- of thousands of people by giving them bination can very easily lead to policy access to desperately needed credit. that does more harm than good. We However, this should not lead us to igtherfore constantly need to scrutinize nore or gloss over the negative impacts and critically exthat microlending amine any prohas had in the de[G]ood intentions often posed ‘solution’ veloping world. to the problems go hand in hand with The idea of of the world’s ignorance... [T]his tragic microfinance is poor.

Regretcombination can very easily grounded in a partably, this vital ticular ‘self-help apcritical edge, was lead to policy that does more proach’ to developmissing entirely harm than good. ment which sees the in Dimitriadis world’s poor as “un& Dreyer’s aptapped, potential praisal of the microfinance ‘solution’. economic players” (Cons & Paprocki, Dimitriadis & Dreyer argue that 2010, p.639). The point of microlend“microfinance is not only efficient, but ing, so to say, is to ‘empower’ the poor it importantly also offers a rethinking so that they can ‘empower’ themselves of development studies by focusing on by becoming micro-entrepreneurs and the people and harnessing their capa- engaging in market exchange. The bilities” (p.12). Furthermore, we are Grameen Bank and other microfinance told that “microfinance also transforms institutions (MFIs) provide borrowers gender dynamics in developing coun- only with what is needed to start their tries” (p.14). Apparently, microfinance business. They do not take any responnot only leads to economic growth; sibility in case of bankruptcy (Karim, but it also presents a way to eliminate 2008). This approach is however probgender inequality in the developing lematic because even in developed world. All in all, it looks as though countries most people do not succeed Dimitriadis & Dreyer have found in as enterpreneurs. In fact, one in three microfinance – or more specifically, in start-up business in the UK fails withmicrocredit – a veritable ‘silver bullet’ in its first three years (Business Case with which to solve the problems of Studies, 2012). Why should enterprethe developing world. Or at least they neurs in developing countries, where give the impression. Undoubtedly, the innumeracy, illiteracy and material “microfinance revolution” (p.13) of the deprivation are widespread and general 6

Issue XX - Spring 2013

Market of Ideas

Photo by Philip Taylor economic conditions are unfavourable, do any better? Microfinance becomes problematic if it actively encourages people to jump into the shark-filled waters of market competition without providing any sort of safety net or making sure that they have the neccessarily skills to survive.

A further negative aspect of microlending, which is simply elided by Dimitriadis & Dreyer, is the problem of debt-cycles. The fact that the “Grameen Bank has a remarkable repayment rate record of 98 percent” (p.14) is indeed remarkable but it does not really tell us a lot about the success of the microcredit ‘intervention’. That this intervention is not always positive becomes clear when we look at the interlocking systems of debt which have been triggered by the ‘microfinance

revolution’. The fierce competition within the MFI industry has created a situation where defaulting micro-entrepreneurs can simply go and take out additional microloans at other MFIs in order to repay their original debt (Karim, 2008). The lack of entrepreneurial success or simply ill fortune (e.g. crop failure) can thus force people into vicious debt-cycles enabled by the ‘microfinance revolution’. Instead of doing away with “loan shark middlemen” (p.11), the MFIs now often operate alongside the traditional moneylenders (Cons & Paprocki, 2010).

Group responsibility for individual loans is one of the fundamental organizational principles of the microcredit model. The group thus becomes both the enforcer and guarantor of a loan. Dimitriadis & Dreyer see this

7

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Market of Ideas as unproblematic. They even seem to to be a woman and conveniently take suggest that it contributes to the ‘social the obligation to behave more responcapital’ of those villages affected by a sibly away from men. Furthermore, we microfinance intervention (p.13). In- should note that, even though poor deed, microcredit groups made up only women are the primary carriers of Graof women can have the beneficial and meen Bank loans, they are often not potentially ‘empowering’ side-effect the ones who eventually use the monof creating a space where women can ey. In fact, research from Bangladesh speak without men suggests that up dominating the Problems as complex as these to 95 percent of discourse (Rankin, cannot be solved by a single the money ends 2001). But does policy instrument – regardless up in the hands this necessarily have men (Karim, of the good intentions behind of to happen through 2008). So whilst the mechanisms it. women bear the of microfinance? risk and social The problem with group collateral in pressure, which come with taking out the context of microfinance is that it loans, it is their husbands, uncles or operates according to an ‘economy of sons who reap the benefits. This result shame’. Immense social pressure is put is entirely unsurpsiging, for it would on individual women within the group be naive to assume that microfinance who are seen as potential ‘defaults’. At can operate outside of the local realitimes, public floggings, the breaking ties of custom and patriarchy. apart of houses to recover money, and The purpose of this short reply was even suicides have been the result of not to deny the developmental potenthe logic of group collateral (Karim, tial of microfinance interventions. Mi2008). This dark side of ‘social capital’ crolending certainly has the potential is, however, conveniently glossed over to transform the lives of many of the

by Dimitriadis & Dreyer. world’s poor and disadvantaged; both With regards to the problem of gen- in terms of achieving material benefits der inequality in the developing world, and addressing inequality between the we hear that microfinance “empowers sexes. What we should however refrain [women] by utilising virtues that tend from doing, is to treat microfinance to be present more in women such as as a ‘silver bullet’ with which we can care, patience, and creativity” (p.14). solve complex and multi-faceted probReally? Statements like these reinforce lems like poverty and gender inequalessentializing notions of what it means ity in developing countries. Problems 8

Issue XX - Spring 2013

Market of Ideas as complex as these cannot be solved by a single policy instrument – regardless of the good intentions behind it.

Microfinance, like any other developmental intervention, has also made some people’s lives worse, and we are well-advised to keep this in mind.

Bibliography: Business Case Studies. (2012).

Busness Failure. Available at: http:// businesscasestudies.co.uk/businesstheory/strategy/business-failure. html#axzz2HTZaKVh3. (Retrieved 9.1.2013).

Cons, J. & Paprocki, K. (2010).

Contested credit landscapes: Microcredit, self-help and self-determination in rural Bangladesh. Third World Quarterly.

31, 637-654.

Karim, L. (2008). Demystifying micro-credit: The Grameen Bank, NGOs, and neoliberalism in Bangladesh. Cultural Dynamics. 20, 5-29.

Nayyar, D. (1998). Economic Development and Political Democracy: Interaction of Economics and Politics in Independent India. Economic and Political Weekly. 33, 3121.

Rankin, K. (2001). Governing development: neoliberalism, microcredit, and rational economic woman. Economy and Society. 30, 18-37.

Philipp Dreyer and Dimitris Dimitriadis: ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’ seems to be the somewhat

clichéd axiom on which Dunaiski and Kovacs rest their critique. It seems that their argument at times shifts from the modest ambition of advising cautioned optimism to one which comprehensively undermines microfinance.

Let us attend to each of their points one by one. The words of the wise, old man are firstly both unwise and irrelevant. They are unwise because this kind of rhetoric would suggest that communities of developing nations should shelter themselves from any external influence. It is a default, inward-looking approach. This though is unwise because quite obviously some communities either lack the resources to be self-sufficient or, in fact, lack the expertise to put them into productive use. Yet, let us give them the benefit of the doubt and say that there might be some value in insulating oneself from the outside world. The allegedly wise remarks are irrelevant. The microfinance revolution is not an external one; rather, it flows from within communities and villages and builds from bottom-up.

