The strange passion for equality

Samuel Brittan

A hurdle which some of us face with even the most serious political books is that they are written for people of the author's own persuasion. Others are welcome to eavesdrop. But there is little effort to per- suade those outside the stockade. These four books are written ostensibly for read- ers who are either 'on the Left' or who believe in equality or who hold both posi- tions. Books written from the other side are often no better in this respect. They assume that the reader is a conservative and either philosophise about the true nature of conservatism or discuss what Conservatives need to do to be saved, or at least to win a few more elections.

But it would be a pity if dislike of this private conversation were to put off read- ers. All of these four books have something important to say irrespective of the reader's politics and it is worth making the effort to disentangle their arguments. The most sub- stantial in every sense is Professor Fogel's. He is a distinguished economist and eco- nomic historian and a Nobel Prize winner. He has made his name by applying quanti- tative techniques to the study of history, most notably in his path-finding book on the economics of American slavery.

He is, however, very loose in his use of the term egalitarian. He believes that egali- tarianism has been the defining American belief. This might surprise the visitor to the US who is driven from the centre of Man- hattan to Westchester, being careful to stay on the motorway and avoid the Bronx. He says at one point that the chief egalitarian inspiration is a feeling of injustice at the high rewards for those with most wealth and income. If that is so it makes the creed one of envy or resentment and a very pecu- liar beacon for the idealist, the compas- sionate or the radical. In fact he does himself quite an injustice. For the bulk of the text shows that he really has in mind nothing more than a widening of political opportunities and a concern for those with least opportunity, income or power.

He discerns four 'great awakenings' in US history and traces their religious as well as their political roots. The first great awakening is simply the 18th-century revo- lution against the British. The second com- prises the rise of the abolitionist movement and developments like women's suffrage. The third is symbolised by Roosevelt's New Deal and was an attack on big business cor- ruption and the wealth of the rich, com- bined with reforms to improve the position of the working classes.

The novelty of Fogel's approach is his view that we have now entered a fourth awakening in which there is much less need for cash redistribution or traditional wel- fare services and much more need to com- bat the spiritual discrepancies between relatively affluent middle America and the underclass. He associates this awakening with campaigns for more emphasis on ethics in school curricula and even the revival of fundamentalist religion which others associate with the right.

Fogel does not find it easy to think of ways of reducing differences in spiritual resources. As he admits: Even if they desire to do so, those rich in virtue, in the family ethic or in benevolence could not transfer spiritual resources by writ- ing out cheques denominated in virtue, benevolence or family solidarity.

In the end he falls back on the cry 'educa- tion, education, education'. It is not sur- prising that this particular road to virtue should be so emphasised by academic writ- ers.

In fact he is most interesting on what he calls 'left over third awakening issues', for instance the increase in income differences since the early 1970s. Over half the `increase in inequality' is explained by dif- I've never heard of a parrot bun:lee-jumping before.' ferences in hours worked. But this is a very different maldistribution than in the past. In the 1890s the richest 10 per cent worked fewer hours than the poorest 10 per cent. Today it is the other way round. Hours worked at the top tenth of the income dis- tribution have increased by 12 per cent while hours worked at the bottom tenth have declined by 20 per cent.

Moreover, the majority of families in the lowest tenth are in fact transient low earn- ers suffering a temporary dip in their incomes who have mostly accumulated enough wealth to bridge the period until incomes rise again. Only about a quarter of the families in the bottom tenth are chroni- cally poor and the majority of these are headed by unmarried mothers. Moreover, consumption standards at the lowest end of the income distribution are far above those of the middle classes in the 1890s.

The principal reason for the growth in income of rich households was not that their average incomes increased but that their numbers nearly doubled. These results are based on a series going up to 1988 and will have to be re-examined against the light of the new economy and stock market boom of the 1990s, and yet again when the boom has burst.

The location of the chronically poor does not suggest that vast increases in total US expenditure on education is the answer to their plight, and there is much to be said for old-fashioned cash redistribution aided by a modest amount of tactful counselling. Unlike many egalitarians who write in a sour and disillusioned way Fogel ends on a high note, foreseeing a revival of the family ethic, increases in leisure and a better deal for African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities.

