Obstacles to equality

Tom Miller bewails the fact that New Labour has not done enough to increase equality, and calls upon the party to be more amibitious. But I'm not sure social democrats can do much to increase equality, for at least 5 reasons:
1. The median voter problem. There may be a good economic reason why people on £50,000 a year get tax credits - the alternative is even higher marginal withdrawal rates on the lower-paid - but there's also an electoral reason. Redistribution has to benefit the floating voter. And this blunts its potential to help the poor.
2. Big government cannot easily redistribute income. If the state's taking 40% of income, it cannot easily do so solely from the rich. The upshot is that some taxes - VAT and duties - bear upon the poor. The poorest fifth pay 29.4% of their disposable income in indirect taxes. The richest fifth pay only 13.7% (table 16A of this pdf).
3. As we've seen with the hostility to Liam Donaldson's proposals on organ donation, the state is seen  not as the representative of legitimate interests, but as a hostile enemy force. Redistributive policies will therefore be seen not as promoting valuable goals, but as an iron fist seizing our money.
Far from challenging this mindset, New Labour's cliqueish hierarchical illiberalism actually promotes it.
4. There's no culture of equality. The poor are regarded no longer as the noble working class, but as "chavs", an underclass responsible for their own condition. So there's little call for redistribution towards them.
The pernicious social democratic policy of "improving opportunity for all" might be partly responsible for this. In giving a few escape routes from poverty, it encourages the view that the poor are poor because of a lack of intelligence or drive. Worse, it encourages the rich to believe their fortune is the result of their own effort.
Again, New Labour has done nothing to challenge this view. Quite the opposite.
5. In a globalized economy, some of the rich are footloose - albeit not as many or as much so as they pretend. Higher marginal income tax might therefore increase equality only in the mathematical sense of driving the rich away. There are solutions to this, but no-one's interested in them.
For these reasons, I suspect it's almost impossible for the Labour party to achieve an equality acceptable to people like Tom.
And herein lies a paradox. Many Labour supporters like to pretend that they are practical hard-headed realists whilst Marxists are not. But could the opposite be true? Could it be that Marxists are the realistic ones, as they (we) correctly see the enormous barriers to redistribution through orthodox routes?

Comments

[Luis Enrique]

I cannot get my head around your objections to trying to equalise opportunities. OK you can point out the (possible) bad consequence of meritocracy creating the sentiment that the poor deserve their lot* but what's the alternative? If you don't want to see opportunities equalised, then you don't want to see the poor given access to better schooling? What about all your stuff about equalising exam grades for uni entry a la Texas - why isn't that "pernicious"?

How can you be left wing and be happy that some people have fewer chances, the odds stacked against them etc.? What am I missing? I know we can't make life fair, but can't we make it as fair as we can?

*although there's some inconsistency here - if opportunity is really equal for all, then don't the poor deserve their lot? so what's wrong with that sentiment? and if opportunity isn't really equal then the idea that the poor deserve their lot is just plain wrong, so why not just say so rather than blame the policy goal of equalising opportunity? In a world where there is a mix of deserved and undeserved poverty then isn't the only sensible attitude toward poverty that it is er.. in some cases to some extent deserved/undeserved?

[Max]

Luis -- Chris isn't against "equalis[ing] opportunities". What he's saying is that New Labour and the State are unable to do it.

If a political party relies in swing/floating voters (the middle class) to get into power (by now having a large enough base in the working class) they will not have policies or remain in power by increasing taxation on those voters or reducing taxes for the less well off.

[dearieme]

Our welfare state has been run by leftists in a way that encourages ever-greater dependence, rather than decreasing it. By handing out cash to the "poor", irrespective of why they are poor, it has encouraged everyone else to despise the welfare state, and by extension the poor. The left has simultaneously buggered up the schools (and family life), so making it harder for the children of the poor to escape. But, it must be said, the left has lived well off it all. The apparatchiks get pay, get the fun of bullying everyone, and get exemption from being held responsible for their actions. They are merely a peculiarly loathsome aristocracy, without even a redeeming merit of style, patriotism or intellectual curiosity. Come the Revolution, let the tumbrils roll.

[Luis Enrique]

Max - perhaps you're right. I get the median voter not being poor argument. But I think I have read Chris objecting to the goal of equalising opportunities on grounds other than it not being politically feasible.

[chris]

Luis - I have several objections to equalizing opportunity; I'll articulate them fully sometime. Any true equality of opportunity would be grossly illiberal, as it requires an equality of quality of upbringing - because it would be impossible to educate kids from bad families sufficiently better than those from good families so as to offset inequalities in familial circumstances.
The partial equality of opportunity we have is a cruel hoax. It's a way of pretending that someone from bad parents (or with bad genes) had a chance to succeed when in fact they never did.

[dsquared]

[The poorest fifth pay 29.4% of their disposable income in indirect taxes. The richest fifth pay only 13.7% (table 16A of this pdf).]

is it my turn or Matthew's to make the point that this statistic ignores the fact that taxes finance benefits? The net effect of the direct tax, benefit and indirect tax system is to raise the original income of the poorest quintile from £6700 to post-tax income of £8151 and final income (incl. benefits in kind) of £15617. For the richest quintile, the original income of £77256 goes to £50518 post tax and £54281 final

[donpaskini]

What 'hostility' to Liam Donaldson's proposals? I get that libertarians don't like it, but even the post you link to whinges about how a majority of people are 'sheep' who 'love a control freak'. There are solid majorities in favour of just about every conceivable action by the state to sort out problems.