This brings us to their next worries; bankruptcy and debt cycles. Bizarrely, they claim that start-ups routinely fail in the UK so they should fail in these underdeveloped countries as well. Two responses; first, this seems to be in conflict with the abundant statistical evidence which shows a staggeringly high repayment rate (Armendatiz & 9

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Market of Ideas Morduch, 2007). This can only mean the mechanism of microfinance. This that debt-cycle problems are marginal thoroughly downplays the signifiin the grand scheme of things. Second, cance of work and its gendered and it make sense that start-ups are, by gendering dynamic. In fact, much of and large, more sucthe advances on cessful in the third women’s rights and rather in the West origiworld than those Confusingly in the UK. The flippantly, they ask us if nated from their first reason for this this has to happen via the participation in is merely the strucmechanism of microfinance. the labour marture of the market: ket during World projects tend to be This thoroughly downplays War II (Milklocal, meaning that the significance of work and man, 1987). entrepreneurs can its gendered and gendering Therefore, they take advantage of fundamentally dynamic. the knowledge of misunderstand and informal ties how important they have with their communities. An- microfinance has been for women in other reason is the easiness of conduct- the third world and their daily battles ing business viz. the UK where start- for emancipation. They then recoil at up costs and red tape incur gargantuan the suggestion that microcredit apsunk costs which tip the scales. There- preciates the range of female traits fore, their Westernised concept of a and accuse us of ‘essentialising’ them. start-up does not apply here and their Some context might be needed here. comparison is farcical.

Patriarchal myths tend to view females They next worry about social capi- as lesser or deficient in some way. Tratal. We argued that the space of com- ditionally, traits like patience, care and munities offers prudential incentives emotional involvement are irrationally to be more responsible out of a fear of construed as weaknesses which entail social penalties. A fruitful side-effect exclusion from the sphere of labour. of this might be empowering women They are also taken to mean that when they form all-female co-ops be- women belong in their households. cause they can operate outside male Microfinance starkly reverses this; by discourse and, more importantly, chal- appealing to these traits, we view them lenge the patriarchal myth that bread- as virtues to be celebrated as opposed winning is a male only obligation. to weaknesses to be ashamed of. Of Confusingly and rather flippantly, course, this is intended to be a longthey ask us if this has to happen via term, open-ended process much in the

10

Issue XX - Spring 2013

Market of Ideas same way that Western countries historically underwent revolutions. Thus, our claim is not that microfinance will change custom overnight, but merely that it offers the potential of a gradual transformation.

Granted, the microfinance project is not perfect and caution is advised.

This stance should ideally translate into useful insight to refine it. Instead, their critique seems to be dismissing many of the cornerstones that drive projects like that of empowering women as opposed to offering any workable solutions. This cynicism does not do justice to the hard work and efforts these people have shown in taking their lives into their own hands. We would

thus advise the authors to refrain from quoting obscure and hazy proverbs of old Indian men that are not only irrelevant but also unhelpful. Instead, we would recommend they consult some women in Bangladesh and see the way they lionise Yunus for his emancipatory contribution.

Bibliography: Armendariz, B. & J. Morduch.

(2009). The Economics of Microfinance. In ‘Journal of Asia-Pacific Business’, 10:1, 97-106.

Milkman, R. (1987). Gender at Work: The Dynamics of Job Segregation

by Sex during World War II. Illinois: University of Illinois Press.

Dysfunctional Societies: Why Inequality Matters - A Summary of ‘The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better’

By Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett Attitudes to inequality have traditionally differed sharply from one side of the political spectrum to the other.

While some regard it as divisive and socially corrosive, others think it a stimulus to effort, innovation and creativity. Arguments usually reflect little more than personal opinion. But in recent years it has become possible to compare how unequal incomes are in different countries and see what effect it really has. The results are dramatic.

What greater equality brings In societies where income differences between rich and poor are smaller, the statistics show that community life is stronger, people feel they can trust others and there is less violence. Both physical and mental health tend to be better and life expectancy is higher. In fact almost all the problems related to relative deprivation are reduced: prison populations are smaller, teenage birth rates are lower, kids tend to do better at

11

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

school (as judged by maths and literacy scores), and there is less obesity.

That is a lot to attribute to inequality, but all these relationships have been demonstrated in at least two independent settings: among the richest developed countries, and among the 50 states of the USA. In both cases, places with smaller income differences do much better. Some of these relationships have been found in large numbers of studies in very different settings – there are around 200 looking at the tendency for health to be better in more equal societies and about 50 looking at the relation between violence and inequality.

As you might expect, inequality makes a larger contribution to some 12

problems than others, and it is of course far from being the only cause of social ills. But it does look as if the scale of inequality is the most important single explanation of why so many health and social problems are many times as common in some societies as in others.

You might think that these patterns would arise simply because more unequal societies might tend to have more poor people among whom these problems tend to concentrate. But that is only a small part of the explanation.

Much more important is that greater inequality seems to produce worse outcomes across the vast majority of the population. In more unequal societies even middle class people on good incomes are likely to be less healthy, less likely to be involved in community life, more likely to be obese, and more likely to be victims of violence. Similarly, their children are likely to do less well at school, are more likely to use drugs and more likely to become teenage parents.

Redistribution, not growth Although economic growth remains important in poorer countries, among the richest 25 or 30 countries, there is no tendency whatsoever for health or happiness to be better among the most affluent rather than the least affluent of these rich countries. The same is also true of measures of wellbeing – including child wellbeing, levels of violence, teenage pregnancy

Issue XX - Spring 2013

rates, literacy and maths scores among school children, and even of obesity rates. However, within each country, ill health and social problems are closely associated with income. The more deprived areas in our societies have more of most problems.

So what does it mean if the differences in income within rich societies matter, but income differences between them do not? It tells us that what matters is where we stand in relation to others in our own society.

The issue is social status and relative income. So for example, why the USA has the highest homicide rates, the highest teenage pregnancy rates, the highest rates of imprisonment, and comes about 28 in the international league table of life expectancy, is because it also has the biggest income differences. In contrast, countries like Japan, Sweden and Norway, although not as rich as the US, all have smaller income differences and do well on all these measures. th

Inequality and social anxiety But why are we so sensitive to inequality? Why does it affect us so much?

Foremost among the psychosocial risk factors for poor health are three intensely social factors: low social status, weak friendship networks, and a poor quality of early childhood experience. Friendship, sense of control, and a good early childhood are all highly protective of health, while things like

hostility, anxiety, and major difficulties, are damaging. The key is the biology of long term stress: it has such widespread effects – including damage to the immune and cardiovascular systems – that it has been likened to more rapid ageing.

This links back to inequality because inequality is socially divisive: it damages the quality of social relations.

In the most equal countries or 50 states of the USA, 60 or 65 percent of the population agree with the statement “most people can be trusted”. That falls as low as 15 or 25 percent in the more unequal ones. Measures of the extent to which people are involved in local community life also confirm the socially corrosive effects of inequality.

And, as if to prove the point, murder rates are consistently higher in more unequal societies. Bigger income differences give rise to bigger social distances and make social position and status competition more important.

Social relations and hierarchy Social status, friendship and early childhood come up in health research because they are powerful influences on kinds of anxiety and insecurity which are perhaps the most common sources of chronic stress in affluent societies.

