Why does inequality matter?: A book summary

By T.M. Scanlon (Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity in Harvard University's Department of Philosophy)

It is a short book with around 160 pages and 10 chapters:

1. Introduction

2. Equal Concern

3. Status Inequality

4. Procedural Fairness

5. Substantive Opportunity

6. Political Fairness

7. Equality, Liberty, and Coercion

8. Deser

9. Unequal Income

10. Conclusions

This heuristic book puts the matter (here equality or rather, objections to inequality) in a hard-nosed manner. The author looks into the matter of equality from the opposite spectrum. Rather than discussing equality as a subject, he introduces various objections to inequality and inspects to which extent these claims are right or wrong.

I will give a summary of each chapter. I have tried to cover almost all points but not all cases. Every case is different and hence it should be analysed in a unique way. The author has tried to give all such necessary examples, but I have covered the most important and relevant ones. This is not per say a review because I don't consider myself qualified enough to have “views” as I am new to the subject of philosophy. I do have personal views but I don’t have the complete knowledge to analyse them and state here.

This book could also be called “EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EQUALITY”.It is one of those books which stick to one topic only and scrutinise it to the greatest depth. I would not say it is a light read for someone who is new to philosophy.

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

The author starts the book by stating that the world (predominantly the U.S.A.) is putting extreme moral objection to equality. He straight away picks the idea of “redistribution of resources“ (an idea of democratic socialists and many more). He discusses the reasons why some people want free distribution of resources and then raises logical questions as to why it would be unfair to connect every situation with inequality and why doing redistribution, in a broad sense, would be impossible and partisan.

Most of the cases which come under objection involve an institution working unfairly, but the author inputs 2 arguments:

Not all inequality objections come under such conditions (mentioned in subsequent chapters).
There can be complete justification to the reason why “inequality” was effectuated.

He gives “several kinds(6) of reasons for objecting to inequality” all discussed in subsequent chapters.

CHAPTER 2 Equal Concern

The word “equality” is not used as frequently as the word “equal concern” in this chapter. As mentioned earlier, many “equal concerns” arise due to institutional inequality.

The author mentions various institutional inequalities in this chapter, classifies them as fair and unfair by putting reasonable objections and then providing solutions for the “loopholes” if any.

Two circumstances are given below. (There are more situations mentioned in the chapter along with hard-headed arguments for them.)

Case 1: “The international life expectancy gap” shows the average life expectancy is 74.2 years in the USA, while 37.1 years in Malawi. The author's exact words to express disagreement are: “I am not convinced that inequality is what is objectionable in this case.”
Case 2: Government policies providing free education till a certain age(within national boundary)

He says that the idea of equality would have no role in explaining the wrong involved in Case 1 just because obligation is fulfilled for some but not for others i.e., the idea of equality plays no role in explaining why violations of these rights are wrongful.

An institution is responsible for the situation in its own boundaries, just like if you make a donation to one charity should not raise the question of unintended inequality caused to other charitable bodies. But if an institution is created to tackle problems like gaps in life-expectancy on an international level and poses such a situation, then that institution can be reasonably blamed.

Equality plays a role in explaining the wrong of unequal concern in cases such as “Case 2”. “If the state fails to provide free education, for example, up to a certain age limit for some children, this would be a violation.”

The gist of the chapter can be presented in a line - “Egalitarian principles often lead to waste”, by Joseph Raz (who the author also mentions). In other words, if it is impossible to give good to all, then should the good be not given at all?

CHAPTER 3 Status Inequality

The author starts by clarifying the difference between- Status inequality faced due to societal pressure to present oneself as worthy of,maybe, belonging in the society or the “real” status inequality where inequality can be a real threat. In the former case, people may complain of having the feeling of inferiority of not owning certain goods or material, but this point would be baseless as it would not make anyone worse off in a morally relevant sense.

The question arises -How economic inequality can lead to objectionable inequality in status? The author mentions what Jiwei Ci called “The three stakes” of poverty ie. three ways in which being poor can be a bad thing for people.

Subsistence poverty occurs when lack of money threatens a person’s ability to meet the needs of physical survival.
Status poverty occurs when lack of money makes it impossible for a person to live in the way that is required, in his or her society, in order to be respected.
Agency poverty occurs when a person’s lack of money makes it impossible for him or her to function in the way that is required, in his or her society, to be a “normal functioning agent”—to have a job.

