Poverty and Redistribution

The Office of National Statistics has found that during the New Labour decade, we in the UK have become richer but not more equal. In fact, there is evidence to suggest we have become less equal. Should we be worried about the distribution of wealth and income?

Many Kantians believe that a form of distributive justice is entailed by Kantian moral reasoning (Robert Nozick was one of those who did not). The most famous example is that of John Rawls: his Original Position is a Kantian-inspired thought experiment. In it we are to imagine ourselves bargaining for our best deal but under certain constraints – the veil of ignorance. These constraints can be interpreted as attempting to embody some of the fundamental components of Kantian moral thought.

One of the principles that Rawls argued we would choose under such constraints is the Difference Principle, where the only equalities that would be permitted would be those that improved the lot of the worst-off. Rawls’ argumentation is complex and Kantian-inspired (that is, not necessarily the Kantian view). For more information, the Stanford Encyclopedia is an excellent resource.

Kant, himself, thought that not aiding others worse-off than yourself was simply not universalizable, we therefore have an imperfect duty to improve the lot of others although this duty would be subordinate to other duties. Rawls, for instance, subordinates the Difference Principle to the Liberty Principle – we cannot effect the equal distribution and enjoyment of civil liberties in the pursuit of distributive justice.

I think there is a nice utilitarian approach to the issue of inequality: huge disparities in wealth and income generally tend to make a society less happy. Indeed this is suggested by evidence from the ONS. More equal societies, such as Japan and Sweden, tend to be happier (reporting happiness, that is) and more trusting of others. (I’m not going to mention suicide rates because I’ve read conflicting reports, especially for Sweden.) More unequal societies have higher murder rates and a smaller incidence of people reporting they are happy. A rule utilitarian, then, seems on fairly strong ground to argue for redistribution of wealth and income.

The Kantian doesn’t make empirically based claims like the utilitarian. He does, however, think we have an imperfect duty to the happiness of others. Kant goes on to argue that to cultivate one’s own talents and to improve the conditions of others are duties of virtue and as such are not appropriate subjects for coercive legal enforcement (that is, not the role of the state). Property, on the other hand, can only be claimed on the multilateral consent of others and consent requires the reciprocal enjoyment of similar rights. Property requires such consent because initially the earth was undivided. Yet property is required because it would be irrational to deprive oneself of the disposal of physical objects because we would thereby be unable to realise our chosen ends. Therefore, the state exists partly to ensure the distribution of property is equitable enough to gain the general consent.

We can see the strong continuities between Kant’s reasoning here and Rawls’ later contractualist reasoning. Rawls uses the Original Position to conceptualise the initial equality of all participants. He extends the notion of property to the notion of “goods” – we need goods to realise our chosen ends. The difficulty is what would be an “equitable enough” distribution of goods to gain general consent. And Rawls’ plumping for the Difference Principle is controversial.

The notion of total equality – as in Marxist terms – does seem incompatible with Kant’s contractualism. But some heavyweight egalitarianism also seems to be entailed. The total amount of goods one can “own” seems to be limited as this restricts the ability of others to freely realise their own chosen ends. Second, a baseline or floor on someone’s income and wealth also seems to be required as otherwise individuals would not be freely able to realise their own ends. This seems to imply to me that the state has a legitimate right to tax excessively high incomes above the average to redistribute to those significantly below the average.

It also seems that the state should be doing this more than, say, providing welfare services to individuals because this constrains individual autonomy to choose one’s ends. There isn’t space enough in the post to properly sort this one out, but my gut intuition is that this takes us in the direction of some Basic Citizen’s Income.

In conclusion then: should we be worried about inequality? Not inequality per se. We should be worried about the wealth of some restricting the capacity of others and we should be worried about those individuals who are unable to fully realise their chosen ends.

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