The insecurities and feelings of not being valued which we may carry with us from a difficult early childhood, have much in common with the effects of low social status, and they can amplify or offset each other. Friendship fits 13

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

into this picture because friends pro- are socialised and learn to conform to vide positive feedback: they enjoy your acceptable standards of behaviour. It company, laugh at your jokes, seek now looks as if it is also how society your advice, etc.: you feel valued. In gets under the skin to affect health. contrast, not having friends, feeling exGiven that the social class hiercluded, people choosing not to sit next archy is seen as a hierarchy from the to you, fills most of us with self-doubt. most valued at the top, to the least We worry about being unattractive, valued at the bottom, it is easy to see boring, unintelligent, socially inept, how bigger status differences increase and so on. the evaluative threat and add to status There is now a large body of ex- competition and status insecurity. This perimental evidence which shows perspective also explains why violence that the kinds of stress which have increases with greater inequality. The the greatest effect on people’s levels of literature on violence points out how stress hormones are often issues of “social evaluative What hurts ... is being disrespect, loss threats” – threats to of face, and huself-esteem or social seen as a second rate person miliation, are status, in any situathe triggers to tion in which others may judge your violence. Violence is more common performance negatively. where there is more inequality not It seems then that the most wide- only because inequality increases status spread and potent kind of stress in competition, but also because people modern societies centre on our anxie- deprived of the markers of status (inties about how others see us, on our comes, jobs, houses, cars, etc) become self-doubts and social insecurities. As particularly sensitive to how they are social beings, we monitor how oth- seen. What hurts about having second ers respond to us, so much so that rate possessions is being seen as a secit is sometimes as if we experienced ond rate person. ourselves through each other’s eyes.

Increased social hierarchy and inShame and embarrassment have been equality raise the stakes – and also called the social emotions: they shape the anxieties – about personal worth our behaviour so that we conform to throughout society. We all want to feel acceptable norms and spare us from valued and appreciated, but a society the stomach-tightening we feel when which makes large numbers of people we have made fools of ourselves in feel they are devalued, looked down front of others. Several of the great so- on, regarded as inferior, stupid and ciological thinkers have suggested that failures, causes suffering, resentment this is the gateway through which we and wastes human resources.

14

Issue XX - Spring 2013

Inequality, consumption, and the environment For thousands of years the best way of improving the quality of human life has been to raise material living standards. The data suggests that, as a result of diminishing returns to economic growth, we may be the first generation to have got to the end of that process.

No longer do increases in Gross National Income per head tie up with improved health, happiness, or wellbeing.

If we are now to improve the real quality of life further, we have to direct our attention to the social environment and the quality of social relations.

What the evidence we have seen shows is that the quality of social relations is substantially determined by the scale of the material inequalities between us. Rather than continuing to tackle each problem separately – by spending more on medical care, more on police, social workers and drug rehabilitation units – we now know that by reducing material inequality it is possible to improve the psychosocial wellbeing and social functioning of whole societies.

During the next few decades politics is likely to be dominated by the necessity of reducing carbon emissions. Greater equality has a crucial role to play in that process. First, consumerism is perhaps the most important obstacle facing policy to reduce carbon emissions. The good news is that reducing inequality decreases the pressure to consume because it reduces status competition. Greater equality

means that status competition starts to weaken as societies become more cohesive and community life strengthens.

Second, effective action on the environment depends, like never before, on people being concerned with the common good. There is, however, clear evidence that people in more equal societies are more public spirited and less out for themselves. More equal countries give more in foreign aid; they recycle a higher proportion of waste materials; they score better on the Global Peace index, and surveys show that business leaders’ in more equal countries they give a higher priority to action on the environment than their counterparts in less equal societies.

But, even when people accept that greater equality has social and environmental benefits, they sometimes have a residual worry that creativeness and innovation – progress itself – depends on individual financial incentives and greater inequality. But if you take the number of patents granted per head of population as a reasonable measure of a society’s creativeness and innovation, then rest assured, more equal countries seem to do better here too.

Prof. Richard Wilkinson is Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham Prof. Kate Pickett is Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York 15

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

‘But it works in Sweden!’ - The Case Against Naïve Egalitarianism

By Kristian Niemietz Since 1979, the consumption level of the poorest tenth of British society has increased by about 60% in real terms.1 Among this group, 24% have a car, 32% own the home they live in, 42% have a DVD player, 84% have a washing machine, 89% have central heating, and 98% have a TV (Brewer & O’Dea, 2009). In many ways, today’s poorest are better off than average households were a generation ago, and than high-earners of prior generations. Leisure goods and services that were once reserved for the well-off – air travel, dining out, hotel overnight stays – can nowadays be found among the consumption profiles of low earners (ONS, 2010). Not all is rosy, but you could do worse than being a lowearner in the UK today.

And yet, there is widespread unease about how prosperity is distributed.

According to the British Social Attitudes Survey (NatCen, 2011), three out of four people think income differences are too large, two out of three be1 ‘The poorest’, in this case, refers to those with the lowest level of consumption, not those with the lowest incomes. The bottom of the income distribution contains many who are in this position for or a short period only, e.g. self-employed people recording a transitory loss. In short, the figures above refer to those who are ‘really’ the poorest not those who are statistically the poorest.

16

lieve inequality causes crime and other social problems, and only one out of four believe that there is similarity of opportunities. The current recession has somewhat exacerbated these concerns, but they clearly predate it.

And they are not totally unfounded: The distribution of income in the UK is fairly unequal. Those in the middle of the distribution earn about twice as much as those at the 10th percentile, while those at the 90th percentile earn about twice as much as those in the middle. In the 1970s, these ratios were 1.8 and 1.7 respectively (IFS, 2012), and the divergence between the very bottom and the very top has grown stronger still.

Groups like Oxfam and the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) interpret this as an increase in poverty, because poverty, they argue, is a purely relative phenomenon: It does not matter what the least well-off can or cannot afford; what matters is how far they trail behind the rest of society.

They therefore call for an end to the “economic policies that prioritised GDP growth over income and wealth distribution“ (CPAG, 2009, p. 2), and for its replacement by a classic redistribution agenda: raise taxes for the better-off, raise income transfers to the less welloff, and expand the public provision

Issue XX - Spring 2013

of goods and services (CPAG, 2009a).

Their paragons are the Nordic countries, with their high taxes and generous welfare states. If only the UK was more like Scandinavia, they argue, poverty would disappear.

What they refuse to acknowledge is that in aggregate terms, the UK is already a lot like Scandinavia. The

achieved through taxes, social security contributions, and cash transfers.

Again, the UK turns out to be more ‘Scandinavian’ than ‘Anglo-Saxon’.

So why is it that the Nordic nations end up with a much more equitable distribution of income than the UK, if their welfare states are neither larger nor more progressive than the British

Fig 1. Social spending and the reduction in inequality: UK vs Scandinavia Country Net social expenditure Point reduction in Gini coas percentage of GDP, efficients through taxes & 2007 transfers, mid/late 2000s Sweden 26.0% 0.109 Denmark 23.9% 0.131 United Kingdom 22.7% 0.111 Finland 22.6% 0.145 Norway 20.0% 0.120 Source: OECD (2011) table below shows total net social expenditure, which is the combined spending on unemployment benefits, pensions, childcare subsidies, family benefits, healthcare, disability benefits etc., as a percentage of GDP. On this measure, the UK ranks in between the four Scandinavian countries. The British welfare state already has the size of a typical Nordic welfare state, and it also has about the same redistributive effect. The right-hand column shows the reduction in inequality achieved through redistribution, or technically, the reduction in the Gini coefficient2

2 The Gini coefficient is the standard measure of inequality, which can take values between 0 and 1, with 0 representing complete

counterpart? The answer is simply that they start off with a more equitable distribution of gross incomes. Inequality in these countries is already modest even before their governments redistribute a single krone. These populations are more homogenous in aspects like skill levels and work levels, which makes the road towards an egalitarian income distribution a rather short one.