A woman had to buy a designer bag just because she couldn't get a job done without showing the institution that she “deserved” the work to be done. The author does not blame the individuals to some extent, but does say that we must try to eliminate the feeling of lack of superiority and mentions two benefits of doing so. First, it would give us a sense of inner peace and fulfilment and second, this change in attitude would take something away from the better off and this is not a loss they have any claim to object to.

Forming “non-comparing groups'' that comprise people who have similar interests, beliefs and priorities can be a solution. But forming such groups can lead to polarisation. Well-offs associated mainly with others of the same economic level, will have less understanding of the lives and needs of those who have less, and are likely to be less sympathetic to their plight. This can make them less willing to support policies that are needed to provide substantive opportunity for all members of society (Chapter-5).

CHAPTER 4 Procedural Fairness

The author says that the idea of procedural fairness is based on the justification for certain inequalities. The premise is simple, institutions have certain requirements of talent for position of responsibility based on their functioning. If a person is able to fulfil the requirement, they are selected and if not, then rejected. The person who faces dismissal cannot object because he lacked the talent. But if the institution can change its functioning without taking loss and without compromising on its purpose, so as to accommodate the “other” person, then they should refashion to avoid this inequality. Eg. If an institution requires a person to speak French but could also function without this requirement, then this requirement should be eliminated.

But there is unpleasantness in rejecting a person. They may have failed to perform well because of economic deficiency or crummy social/ cultural influences. (A topic of chapter 5)

Biases intended to favour a certain person because of race or a relation is unjustified because of obvious reasons.

But the problem is that non-discrimination and merit-based (purely based on talent and no discrimination intended) selection overlap.

In conclusion, institutes should try their best to avoid overlapping of merit-based and discriminatory selections.

This requires the understanding of substantive opportunity(chapter-5).

CHAPTER 5 Substantive Opportunity

Substantive Opportunity is defined as the education and other conditions required to become a good candidate for selection. This requirement is fulfilled when a person who failed to get selected truly believes that they didn’t deserve the position because of their lack of effort. The person must believe this by keeping in mind a holistic contribution of factors such as lack of money or exposure and should not be satisfied by talks like “You could have had this benefit if you had tried harder. So it is your fault that you do not have this benefit.”

Inequalities should not be justified on the grounds of moral failings (which is more than the contribution of an individual's belief) on the part of those who have less. This is because individuals generally have good reason to want what happens to them and make appropriate choices for the future. No one would make a choice to fail in life. In short, often these choices are not a reflection of a single person, but a contribution of other factors like economic or family inadequacy etc. Eg. A poor family may not allow a girl child to study.

The author argues that children should not suffer from this inequality and the government, rich institutions, parents of the well-to-do families etc. must ensure to uplift this section of the society. Economic inequality thus can interfere with openness.

CHAPTER 6 Political Fairness

The author mentions Gilens who puts that issues in which well-to-do citizens and poor citizens had conflicting preferences, political outcomes are strongly related to the preferences of the well-to-do. So if the indigent/the section of the society that comprises the majority of the population aren’t preferred, then there are a number of different faults in the political system. (The author doesn’t include middle class and upper middle class in the “rich” section, as one might assume) The aim of the chapter is to identify these faults, and to consider how they may be due to economic inequality.

Political fairness requires both properly functioning institutions and appropriate background conditions.

Paucity of both, procedural fairness (Chapter 4) and substantive opportunity (Chapter 5) can encumber political fairness.

Fair participation not only in the aspect of voting, but also acquiring a position. It would be unfair to citizens to have the right to vote and to participate in politics but are unable to do so because they cannot afford the means required to become candidates for office.

But if the rich are preferred simply because the majority of voters admired them and trust their legitimacy and judgement, then this would not indicate a lack of fairness in politics, whatever it may indicate about voters’ wisdom. A lack of fairness would be marked if the rich had a greater chance of success because their wealth made them more able to run for office.

Everyone should have access to sufficient means to influence the course of elections.

He further explains why there wouldn’t be a “balance-out” if all have equal opportunity for political influence (producing equitable results, which some may apparently conclude).

In conclusion, inequality can interfere with the proper functioning of political institutions, as when richer citizens influence legislators and economic inequality can interfere with the background conditions required for political fairness.

CHAPTER 7 Equality, Liberty, and Coercion

As also mentioned in the introduction, the most frequent objection to the pursuit of equality is that the promotion of equality involves intolerable interference with individual liberty. “Liberty or freedom in one form or another can be appealed to on both sides of debates about equality.”

