Counting (In)equalities

Dr David GordonProfessor of Social JusticeSchool for Policy Studies

University of Bristol

Equality and Social Exclusion in the 21st Century: Developing AlternativesWellington Park Hotel

Belfast 1-3rd February 2006

Champagne glass of income distribution

The stem of the glass is getting thinner. In 1960 the income of the wealthiest fifth was 30 times greater than that of the poorest fifth; now it's more than 80 times greater.

Wealth in the UK

Frank Dobson, 1997(Secretary of state for health

1997-1999)

“Inequality in health is the worst inequality

of all. There is no more serious inequality

than knowing that you’ll die sooner

because you’re badly off”

Age at death by age group, 1990-1995

Source: The State of the World Population 1998

Make Poverty History: Click Video

Cause of death for children under five

Bars show estimated confidence interval

Only the good die young? – what kills children

“The world's biggest killer and the greatest cause of ill health and suffering across the globe is listed almost at the end of the International Classification of Diseases. It is given code Z59.5 -- extreme poverty.World Health Organisation (1995)

Severe Deprivation of Basic Human Need of Children

•A third of the Worlds children live in squalid housing condition with more than five people to a room or living on a mud floor

•Over half a billion children have no toilet facilities whatsoever - not even a hole in the ground.

•Over 400 million children are using unsafe open water sources, rivers or ponds or they have to walk 15 minutes or more there and back to water, that’s a thirty minute round trip, that’s so far they cannot carry enough for their needs. Therefore, they cut down on water use and tend to get infections.

•About 1 in 5 children (aged between 3 and 18) lack access to radios, televisions, computers, telephones or newspapers at home. They have no information about the outside world apart from what they can see in their community.

•16% of the world’s children under the age of 5 are very severely malnourished and almost half of these live in South Asia.

•275 million children have not been immunised against any disease whatsoever, or they have had a recent illness causing diarrhoea, which is one of the major killers and received no medical advice or treatment. As far as we can determine, about 13% of the world’s children have never come into contact with medical services.

•140 million children aged between 7 – 18, that’s about one in nine, are severely educationally deprived - they have never stepped inside a school building

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Baruch Spinoza (1632 - 1677)

The Politics of Counting

“In the original sense of the word, ‘Statistics’ was the science of Statecraft: to the political arithmetrician of the eighteenth century, its function was to be the eyes and ears of the central government”

Sir Roland Fisher (1938)

The Origin of Social Indicators

In 1962,NASA commissioned the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to explore the potential side effects of space exploration on American society. Would the space program threaten or disturb the social fabric? Would new social problems arise?

Social indicators were "statistics, statistical series, and all other forms of evidence that enable us to assess where we stand and are going with respect to our values and goals"

(Bauer 1966: 1)

Dimensions of Justice

• Class• Recognition – Sex, Race, Ethnicity, Disability, Age.

• Political – voting rights & voting frame – who gets to vote?

Nancy Fraser (New Left Review, Nov/Dec 2005)

How Should Resources be Distributed?

Equality Rules. The principle of equality determines an equal distribution of resources (“to each the same”) without considering the special characteristics of individuals

Equity Rules. The principle of equity refers to the distribution of social resources, according to the input of each individual. Three main distributive rules are usually derived from this principle: (a) effort, (b) actual contribution, and (c) ability.

Need Rules. The principle of need demands resource distribution according to individuals’ needs (“to each according to its needs”).

Values and Choices

In 1974, Richard Titmus argued that if society wants to move towards a more equal society then we need to decide which of the following four maxims should determine the provision of welfare services

To each according to individual need

To each according to individual worth

To each according to individual merit

To each according to individual work

The need for a scientific theory to count inequalities

Karl Popper – properties of a scientific theory

• The theory must be logically internally consistent• The theory must be falsifiable, e.g. it must be capable of being shown to be

untrue. The existence of a Loving God and Freudian psychology are unfalsifiable theories and therefore unscientific.

• The theory must be testable.• The theory must have predictive value.• The results of the theory must be reproducible. Other people using the

same methods will reach the same results.

Imre Lakatos (1974) scientific research programmes must also:

• Possess a degree of coherence that involves the mapping out of a definite programme for future research.

• Lead to the discovery of novel phenomena, at least occasionally.

Growth is Good for the Poor?

Source: Dollar and Kraay, Journal of Economic Growth, 2002

“Average incomes of the poorest fifth of a country on average rise or fall at the same rate as average incomes …. in a large sample of countries spanning the past four decades. This relationship holds across regions and income levels, and in normal times as well as during crises ….

. This supports the view that a basic policy package of private property rights fiscal discipline, macroeconomic stability, and openness to trade on average increases the income of the poor to the same extent that it increases the income of the other households in society. ….

. On the other hand, we find little evidence that formal democratic institutions or a large degree of government spending on social services systematically affect incomes of the poor”

Dollar and Kraay’s Conclusions: Did they Discover a New Law of Nature?

10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00

Percentage of the average Income of the bottom 20%

0.00

5000.00

10000.00

15000.00

20000.00

25000.00

Ave

rag

e In

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e in

US

$

Random Average Income Vs Random Income Share of the Poor

Are Random Numbers Good for the Poor?

R2= 0.79

Faith in the Market

“At present almost all elite Americans, with corporate chiefs and fashionable economists in the lead, are utterly convinced that they have discovered the winning formula for economic success – the only formula – good for every country, rich or poor, good for all individuals willing and able to heed the message, and, of course, good for elite Americans:

Privatisation+Deregulation+Globalisation=Turbo-Captialism=Prosperity”

Edward Luttwak (1998), Turbo Capitalism

The world is plagued not so much by poverty but by a rampant “suspicion of wealth…everywhere these ideas prevail…poverty persists and spreads”

George Gilder (1981) Wealth and Poverty

“It is the entrepreneurs who know the rules of the world and the laws of God”

George Gilder (1984) The Spirit of Enterprise

Towards the end of the century, many developing countries—China and India among them—finally threw off this victim's mantle and began to embrace wicked capitalism, both in the way they organised their domestic economies and in their approach to international trade. All of a sudden, they are a lot less poor, and it hasn't cost the West a cent.

Economist editorial, 11/3/2004

"Faith is believing what you know isn't so."

Your faith is what you believe, not what you know."

  --  Mark Twain

“This would mean restoring to the centre of the tax system two basic principals: the first, that those who cannot afford to pay tax should not have to pay it; and the second, that taxation should rise progressively with income. Programmes that merely redistribute poverty from families to single persons, from the old to the young, from the sick to the healthy, are not a solution. What is needed, is a programme of reform that ends the current situation where the top 10% own 80% of our wealth and 30% of income, even after tax. As Tawney remarked, ‘What some people call the problem of poverty, others call the problem of riches’.”

(Gordon Brown and Robin Cook, 1983)

Poverty in the UK: The Solution?