And this leads us to one of the main problems with the redistributionist line of reasoning. Egalitarians often plot their arguments against a homemade straw man, whom they call ‘the equality. Gini coefficients are available for both market incomes and disposable incomes, and the table shows the difference between the two.

17

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

neoliberal economist’ or ‘the orthodox economist’, and who supposedly claims that inequality was a good thing because it incentivised people to work hard. This is a fantasy product; nobody argues that inequality is in itself desirable. What economists often criticise is large-scale redistribution (e.g. Harberger, 1998; Clark et al, 2006; Trabandt & Uhlig, 2009), not equality.

There are societies which automatically tend towards fairly equitable income distributions, because their members are not worlds apart in their skill levels, ambitions, work ethic etc.

The Scandinavian countries are good examples, Switzerland in South Korea

are even better ones. In the latter two countries, Gini coefficients before redistribution are lower than the British Gini coefficient after redistribution, which means that if their governments did not engage in any redistribution at all, they would still be more equal societies than Britain is currently.

Problems arise, however, if policymakers insist on forcing a heterogeneous population into a homogenous income distribution. To achieve an income distribution resembling the Swedish or the Danish one, the UK would require colossal amounts of redistribution. Taxes and benefits would have to be pushed to a level where they

Fig 2. Gini coefficients before redistribution

Source: OECD (2011) 18

Issue XX - Spring 2013

cut the Gini coefficient of market incomes by 0.2 points, a feat which no country in the world has yet achieved.

It is not impossible, but it would kill off incentives to work, acquire skills, save, invest, or set up a business. And far from narrowing social divisions, it would foster even greater resentment of welfare recipients, which is already more widespread here than almost anywhere else in Europe (Sefton, 2009, 237-242).

None of this means that we should simply accept the current level of inequality as inevitable. There are a lot of smart policy options which would benefit the least well-off disproportionately, and which would also make good economic sense. But every single one of them requires the political courage to confront vociferous vested interest groups. To name just three examples: Liberalising the land use planning system would enable an expansion in the housing supply, which would drive down rent levels and house prices (Niemietz, 2012). But ‘NIMBY’ groups like the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) will do anything in their power to prevent more homebuilding.

Abolishing the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and allowing free trade in foodstuff would slash grocery prices, but farmers’ associations will not easily let go of their privileges.

Breaking up the public sector’s nearmonopoly over education, and opening the sector to competition, would

drive up educational quality (Sahlgren, 2010). This would be a boon for those living in the most disadvantaged areas, which have the highest incidence of chaotic, failing schools. However, the National Union of Teachers will not voluntarily subject its members to competition. Over the past 40 years, only 18 teachers have been sacked for incompetence (BBC News, 2010), and the NUT will do their best to make sure it remains that way.

There are many more examples of pro-poor policies which would also be economically sound. But the impulses for such policies will not come from within the current poverty lobby, whose actors are not interested in anything beyond income redistribution through higher benefits. Or in their own words: Investing in incomes gets at the root cause of poverty – low income” (CPAG, 2008, p. 9).

Bibliography BBC News (2010) ‘Incompetent teachers being recycled by head teachers’, available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/ news/10464617 Brewer, M. & C. O’Dea (2012) ‘Measuring living standards with income and consumption: evidence from the UK’, IFS Working Paper W12/12, London: Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Clark, J., Tullock, G. and Levy, L. (2006), ‘The poverty of politics: How income redistribution hurts the poor’, Atlantic Economic Journal, 34: 47-62.

CPAG (2009) ‘Stop in-work poverty: End sub-prime jobs’, London: Child 19

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Poverty Action Group.

CPAG (2009a), Ending Child Poverty: a manifesto for success, London: Child Poverty Action Group.

CPAG (2008) ‘No one written off.

Response to the July 2008 welfare reform Green Paper’, London: Child Poverty Action Group.

Harberger, A. (1998), ‘Monetary and fiscal policy for equitable economic growth’, in: Tanzi, Vito and Ke-young Chu (eds.), Income Distribution and High-Quality Growth, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT: 203-242.

IFS (2012): ‘Inequality and Poverty Spreadsheet’, dataset accompanying ‘Living Standards, Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2012’ Commentary No. 124, London: Institute for Fiscal Studies.

NatCen Social Research (2011) British Social Attitudes, 27th report, National Centre for Social Research, London: Sage Publications.

Niemietz, K. (2012) ‘Abundance of land, shortage of housing’, IEA Discussion Paper No. 38, London: Institute of

Economic Affairs.

OECD (2011): ‘Divided we stand.

Why inequality keeps rising’, Paris: OECD Publishing OECD (2012) Social Expenditure Database, available at: http://www.oecd. org/els/socialpoliciesanddata/socialexpendituredatabasesocx.htm ONS (2010) Family spending. A report on the 2009 Living Costs and Food Survey, London: Office for National Statistics.

Sahlgren, G. (2010) ‘Schooling for money: Swedish education reform and the role of the profit motive’, IEA Discussion Paper No. 33, London: Institute of Economic Affairs.

Trabandt, M. & Uhlig, H. (2009) ‘How far are we from the slippery slope?

The Laffer Curve revisited’, NBER Working Paper No. 15343, National Bureau of Economic Research.

Kristian Niemietz is Poverty Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs

Photo by Philip Taylor

20

Issue XX - Spring 2013

Photo by Kevin Dooley

21

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

A Different Dimension of Inequality: Education

By Giulio Schinaia A large share of the academic debate that is devoted to inequality tends to revolve around income inequality within and across countries. However, not as much emphasis is given to the distribution of education, which is arguably a driving factor behind income and social inequality. In the following, I will start with a brief illustration of the importance of ensuring equal access to education within countries, followed by an overview of how educational inequality can be measured and analysed. I will focus on developing countries, since it is there where educational inequality is more marked and has the largest impact on society.

Given the status quo, a need for policy changes seems appropriate; hence, a few reform suggestions bring this essay to a conclusion.

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s capability approach (1985) underlies the importance that education, as well as its distribution within a society, can have on the well being of an individual. Indeed, the intrinsic value of education can already in itself justify why a degree of education should be accessible to all humans, regardless of their economic means. Moreover, human capital theory claims that individuals seek education to increase their 22

potential earnings, thus asserting the economic relevance of years of schooling. It follows that a link between the distribution of income and the distribution of education within a society can be made.

Educational inequality can be seen under many aspects. Todaro and Smith (2011: 382) exposed the issue by reporting the Gini coefficient measuring the years of schooling relative to the proportion of the population in 85 countries. A Gini coefficient is a number between zero and one, where a score of zero implies perfect equality and the closer we get to one, the higher the degree of inequality. In an equally educated country (low Gini), everyone would have achieved the same years of education, while in an unequal one, only a minority would have achieved tertiary education, while most people would have not completed any schooling at all (high Gini). An example can be useful to clarify their findings: in 1990, over half of India’s population had received no schooling at all, meanwhile a sizable number of Ph.D. recipients came from India. In contrast, in South Korea less than 10% of the population was found to have not received any schooling, whilst the majority of the population had achieved

Issue XX - Spring 2013

the average years of education (10.4 years). These two examples portray the stark difference between a country with unequal education and one with a more equal distribution of education.

Indeed, India scored an educational Gini coefficient of 0.69 against 0.22 in South Korea.

Using similar data, a World Bank study conducted by Thomas et al.

