Lottie Ritchie

When, if ever, is economic inequality unjust?

No-one who wishes to be taken seriously would ever prescribe creating a society full of
completely identical individuals. Diversity and plurality are near-universal ideals, in
one way or another, that would thwart this effort. But we could say the same about
equality that nearly everyone advocates equality in some respect, even if only as far
as Sidgwicks Principle of Equity 1. Given then, that the avenue of making individuals
identical is not one we wish to take, we have to ask in what meaningful way we can
make different people equals, and whether this, ever or always, involves economic
equality. Further to this, we must consider to what extent equality is a question of
justice, and finally whether and how far justice can countenance economic inequality.
First, I will briefly look at the range of ways in which two people, or a society, can be
said to be equal. Equality tends to refer to a distribution of something, whether it be
something material like apples, or immaterial, like self-esteem. The most influential
theories of distribution give as possible metrics (or currency) of equality: resources;
welfare; rights; and many things inbetween and outside these. An equality of
resources is perhaps the most straight-forward to imagine an equal splitting of every
resource to each person so that each of 100 people receives 1 of 100 apples. A
similar idea is achieved by Dworkins ambition-sensitive auction, where endowments
are equal and difference in resources at the end is due only to choices and rational
planning of individuals. In this auction, Dworkin imagines that each person starts out
with 100 clamshells, and uses them to purchase whatever resources they want (Rawls
would imagine instead an equal distribution of primary social goods here goods that
are assumed useful no matter what your lifeplan, similar to the currency of clamshells
in Dworkins example). At the end of the auction, if it is run successfully, he says that
the outcome will be envy-free no-one will prefer anyone elses bundle to their own,
because they could have chosen either bundle in the first place, so would have chosen
the one they most preferred. This initial equality of buying power, or power to pursue
life-plans, would be an obvious interpretation of the ideal of equality were it not for
the issue of natural endowments.
The results of the auction would in fact only be envy-free if everyone started in the
same position that is, if everyones natural endowments (looks, talent, or absence of
disability) were identical, which they are not in the real world. For instance, someone
with no power of sight could spend his or her 100 clamshells fairly in the auction, and

1 Which says that individuals in similar cases should be treated similarly quoted in
Freeman, 2006

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still envy the lot of another buyer who was able to see at the end of it. This
observation leads naturally into offering a different metric of equality something
more along the lines of welfare. If we could offer reasonable compensation to
completely make up for the fact of natural disadvantage for example, a relatively
small amount of money to pay for an operation to restore sight then it would
equalise welfare better to pay this amount from societys pot for the operation before
the auction, and then split up the clamshells equally giving everyone perhaps 98
clamshells. This is often practically impossible, because many natural conditions
cannot be compensated for realistically for instance, some would argue that no
matter how many resources you gave them, autistic children would never experience
life as fully, or enjoy as much welfare as, medically normal people. But while total
equality in this space may never be achievable, it remains a valid aim that is
advocated by many egalitarians.
Another approach to defining the metric, or space, of equality, is even more abstract
than welfare. This is the more libertarian equality of rights approach, which would
define a wealthy banker and a single mother struggling on the poverty line as equal,
by virtue of the fact that they have the same formal rights (to enter education, apply
for jobs, or run for a political position for example). As I will discuss later, this is based
on many of the same concerns as Rawlss position, but the latter involves more
discussion on effective rather than nominal rights, for example whether the single
mother is actually able to go to university. I will bear these possible conceptions of
equality, as defined by differing metrics of equality, in mind as I go on.
But we need to look at more than what is equal and unequal we need to ask whether
those equalities and inequalities are just, which is a separate question. I will take
inspiration from Rawls in my exploration of justice, and use the original position in my
understanding of justice. That is, an act or omission is unjust if it wouldnt have been
agreed to by all parties in the original position, from behind the veil of ignorance
(where none of the parties know their class status, natural endowments, conception of
the good etc). If the parties in the original position agree to something, it is because
there are objective reasons behind it, which can be understood by any rational person
no matter what their actual conception of the good. So what does this mean with
relation to inequalities, and further, economic inequalities? As Rawls correctly points
out, the people least likely to agree to any prospective inequality are the ones who
benefit least from allowing inequality at all that is, the worst off. In general this
inequality then must do some good overall, and must allow for a better outcome than
the outcome that would obtain if that inequality were not allowed, so that when the