The aim of this chapter is to clarify these debates by examining the ideas of issues with liberty and the various reasons for caring about liberty.

Cases like- I may not like paying taxes as an upper middle class because I could use that money to buy, maybe a car, that I have to apparently take a loan for, are discussed in the chapter.

The idea of being under the control of another person has some dimensions.

Being subject to another person’s will depends on one’s relation with that person. (It MAYBE less objectionable to be under the “control” of a loved one)
Being under another person’s control depends on the circumspection this person has in deciding what to tell you to do. So, coercion is less objectionable when it is regulated by law.
The aspect of one’s life that is subject to control. (eg. marrying someone unwillingly)

The author then takes cases in which people have objections to laws, such as to environmental laws, occupational health and safety regulations, or cases in which employees fire/hire people based on inappropriate conditions, and talks about them in detail.

He also talks about patents and copyrights. “Shareholders of Disney and Merck would not be as wealthy as they are today if the patents and copyrights held by those companies did not last as long as they do.” and concludes that less extensive rights to intellectual property would lead to less inequality.

For redistributive taxation, he concludes that the enforcement of tax laws per se is not the issue. If one owes something, it is not an objectionable interference with one’s liberty to be required to pay it. But these taxes should be legitimately owed and justified. He gives 3 possible forms for justifications for tax laws.

He also talks about taxation and it’s incompatible with property rights.

Taxes should reflect the limits on the claims to resources that one can come to have within a legitimate system of property and market exchange.

Conclusion of the chapter: There are no non-institutional property rights that can serve as the basis for justifying or criticising economic institutions.

CHAPTER 8 Desert

Desert in philosophy is the condition of being deserving of something, whether good or bad.

Inequality is sometimes justified by saying that the one who does/has more deserves more benefits(desert).

Example: Some may say that the compensation for CEOs is on the grounds that they deserve more rewards because of their productivity. Others may argue against it saying that no one deserves to be paid that much for doing those jobs. Although of opposite nature, these two claims have a common assumption, that levels of economic reward are properly justified on the basis of desert. The aim of the chapter is that this assumption should be rejected and the author unveils intelligent arguments.

Desert can be used in a general sense to say that a person deserves a certain treatment simply because they ought to be treated this way. But this basis of claim lacks moral content.

Desert can be used by institutions to prescribe. (Example: Company paying executives in 7 digits, grades given by the university to students)

Desert basis have two dimension:

A person is rewarded on the basis of the hard work they put in.
A person is rewarded on the basis of their contribution.

These above points are beautifully elaborated.

Author then moves on to looking for desert claims that are non-institutional.

He introduces pure desert claims—claims purely on the fact that someone deserves something because of what they do/ have, ruling out justifications appealing to institutions or to the good effects of treating people.

He also talks about criminal acts and the desert claims revolving around them.

A case produced by the author which I think summarises the central point of the chapter is as follows:

If a person deserves help because he is starving, or that he deserves medical care because he is sick, justifies additional aid including monetary benefits. “By contrast, the claim that executives deserve higher pay does not depend on the idea that they will benefit more from the additional money than others would.”

Conclusion of the chapter: There is no notion of desert, independent of institutions, that can play justificatory role.

CHAPTER 9 Unequal Income

The chapter starts by giving various figures showing how the difference between the income of the rich and the poor is becoming alarmingly concerning.

Increase in the inequality of income presents various phenomena:

Increased compensation of top managers in large firms
The rise and increased profitability of the financial sector
Increase in the share of national income.

Extreme income inequality is a threat to equality of opportunity.

The acute increase in the income of the top 0.1% is due to political decisions, including laws and policies weakening the power of labour unions, decreased regulation of the financial industry etc. The ever growing inequality is principally due to the effects of preexisting inequality existing in various forms.

The objection is in political unfairness and also in the implausible political outcomes will surely be a threat to requirements of justice, such as equal concern and substantive opportunity. The author calls it “the strongest of the objections to rising inequality that I have discussed so far”.

The author explains the whole cycle of how this inequality arises in the first place, how it is being fed with corruption exponentially, its various aspects and what are the solutions to it. He also says that these solutions are unfortunately not possible until people take them very seriously and are fervent believers of equal concern.

Main point of the chapter: The problem is with the lack of justification for the factors that give rise to these disparate income levels.

Now you can decide wheather to read or not. If this seems enough, a follow up read could be A Theory of Justice, a book by John Rawls.