(2000) showed empirically that educational inequality was negatively correlated with average years of schooling by plotting the educational Gini coefficients against average years of schools for different countries. In other words, the data collected showed that societies with less skewed distribution of years of schooling (low Gini coefficients) also tended to have a higher average years of schooling overall. Unfortunately, reducing the Gini coefficients of years of schooling is not sufficient to level the playing field of educational opportunities across countries. This is in part due to the limitations of a crude measurement like the Gini coefficient which for example does not provide any information about the quality of education.

The distribution of educational attainment seems to have only recently attracted the attention of policy-makers. In the run-up to 2015 most of the objectives set by the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) will come to a review, as they reach their deadlines. In particular, let us focus on the second MDG, which aims to provide univer-

sal primary education to all girls and boys by that year. As the 2012 UNESCO education report states: [A]ccess to schooling has widened considerably, that is, a much greater proportion of children were brought into schools. But another conclusion will likely be that many countries are encountering difficulties in translating this access into actual learning opportunities that are sustainable for all pupils over time.

Indeed, we are yet to admit that a 6 grader in Pakistan receives the same education as a 6th grader in Finland.

Nonetheless, it is somewhat bizarre that policy until recently seems to have focused mainly on enrolment levels, without putting enough emphasis on the learning outcomes. As such, a different dimension of educational inequality has developed, on which is more evident in the quality of education received by individuals. Despite the surge in enrolment levels in newly opened schools in the more deprived areas of the world, the learning outcomes achieved seem to be inadequate and drop-out rates are high. More remote areas seem to lack effective teaching, since most teachers tend to avoid deprived environments. Furthermore, poor facilities and inadequate curricula are also found to be factors contributing to the unequal quality of education.

Banjaree & Duflo (2011) pointed th

23

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

this issue out when discussing education in their book ‘Poor Economics’.

They reported the case of Pratham, an Indian NGO focused on education, which found that many districts in India reported high levels of illiterate pupils who had gone through a primary school cycle. More research in other parts of the world has been devoted to analysing the educational inequality derived from the unequal standard of education within a country: another World Bank study (Ferreira & Gignoux, 2008) has compared levels of student attainment by means of the OECD’s Program of International Student Assessments (PISA), as well as other standardized tests, to measure the learning outcomes of respective age-groups in Latin America.

Evidence seems to conclude that, in areas where a top-down supply driven school enrolment has occurred, learning outcomes have not met the expectations. An underlying assumption of large enrolment policies seemed to have been that once in school, pupils would have automatically learned.

Increasing access to schooling is the obvious step to ensure universal education, however if once at school little learning takes place, all the previous efforts become void.

There are a number of measures that can aim at levelling the playing field within education, and hopefully, drive a redistribution of resources in developing countries.

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography 24

Issue XX - Spring 2013

A first set of simple and useful policy changes that can improve the access to education would be: focusing education on ensuring that pupils master basic skills such as literacy and numeracy, improving teaching training, encouraging local communities to foster and monitor schools’ performances and re-organizing national curricula.

Furthermore, setting proximate goals that motivate students to be responsible for their own learning can be beneficial. For example, offering even modest scholarships for students who scored highly in exams, seemed to have been of positive effect in Kenya, where overall test scores improved. (Banjaree & Duflo, 2011 : 99).

Alternatively, a less explored solution is provided by the inspiring experiment of the ‘Hole in the Wall’ (2010), conducted by Samata Ditri.

Ditri sheds a new perspective on the means by which education can be attained in the more deprived areas of the world. He showed that by employing simple pedagogic techniques and with the aid of a computer shared among students, learning outcomes could improve quickly and efficiently.

Depriving a large majority of the population within a society of basic educational needs can be seen as a large waste of human resources as well as an outright injustice. Forward steps have been made in the right direction in terms of enrolment levels, but this is not sufficient to reduce the high educational inequality across the world.

There lies much more work ahead of 2015 to provide all children with an equally beneficial cycle of education.

Bibiliography: Banerjee, A V & Duflo, E (2011).

Poor Economics. London: Penguin. 72101 Ferreira, F H G & Gignoux, J. (2008). The Measurement of Educational Inequality: Achievement and Opportunity. World Bank 2008, accessed 11 January 2013, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/ handle/10986/6859/WPS4659. txt?sequence=2.

Sen, A (1985), Commodities and capabilities. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 21-25 Samata Ditri (2010), Samata Ditri: The child-driven education. Ted Talks, online video, accessed 11 January 2013, <http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html>.

Thomas, V & Wang, Y & Fan, X, (2000). Measuring Education Inequality: Gini Coefficients of Education, World Bank Institute 2000, accessed 11 January 2013, http://sociologia.davidjustino. com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/ THOMASWANG2000.pdf Todaro, M P & Smith, S C (2011).

Economic Development. 11th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education. 376-383.

UNESCO (2012). UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Global Education Digest 2012, accessed 11 January 2013, www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Documents/ged-2012-en.pdf.

Giulio Schinaia is a third-year Economics student at the University of York 25

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

The Inequality of State Membership

By Louis Fletcher If Johns Rawls is correct when asserting that distributive justice concerns the rightful allocation of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation, then, as Michael Walzer (1989, p.31) has commented, community membership constitutes perhaps the foremost good we distribute. The profound effect visited upon person’s life chances by that membership is regrettably visible; suffice it to say that a U.S. citizen with the average income of the poorest decile of U.S. society is better-off than two thirds of the world’s population (Milanovic, 2002, p.89). It might then be said that membership distribution is a suitable – if not a paramount – subject for a consideration of inequality, and one only proffered urgency by its common side-lining within inequality debates and the corollary tacit acceptance of communities’ rights to bounded membership. It is an inequality in and of itself as a distributive good allocated by jurisdictional units (i.e. states) attached to particular bounded communities, and as a principal determinant of material inequality by consequence. On this basis, this essay shall contest when and in what circumstances states may have a right to exclude prospective immigrants, for this is the most salient and contentious means by which community member26

ship is accorded by states today. The other primary means being, of course, by birth-right. The most common form arguments for closed borders assume – in both public and academic spheres – is that of cultural preservationism; the attempt to normatively tie particular communities to particular cultures. This essay will move with a view to rebuking such.

Intrinsic Cultural Preservationism: If culture is to be defined as historically shared sets of values and norms of behaviour, then intrinsic cultural preservationism holds that national cultures provide the fundamental undergirding to daily life. Thus, the preservation of national culture is ascribed normative force sufficient to grant states’ rights of exclusion to that end.

Intrinsic cultural preservationism can be met with two major objections (Scheffler, 2007; Waldron, 1992): (i) Cultures consistently change with the vicissitudes of time; new people, technology, ideology, problems and so forth are in constant revision, such that cultural stasis becomes unnatural if not impossible, for it is the corollary of new human experience.

Issue XX - Spring 2013

(ii) Persons are constituted by a multiplicity of cross-cutting cultural identities rarely â&#x20AC;&#x201C; if ever â&#x20AC;&#x201C; congruent with national borders; there is not a homogenous national culture.

They possess diversely sourced and complex personal identities.

If culture is in constant revision and cosmopolitan in constitution, then there seems no morally privileged cultural community to which an insider and outsider might be culturally contrasted; and, thus, no basis to normatively privilege one over the other.

In response, it might here be said that there are some identifiable historically constant national cultural traits of value sufficient to warrant preserva-

tion and, by extension, immigration controls. Three responses are sufficient.