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contractors of the original position imagine being among the worst-off, they can still
accept the inequality. This can be the case of many inequalities. The idea of incentives
is important here, in that many of the economic activities that allow a society to
prosper (training or education, investment, risk-taking) require some incentive in order
to be performed by an individual. Thus some inequalities can improve societys
economic situation, and make everyone better off in terms of income and wealth. On
the other hand, the inequality itself can be morally or practically objectionable
morally in that some believe in full equality of resources i.e. no economic inequality,
as a prerequisite of individual equality, or practically in that income differentials have
been empirically shown to impact upon welfare and particularly health standards
across countries and thus it may be argued that no inequality can ever be a benefit
to anyone. This is a question of practical application of the theory, but for now at least
I will examine some more proposals for just distributive principles.
In justice as in many aspects of political philosophy, what Rawls calls the method of
reflective equilibrium is indispensable. This method can be characterised by a
simultaneous consideration and co-adjustment of two parts of a justice theory: firstly,
the general principle which we hope to prove or refine; and secondly, the intuitive
judgements we require, or at least would like, a general principle to fit with. The point
about seeking equilibrium between them is that neither is presumed infallible. Rather,
each may need adjusting gradually for instance, we may need to add a clause on
social minima to a principle, or accept against our intuitions that wealthy people
should be taxed heavily on income above a certain threshold.
With this in mind then, let us identify some cases on which we have a strong or
consistent intuition, so that we may consider their fit with whatever principles of
distributive justice may be proposed. One often-used example is the able-bodied
surfer, who has chosen to spend all his time surfing rather than contributing to society
in an occupation. Of the surfer, we can ask: should the state, that is, all those engaged
in wage-earning occupations contributing to the state, guarantee or pay an income to
the surfer in order to keep him alive and healthy? Many people share my own intuition,
which is that while they probably wouldnt let him die, they wouldnt offer him any
more than what is necessary to satisfy basic human needs (e.g. food, shelter etc). This
suggests to me two general principles: one of a necessary social minimum (that noone perish because of lack of resources), but secondly one of desert that people
should receive according to what they have earned or worked for, as long as they are
able. One further point from this example is that many would legitimately feel that he
is already somewhat compensated for his lack of income by his much higher leisure

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time. This observation leads me to include leisure time as one of the resources we can
seek to be equalised.
Another example often taken up in the literature of equality is the problem of
abandonment of the prudent, following from luck egalitarianism. I will say more on this
further on but for now, let us imagine a very prudent person, who is very frugal with
money but not very well-off. For some time they manage to feed their family and keep
up insurance payments on their home, but after a while money becomes too tight for
them and they abandon the long-term risk of home damage in order to feed their
family in the meantime. A year after they give up their insurance, their house burns
down. In this case it seems that we cannot criticise the person for being prudent with
their money, or blame them for giving up their insurance so even though they could
factually have insured against home damage, we would not blame them for not doing
so, and would compensate them. This example raises the issue of choice in moral
blameworthiness while our intuition in many cases is that those who choose their
position shouldnt be compensated for its ill effects (for instance, those who choose to
spend the night drinking shouldnt be compensated with medicine for their hangover
or extensions on deadlines), the example above shows that the chosen-ness of an
eventuality isnt always the sole determinant of whether it warrants compensation.
One more example I will outline briefly is of the person with very expensive tastes.
Equalising welfare would require that a person who is only satisfied with very
expensive clothes and food be given more resources than a person with simpler
tastes, whose welfare requires fewer expensive things. But this is counter-intuitive to
many why should someone be given more resources, just because they prefer more
resources? This example gives us Rawlss principle of responsibility for ends that we
hold people accountable in general for their preferences and life-plans, and do not
discount them as natural factors. This may not be true in every situation, but it seems
true of the person with expensive tastes. These are just a few examples that need to
be considered in our quest for a reflective equilibrium on the question of economic
inequality.
In the view of libertarians at least, the distributions that markets give rise to are
completely just, as they have been reached only by a cumulation of millions of free
choices. They therefore best reflect the libertarians core value of maximal individual
freedom. With more space, I could more fully expand on the successes and failures of
the market system with respect to the justness of its distribution, but for now I will
note just a couple of problems with it. First is that operating within a market entails