For philosophical reflections on what equality might mean one does better to go to the short book by John Wilson. He insists from the very beginning that belief in equality is the cardinal distinction between Left and Right. But he goes on to downplay the importance of income dis- crepancies, which he would not even like to see completely ironed out. He puts much more emphasis on maldistributions of power, the abuses of authority and the need to treat people who are old, or dis- abled, or in institutions, with dignity. I found myself learning more about the human condition and how people could treat each other better than from any of the other books and regret that my literal- minded interpretation of the word equality should put me beyond the pale. Wilson's essay does not lend itself to either a short summary or to an immediate political pro- gramme of action. No wonder that Tony Blair in his foreword describes the ideas as `necessarily complex' and seems puzzled by it all.

Peter Singer's book might be described as a plea to the Left to accept the human condition. Writing from a Darwinian rather than a religious point of view, he urges the Left to stop denying the existence of human nature, which is neither inherently good nor infinitely malleable. Nor should it assume that all inequities are due to dis- crimination or social conditioning. He sees human beings responding both to opportu- nities for competition and opportunities for co-operation and would naturally like to increase the latter. Above all he believes that the Left should be

on the side of the weak, poor and oppressed, but think very carefully about what social and economic changes would really work to bene- fit them.

One does not need to be on the Left to believe all this; and if we are doomed to continue with the terms Left and Right, which are based on where deputies sat in the constituent assembly after the French revolution of 1789, we should avoid defini- tions of our own side with which nearly all people of good will would agree.

Those of us who are looking for practical ways of spreading opportunities without imagining that they can be in any literal sense equal will find most inspiration from the book by Ackerman and Alston on the Stakeholder Society. The name is unfortu- nate because it has become associated with a fashionable view of the role of company directors which would divorce them from responsibility to their shareholders and even more confusingly — with a special kind of state-promoted pension.

But that is not all what these two Ameri- can authors have in mind. What they mean by a stake is that everyone coming of age in the US should receive an endowment of $80,000 which they could spend or invest. There would be few of the limitations to worthy expenditures which British authors writing in a similar vein have suggested. Their suggestion comes from the same family of proposals as that of a basic income for all, which could be the eventual destination of the Working Families Tax Credit under a less puritanical dispensa- tion. But by concentrating on assets rather than income it is focusing on where the real inherited and unearned discrepancies do in fact lie.

The weakness of the classical liberal case has always been the absence of a theory of property distribution, which is so much a matter of luck or inheritance. The endow- ment proposal is very much on the side of levelling up rather than levelling down and makes no concessions to envy of any kind.

The authors believe that the universal endowment could be financed in the US by a wealth tax of two per cent per annum. If only the US, as still much the richest coun- try in the world, would embark on such a proposal, it would be much easier for other countries to do the same as the main com- petitive magnet for mobile capital and high-earning personnel would be switched off. If only! Whoever wins the presidential and congressional elections, there is almost zero chance of the US acting as a pioneer.

This is, however, an area where Britain can make a start, if only on a small scale, by using the windfall which the state has gained from the sale of mobile telephone licences and hopes to gain from similar such sales in the future. This will not of course be costless. For it will deprive the Chancellor of opportunities to increase public spending or cut taxes, which he would have on a modest scale if he persists in using these windfalls for the uninspiring purpose of repaying the national debt.

If I may declare a personal interest, I fruitlessly put forward such ideas for the state proceeds from North Sea oil revenues and from privatisation sales. Maybe the task is not quite so hopeless now that a number of left-wing think tanks have begun to put forward the endowment idea here. But it will be an uphill task to persuade voters and policymakers to focus on increasing opportunities and resources rather than expecting the government to act like a fairy godmother, scattering schools, hospitals and tax cuts in propor- tions dependent on emotive reactions to media slogans.

Samuel Brittan's website is www. samuelbrittan.co.uk