Firstly, an empirical contestation can be drawn with this picture. Several historical accounts (Gellner, 2002; Hobsbawm, 1992; Anderson, 1991) have revealed that many of those cultural traits considered of some national heritage are modern phenomena born out of, and often invented because of, prevailing circumstances and power relations at specific times and places; possessing none of the ancestry or dignity typically supposed. For example, Gellner (2002) has posed that national political units themselves only arose when the imperatives of industrialism (i.e. inexorable profit) induced state centralisation and a standardised edu-

Photo by Beatrice Murch

27

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

cation instilling a nationally common linguistic medium.

Secondly, as (ii) reveals, there is no basis to privilege national culture, for person’s exhibit diverse cultural affiliations (i.e. to religious or political groups). A consistent cultural preservationist would thus have to grant equal concern to these disparate sources of value, few of which cut along national borders; thus draining nations of any privileged preservationist status.

Thirdly, if (i) suggests that cultural value persists despite change, and that culture nearly always evolves naturally to reconcile itself with variant circumstances, then it is unclear whether the artificial elongation of particular cultural facets is a meaningful enterprise at all. Ironically, the only constant feature of culture is change, yet this is the one thing ‘cultural preservationists’ militate against.

Nevertheless, it could be said that immigrants and nationals might relevantly differ in the rate of change they induce; that while any culture is subject to evolution, opening borders may result in sufficient immigration that social fragmentation might follow.

It might thus follow that states possess a right of discretion over border entry insofar as immigration threatens a societies underlying social fabric.

While the relevant normative depth and scope of this contention extends beyond our immediate concern, even this minimal right (i.e. to protect social stability) contrasts significantly to the 28

strong right of border controls cultural preservationism is typically argued to entail, which is thought to grant states significant if not absolute control to rights of discretion over entry. It is also an interesting question as to whether cultural change internal to bounded societies is capable of reaching such a rapidity and/or contrast to existing culture that a similar weak right to cultural preservation might be invoked internally (i.e. to internal migration).

Non-Intrinsic Cultural Preservationism Several liberal writers (Kymlicka, 1989, 2000, Ch. 5; Raz, 2001, p.129134) have attempted to defend immigration controls on an instrumental cultural preservationist account. This argument can be seen as such: (i) Autonomy is valuable (ii) Autonomy consists of the forming, revising and pursuing of a conception of the good (iii) Pre-existing social forms are necessary to derive a conception of the good from (iv) Only culture can provide those social forms As such, culture (given it not being oppressive, etc.) can be seen as a necessary source of social forms (i.e. career trajectories, leisurely pursuits, etc.) from which to derive a conception of the good from. It is not immediately clear in this argument what ties par-

Issue XX - Spring 2013

ticular communities to particular cul- ample, holds that persons are habituattures, for surely any culture can proffer ed around existing social forms, which the necessary repository of social forms irremovably anchor any conception of from which to lift one’s own rational the good. life plan. Jeremy Waldron (1992, Three problems can be levied p.105-109) has even argued that au- against this complete account of nontonomy requires a cultural context intrinsic cultural preservationism. sufficiently diverse Firstly, it prefor one to evaluate peoples Non-intrinsic cultural pre- supposes the relative merits own bounded comof distinct social servationists have attached munities are the exforms; for mean- particular communities to clusive or predomiingful choice sup- particular cultures owing to nant sources of poses that persons their relevant social the notion that cultural re- forms, yet people can compare social forms to, as Kym- orientation, as potentially extract constituents licka (1989, p.165) induced by immigration, of their conception himself suggests, rarely translates into of the good from select the “most a range of sources; enriched provision Renaissance litvaluable [ipso an facto subjective of social forms, tending erature, existential valuations of social rather to prompt cultural philosophy, Jesus forms vary, thus Christ, and so on. disorientation.” more options likely These non-national grant more value] social forms are from the various options available”. nearly always the over-whelming It seems to follow that immigration – sources of import to person’s selfthrough yielding a wider set of social identities (Waldron, 1992). Justificaforms – affords a richer autonomy. tion for privileging national culture is However, non-intrinsic cultural wanting for the non-intrinsic cultural preservationists have attached particu- preservationist. lar communities to particular cultures Secondly, while immediate cultural owing to the notion that cultural re- transplantation may produce disoorientation, as potentially induced by rientation, this only applies to those immigration, rarely translates into an already culturally anchored, children enriched provision of social forms, and those yet born can undergo cultending rather to prompt cultural diso- tural assimilation (i.e. second and third rientation. generation immigrants have long been Joseph Raz (1986, Ch.12), for ex- able to become effectively integrated 29

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

into their new national host culture tionist arguments can only lay prem(Stilz, 2009, p.6)). ise to rights of membership to cultural Thirdly, even ignoring these objec- communities by themself, for they do tions, immigration is yet permissible not tie such communities to particular on non-intrinsic cultural preservation- territorial geographies. As such, they ist grounds when: (1) it is of an amount offer no weight by themselves to discrenot sufficient to disorientate the host tion over entry into territory. A suppleculture, (2) it is recmentary account oncilable with the Neither intrinsic nor non- tying a particular host culture, either intrinsic cultural preser- culture and parowing to (i) the imticular communimigrants holding vationist accounts offer favour ty to a particular cultural identities to immigration controls; in territory is thus sufficiently similar fact, the latter actually sways wanting for any or complimentary to defence of immiagainst such.” the host culture, (ii) gration controls. or the host culture Secondly, this esembracing multiculturalism, (iii) a set say has taken cultural preservationism of cultural privileges are accorded to in isolation; other normative duties the host culture to ensure its preserva- – particularly duties of international tion despite immigration. justice – may plausibly overwhelm If immigration can no longer be such. For example, even Kymlicka said to induce cultural disorientation (2000, p.99) admits that states’ right – in light of the importance of non- to discretion over border controls hold national sources of social forms and only insofar as duties of international the possibility of inter-generational resource distribution are met. cultural assimilation – then, as previAs such, neither intrinsic nor nonously stated, it seems the best way of intrinsic cultural preservationist acproviding a meaningful context of counts offer favour to immigration conchoice is the provision of a diversity trols; in fact, the latter actually sways of options allowing the comparison of against such. Popular and academic relative merits prior to adoption. As defences of immigration controls and such, rather than autonomy predicat- – by extension – the inequality of ing immigration, it seems to grants community membership distribution normative weight to immigration. and the material inequality inevitably Two final considerations of cultural following from that distribution, are preservationism are necessary. Firstly, thus wanting of a firmer premise. Yet, even accepting their truth, intrinsic as finally mentioned, any argument and/or non-intrinsic cultural preserva- grounding rights to exclusion must tie 30

Issue XX - Spring 2013

a particular community to a particular territory, and overwhelm competing normative obligations. Accounts of the former (i.e. of territorial acquisition and rights) however, it should be said, largely stem from Lockean and Kantian derivations; neither of which garners favourable grounds to strong immigration controls. The former endorsing personal discretion over property entry tempered by a strong compensatory element for the use of the jointly-owned world, the latter denying strong rights of occupancy without international regulation to accord territorial claims with the equal freedom.

It may well be – and I believe it so – that one of the decisive structural inequalities within humanity today is, as such, indefensible, and that absolute rights of discretion over state entry are in palpable need of abolition.