I think that median voter theory isn't nearly as problematic as you seem to think, either (not least because someone earning 50k isn't a median voter). In particular, people under-estimate the amount to which poor people benefit disproportionately from public services (according to JRF research). So to take a couple of examples of possible social democratic policies - universal free childcare and a big social housing building programme, would be popular with swing voters, who see benefits to themselves and their families, and also helps reduce inequality, both by removing barriers to work and ensuring that low income households aren't paying most of their money on childcare or rent. New Labour's investment in the NHS and education won them the 2001 and 2005 elections, after all.

[Mark Wadsworth]

Well said, dsquared!

[Matt Munro]

Could a single one of you bearded, sandal wering, tofu munching liberals please explain why "equality" is either desirable or necessary for anything other than reasons of sentimentality or guilt ?

[Luis Enrique]

Chris,

well OK that leaves me some wriggle room - I'd be against attempting to deliver 'true' equality of opportunity too, for the same reasons (grossly illiberal) - but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, if you see what I mean.

As a motivating principal I still think trying to move opportunities in the direction of equality is sound, even if I'd never dream of attempting anything as silly (and meaningless) as trying to ensure the stupid and lazy have the same opportunities as the clever and industrious. I might however try to improve the opportunities available to the poor relative to the rich. I'm not sure to what extent it is possible to try to compensate for bad parenting, but I imagine there are some things that can be usefully be done - good schools being once such contribution. And plenty of the ideas you seem to support (e.g. a CBI) would have the effect of equalizing opportunities even if they don't come close to some silly notion of absolute equality, so in practice perhaps we do not disagree very much.

I'm not sure about the cruel hoax thing - it clearly is as things stand, but say we had managed to deliver a superb education to all and whatever other feasible social inclusion etc. achievements we may envisage - would the idea of a meritocracy still be a cruel hoax? Rather depends on what you mean by the word - if you construe it as severely constrained (by the inevitable inequities of genetic and parental endowments etc.) then I'm not sure I see why we couldn't speak of a meritocracy with justification. I don't think we should hold concepts like that to unobtainable standards.

[el Tom]

Revolution it is then.... but seriously:

'For these reasons, I suspect it's almost impossible for the Labour party to achieve an equality acceptable to people like Tom.'

There is only one type of equality which satisfies me, and that is 'more'.

With regard to opportunity and equalising it; well, if you start from the belief that people have an equal capacity to perform equal work, in general at least; which I do, surely equalising opportunity would result in a massive equalisation of outcome? Since the alienation of Labour depends on an objection to the prevention of one receiving the reward which he deserves, and the sum total of the abolition of private property would be a prioritisation to satisfying need, can't we say that those things are aiming at antagonistic goals?

I hold to both of them. I wish to maximise the average amount gained back by average workers, and I believe that they can only do this themselves; thus either opportunity to do so or state redistribution must be used, and as you explained in point 1, the latter does not work exceptionally well. Examples of nationalised industries within welfare capitalism have resulted in routine overproduction and a distancing in the planning process from both real input and levels of need. Allow people the opportunity then to take back their own alienated proceeds.

Satisfying need. Hmm. I reckon the first place to start with that is minimizing the amount of people who need satisfaction! Hence, once again, opportunity.

"In a globalized economy, some of the rich are footloose - albeit not as many or as much so as they pretend. Higher marginal income tax might therefore increase equality only in the mathematical sense of driving the rich away."

Hence the need for a new internationalism, in the real as opposed to neoconservative sense.

On the class barrriers to reformism, see here: http://newerlabour.blogspot.com/2007/07/labour-must-rally-both-working-and.html

The vast majority of people are, as ever, working class. If they weren't, there wouldn't be a problem!

[Nick]

To Matt: Why liberals always as bearded sandal wearers?? I assure you I shave regularly (photo available on request) and wear ankle lenght boots... but still consider myself a determined Rawlsian.

That question aside, do we really think of New Labour as social democrats or christian democrats. What would be the difference? social democrats work at minimising and/or eradicating social injustice believing it can be done, christian democrats (hopefully)do the same knowing it can't - they set out to alliviate rather then eradicate.

Finally, the welfare state exists for the benefit of the rich, too. How else would you protect property and goverment from unrest, violent crime and revolution, if not by taking the edge off the most biting poverty by means of handouts. Same with promoting equality. Some of it is done (by soc democrats) out of feelings for what is just and then some by christ democrats out of prudence.

[Maynard Handley]

"
Could it be that Marxists are the realistic ones, as they (we) correctly see the enormous barriers to redistribution through orthodox routes?
"

How is it realistic to support a policy (revolution) that has failed pretty much everywhere it has been tried. The difficulties of establishing redistribution through law are nothing compared with the difficulties of preventing thugs from taking power during the chaos of a revolution.
I'd say the "realistic" attitude is to realize that, more than anything else, what has improved the lives of people is science and technology, and that one should therefore support
(a) vastly more money channeled into this area and
(b) listening to what science tells us about what can and cannot be done (eg, 6 billion people cannot all live like kings given the reources of the planet, no matter what we do about social conditions, so the choices are that we all live in poverty, most of us live in poverty, or people stop having so many freaking kids).

But this sort of reality-based realism is, obviously, very much a minority taste.