Bibliography Anderson, B., 1991, Imagined Communities. Verso: London & New York Buchanan, A., 2003, The Making and Unmaking of Boundaries: What Liberalism Has to Say. In Buchanan, B., & Moore, M., ed. 2003, States, Nations, and Borders. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK Gellner, E., 1983, Nations and Nationalism: Perspectives on the Past. Blackwell Publishing: Cornwall, UK Hobsbawm, E. J., 1992, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge University Press: New York Kymlicka, W., 1995, Liberalism,

Community, and Culture. Oxford University Press: New York Kymlicka, W., 2000, Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford University Press: New York Milanovic, B., True World Income Distribution, 19888 and 1993: First Calculation Based on Household Surveys Alone, The Economic Journal, Vol. 112, Issue. 476, p.51-92 Raz, J., 1986, The Morality of Freedom. Oxford University Press: New York Raz, J., 2001, Ethics in the Public Domain: Essays in the Morality of Law and Politics. Oxford University Press: New York Scheffler, S., 2007, Immigration and the Significance of Culture, Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 35, Issue 2, p. 93-125 Waldron, J., 1993, Special Ties and Natural Duties, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 22, No.1, p. 3-30 Walzer, M., 1989, Spheres of Justice: A Defence of Pluralism & Equality. Basil Blackwell: Oxford Louis Fletcher is a third-year Politics with International Relations student at the University of York

Photo by IK’s World Trip

31

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Applying Luck Egalitarian Theory to Global Justice

By Jessica Yang This article examines whether luck egalitarian theory can be applied on a global level in dealing with the inequalities arising from policies that favour those who live in developed countries and hurt individuals in developing countries. Luck egalitarian theory states that there is a morally significant difference between inequalities caused by bad luck and inequality caused by actions which the individual can be held responsible for. The latter kind of inequality is justifiable whereas the former is deemed unjust. This essay argues it is bad luck that someone ends up belonging to a developing country, therefore inequalities caused by this bad luck is unjust. While I demonstrate that using policies which have a disproportionate effect on traders in developing countries is unjust, it is beyond the scope of this article to give a complete answer to the question of what to do in light of this information.

In international trade, we often hear discontent voiced by developing countries with regard to developed countriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; policies such as those that grant enormous level of agricultural subsidies1 to domestic farmers. Farmers2 still, in the midst of EU austerity, 1 One example is that of the European Unionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

2 Those who are engaged in the agri-

32

receive 40% of the EU budget (The Economist, 2012). Meanwhile, farmers in developing countries do not receive anywhere near as much as the extravagant subsidies farmers within the EU enjoy. The effect of the EU subsidies impacts world price of agriculture products, and this hurts farmers in developing countries whose price cannot compete with that of the heavily subsidised EU agriculture products.

Domestic policies aside, I think inequality caused by bad luck is more obvious within free trade agreements (FTA), where there is a complex problem with regard to preferential Rules of Origin (RoO). RoO are the criteria required to determine the national source of a product (WTO, nd). They are an integral part of any FTA as duties and restrictions depend upon the origin of the good, as defined by the RoO. RoOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economic purpose is to prevent third party exploitation of preferences, and as all trade agreements have their own set of RoO, there are many variations.

However, the complexity3 of some culture sector, accounting in total for 5% of the entire workforce 3 With increasing legal restrictions put on other means of trade barriers, RoO is frequently used for veiled protectionism, as understanding of its technical content and restrictive impact remains limited to the policy makers who prescribe them, and industry experts

Issue XX - Spring 2013

of these RoO has a disproportionate someone somewhere on the other side negative effect on traders in developing of the world is from a more well off countries, where country. The Luck the customs servic- The Luck egalitarian theorist egalitarian theoes are unprepared rist would argue would argue that policies and inexperienced that policies that in handling the that disproportionally impact disproportionally complicated ad- individuals living in impact individuals ministrative tasks developing countries are living in developin order to meet ing countries are the requirements unjust, because the resultant unjust, because the stated in RoO, inequalities are created by resultant inequalioften set by the arbitrary factors; namely ties are created by developed counarbitrary factors; where one is situated in the namely where one try during a trade agreement negotia- world.â&#x20AC;? is situated in the tion (Estevadeordal world. et al, 2009:pp35-38). As a result, tradFollowing the same line of arguers from developing countries do not ment, any inequalities arising from benefit from a trade agreement, whilst different regulatory environments and traders from developed countries are standards are unjust. RoO is more able to access the developing countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s detrimental to the firms within demarket and reap benefits from the veloping countries because they cantrade agreement. not meet the complex conditions set Let us first apply the theory to by RoOs. These RoOs are imposed policies related to subsidies, and then by richer countries, which advantages consider the impact of RoO in more those situated in developed countries detail. My argument is that subsidy as they have the capital to meet the policies are unfair on the basis that standards set by the RoOs. Developed farmers in developing countries cannot countries do not hesitate to use their be held responsible for being a farmer power to force stringent RoOs into from a country where the government FTAs, as they wish to protect their dois not wealthy enough to grant subsi- mestic industries. dies so that the traders can compete However, when dealing with juson equal footing with the traders from tice across borders, such as in the case developed countries. It is pure bad of international trade, applying luck luck that someone ends up being a egalitarian theory to bring out that citizen of a developing country, while inequality can be problematic because on a global level there are compre(Hirsch, 2011).

33

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

hensive philosophical beliefs, which means that even if there is inequality, someone with a different set of comprehensive philosophical belief may reasonably challenge my conclusion that this inequality is something unjust, or is something that needs to be corrected. My response to this is that indeed, there are different views on what justice requires, and equality is one of many competing values. Nevertheless, it is not sufficient to say that the theory cannot be applied on a global scale because there are competing values, while values can compete and clash; each can be reasonably argued for.

In an interesting article by Tomlin (2012), the evaluative nature of the luck egalitarian theory is discussed in

34

Photo by conorwithonen great length. Evaluative nature says luck egalitarian theory does not say what we should do, but it rather gives us a framework for how we should view or think (Tomlin, 2012:377; Cohen, 2008:pp268). Furthermore, there are independent normative principles that tell us what to do in light of recognizing that something is unjust (Tomlin, 2012:pp378; Cohen, 2008:pp285). So what we should do with this inequality is influenced by these independent principles. But, a theory that offers an evaluative view is surely already on the path to recommending how we should deal with the injustice, from the way it evaluates what is just and what is not.

Nevertheless, recognizing that something is unjust is one thing, and whether we should do something

Issue XX - Spring 2013

about it is a different issue. Given that there is an element of inequality that leads to injustice, the question arises whether or not it should be corrected.

Does justice require us to do something?

Inequality caused by bad luck is unjust. If bad luck cannot be removed, then I think inequality has to be at least limited. A theoretical solution is to find complementary theories that offer independent principles to tell us what to do. Needless to say, any complementary theory has to be compatible with luck egalitarian values. I think a fruitful future inquiry is to examine what kind of theories can be simultaneously endorsed for the luck egalitarian theory to deal with injustice on a global level. Furthermore, there are practical solutions which help to mitigate the effects of bad luck outlined in this article. One policy recommendation I would like to put forward is one which increases the ability of firms in developing countries to comply with the restrictive RoOs in order to obtain preferential treatment. This could include helping developing countries to establish more efficient customs services, or make affordable legal assistance available to firms so that they can complete the necessary paperwork. I believe this is where global institutions have a role to play.

In conclusion, this article argued that luck egalitarian theory can be applied on a global level to bring out the inequalities caused by bad luck as de-

fined by the theory, and this inequality is something unjust, transcending national borders. Furthermore, I argued something should be done in light of recognising that unjust inequalities exist in the world of international trade, while taking into consideration of other competing values that clash with the values of luck egalitarian theory.

One way to go about this matter is to find complimentary theories that tell us what to do, as a supplement to luck egalitarian theory which is seen as an evaluative tool. I believe that future inquiry should pay more attention on how justice can be dealt with on a global level, especially in the area of international trade where the complexity of different policies (e.g. domestic policies, international trade policies) hides the real causes of inequalities.

Linking philosophical theories to the international political economy would give more weight to arguments put forward by people who suffer from the negative effects of an inequality, and at the same time encourage policy makers to take more values into account.

Bibliography: Cohen, G.A., 2008. Rescuing Justice and Equality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cohen, G.A., Edited by M, Otsuka.

2011. On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice, and other Essays in Political Philosophy, USA: Princeton University Press.

Estevadeordal, A., Harris, J. and Suominen, K., 2009. Multilateralising Preferential Rules of Origin around 35

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

the World. Switzerland: Inter-American Development Bank. (Pdf ) Available at: http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=1803029 (Last accessed on 25 October 2012) Hirsh, M., 2011. The Politics of Rules of Origin. In: Troude, T., Busch, M.L., Porges, A., ed. 2011. The Politics of International Economic Law. USA: Cambridge University Press. Chp. 13 The Economist, 2012. Milking the budget. (online) Available at: http://www.economist.com/news/ europe/21567122-even-times-austerityeurope-spends-too-much-subsidising-

rich-farmers-milking-budget (Last accessed on 22 December 2012) Tomlin, P., 2012. ‘Can I be a Luck Egalitarian and a Rawlsian?’, Ethical Perspectives, vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 371-397 WTO, 2012. Technical Information on Rules of Origin. (online) Available at: http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/ roi_e/roi_info_e.htm (Last accessed on 29 Oct 2012)

Jessica Yang is a Political Science MA student at Waseda University in Japan

Interview with Professor Catherine Wilson

By Matthew Kilcoyne and Judith Weiß Catherine Wilson is the 50th Anniversary Professor of the Department of Philosophy at the University of York. She holds undergraduate degrees from Yale, Oxford and completed her Ph.D. at Princeton University. While her research is focused on the relationship between historical and contemporary developments in the empirical sciences, including physics and the behavioural and life sciences, her recent book ‘Moral Animals’ develops a theory of morality then used to defend egalitarianism.

36

Is equality of outcomes an end in itself?

Thank you for the question. What do I mean first of all in saying that equality of outcomes is an important way of assessing the fairness of a society? If you suppose (as I do) that intelligence, capacity for hard work, and good judgement are distributed quite evenly over members of our species, then large differences between groups in regard to the occupational categories they occupy, the political power they wield, and their opportunities for enjoyment reflect either different preferences--perhaps women don’t

Issue XX - Spring 2013

Interview with Prof. Catherine Wilson fancy being plumbers or politicians-or the failure of meritocratic institutions or both. There is cause for concern either way; whether meritocracy is something of a sham, or whether some groups of people are comparatively apathetic about their own political and social input or have developed preferences for low-status positions and occupations.

Granted, somebody has to occupy those positions, but why should certain ethnic groups or one gender or the other be disproportionately represented?

Do we currently observe equality of outcomes in our society?

Complex societies work according to layered systems of checks and balances. In a capitalist society everyone is thought to be welcome to whatever his or her talents and efforts will bring them under current market conditions. Yet we know that the market is unable really to reward desert or to address need, that it creates vast differences in levels of well-being between the adult versions of Baby A and Baby B, quite similar organisms at birth who grow up differently. So, we have equality of outcomes furthering policies such as progressive taxation, income support, educational bursaries, quotas, parental leave, and drive to compensate

for political under-representation.

Such policies in turn strain against a background of expectations (including people’s expectations of and for themselves), stereotyping, bad attitudes, settled habits, and ignorance. When we see only a few females, for example, in a certain role, we draw the inference that by and large females probably aren’t very good at that thing or are mostly not interested in it.

In any case, the checks and balances are not functioning too well at present, especially given how much we know about how labour, the economy, and social judgement work, compared to a generation ago.

Does equality of outcomes necessarily imply equal resources for all?

Do you mean should everyone enjoy the same standard of living? I’m in favour of permitting what I call ‘inequality at the margins.’ It’s important to reduce the currently enormous gap between rich and poor, to compress incomes (if not assets as well)--and eliminate the gap that began to develop in the 1980s. But we don’t have to do away with Nobel prizes, or prizes for golf or tennis for that matter. Increasingly, we look away from annual incomes in cross country comparisons especially and look at quality of life--the interest of one’s daily work, the quality 37

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Interview with Prof. Catherine Wilson and variety of amusements and diversions available, the degree to which pain and disability can be avoided. These can’t be made equal but we should aim to reduce the gap between the worst sorts of lives and the best.

What are the reasons we do not observe equality of outcomes?

Several reasons: (1) We are used to being examined, marked and graded.

We assume that excellence deserves rewards and that our well-being depends on being in the hands of the best (which is largely true).

But we infer wrongly that society as a whole must be a well-functioning meritocracy. (2) We suffer from misapprehensions about what other people are capable of and what we ourselves are capable of. (3) We have been falsely persuaded that inequality within and across societies arises from an overall scarcity of resources.

Attention is increasingly bearing down however --as it has at other periods of history-- on the greed and political manipulations of the very rich.

Are there other moral considerations that override the drive to equality of outcomes?

Again, I stress that reduction of inequality and underrepresentation where these are painfully obvious should be the goal, not equality as 38

such. I leave room for some competition and some role for luck--e.g. in modest lottery winnings. If it really could be shown that greater inequality of outcomes by groups benefits the worst off groups, we should accept it on Rawlsian principles. But we are waking up to the fact that it does not: the more inequality there is in the society, the worse the position of the worst off is.

Will equality of outcomes act as an accelerator or constraint on growth?

In other words, would equality of outcomes produce a greater pie or simply a more fairly split pie?

Like an increasing number of economists, (though fewer politicians) I regard growth as anything but a panacea, implying more environmental destruction and more pollution.

We need to decrease ‘throughput’ and manufacture and consume less. So let’s think of the pie not as GDP but as the resources of the earth that are available in a sustainable way. Since they can’t by definition be increased, we can only divide them less destructively and more fairly. We can insist on more political representation for those very groups who know quite a lot about renewing, tending, and cleaning up.

Matthew Kilcoyne and Judith Weiß are third-year Philosophy, Politics and Economics students at the University of York

Issue XX - Spring 2013

Call for Papers VOX – the Student Journal for Politics, Economics and Philosophy – is calling for articles to be submitted for the Spring Issue 2013, with the broad theme ‘Ideology’.

Articles should be between 1,000 and 1,500 words in length, and fully-referenced using the Harvard style.

If you would like to write on this theme, please e-mail your article to vox@clubofpep.org by 5 April 2013.

You may wish to write on a topic from the list below: • • • • • • • •

Is ideology a dangerous thing?

Democracy: a political system or an ideology?

To what extent is ideology a motivating factor in voting?

Was ideology the driving force behind the revolutions in the Middle East?

Origins of Ideology - is ideology hard-wired?

Ideology and Economics: complementary or a dangerous mixture?

In what ways does ideology influence lifestyle? ____________ (your own idea)

You may also pair up with someone else to write a debate for our Market of Ideas section on any of the topics above.

Undergraduates, graduates and academics all welcome.

All undergraduate submissions will be conisdered for the Vox Essay Award.

Back issues are available at: www.voxjournal.co.uk.

39

VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

VOX

voxjournal.co.uk

40

THE STUDENT JOURNAL OF POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND PHILOSOPHY

Photo by Alexander Eichinger