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accepting the costs (or benefits) of many peoples choices besides your own, as the
price of a good reflects the preferences of everyone in the market. The fact that
everyone is producing corn for example, and thus decreasing its price significantly,
should not change the value of ones own labour and capital and so on in producing
that corn but does. Moreover, a pure market system offers no social minimum, and
the worst-off who are homeless, or starving are very badly off indeed. It is
impossible to offer rational reasons why the market structure by itself should
determine what a just distribution is try explaining to a homeless person that
because someone else chose not to offer them a job, it is right that they themselves
have nowhere to live.
We can, though, offer a solution within this framework to mitigate the least desirable
effects of the market the welfare state. In the welfare state, there is (theoretically) a
social minimum everyone should be provided with shelter, adequate food and
clothing, and so on. But the social minimum is still very far below how those at the top
live, and the worst-off could still argue that they do not deserve a living standard so
far below those at the top, just because they were turned down for a certain job or
university place. This system therefore doesnt live up to the standard we have
constructed for justice, where even the worst-off can agree to any legitimate
inequalities as rationally acceptable even though it provides the right or intuitive
outcome to the examples above of the surfer, the prudent but unlucky person, and the
person with unusually expensive tastes.
Given the failure of that libertarian, or at least liberal (in the sense of allowing
markets as they are today almost free rein) scheme, let us now examine the
theoretical position of luck egalitarianism a position whose inception many accredit
(mistakenly) to Rawls. Again, more space would allow a more complete treatment of
the position and its failings. Its basic tenet is a distinction between choice and
circumstance, and a requirement that one should pay the costs or reap the benefits of
the former, and be compensated for the costs or pay taxes equal to the benefits of the
latter. The principle takes from Rawls the idea of moral arbitrariness that outcomes
resulting from brute luck (which the individual did not cause and could not have
foreseen) are not their fault and therefore shouldnt be their responsibility, but that
outcomes resulting from choice luck (which results directly and foreseeably from the
individuals free choices) should have results which lay on the individuals own head.
For instance, luck egalitarianism would disallow large differentials in income based on
individual talents, as they see these as natural endowments which have not been
chosen or earned.

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Luck egalitarianism goes much further than Rawls does in his identification of morally
arbitrary factors, in its attempt to completely neutralise anything due to brute luck
(where Rawls simply says that the distributive results of these morally arbitrary factors
cannot

be

deemed

just

simply

because

they

have

fallen

that

way).

Luck

egalitarianism, or as it is sometimes called equality of fortune, fails to match up to

our intuition in many cases, two of which are the examples I outlined above. Firstly,
luck egalitarianism would abandon the prudent person who bought food over house
insurance because they could not afford both, as they would label their fate choice
luck an outcome that that individual could have prevented. Secondly, luck
egalitarianism might compensate the person with very expensive tastes, as it is brute
luck that they were born with these tastes and are therefore less satisfied with a
normal allocation of resources than everyone else. Its failure to match up to these two
intuitive judgements is damning, but we can also criticise it on a methodical basis.
Scheffler points out that in assigning obligations, luck egalitarianism has a strongly
inward-looking, in-person attitude, which doesnt match up with our aim of creating
social equality, as this surely has to do with inter-person relations. Its resultant
judgements may not therefore be relevant to our goal of equality. Moreover, as
Dworkin admits, luck egalitarianism by its own devices falls grave victim to
philosophys free will debate if it cannot offer a decisive account of what free will is,
and therefore which exactly of our choices it can designate as not brute luck, then it
fails before it has even begun. So the full extent of luck egalitarianism is unsustainable
as a distributive principle but let us now consider its purported originator, Rawls, and
what he offers instead.
Rawlss true position is a group of principles he calls collectively democratic equality.
It stands in strong contrast to luck egalitarianism it has an outward-looking, rather
than in-person, focus, and aims to create a society where the relations between people
are those of free and equal citizens. One of Rawlss central concerns is that everyone
experience what he calls fair equality of opportunity that is, the occasion to take
advantage of the formal equality of opportunity that forms the basis of much antidiscrimination law today. This informs his theory of distribution somewhat in that
everyone must have the resources necessary to develop their talents, stand as a
political candidate, and otherwise act as cooperating free and equal citizens in a
society do. It is in everyones interests to allow everyone a role in civil society, and for
anyone to be excluded from civil society is not something that would be agreed to in
the original position, and therefore we cannot call it justice. The rest of Rawls
distributive theory centres around his difference principle, which says that an

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inequality is only justified if it makes the worst-off slightly better off. This is also
rational from the original position, where any contractors could still end up being at
the bottom of society, and those members therefore need protection from
disadvantageous inequalities.
There are undeniably some issues with Rawls work. It could be argued that his theory
is non-specific in its talk of benefiting the worst-off does this, or does this not,
include impact on self-esteem and so on from income differentials? But his aim is
surely the right one to approach equality with the aim of producing a society of free
and equal citizens who are able to and do cooperate, guaranteeing mutual respect
between members (as they were equals in the original position when the basic
structure was selected), where the social minimum is not low enough to exclude
anyone from civil society and the opportunities they are entitled to as an equal. What
his approach can tell us is that economic inequality is unjust when it stops individuals
functioning as free and equal members of society for instance, when their poverty
allows them to be exploited and forces them into a low-paying and non-fulfilling
occupation which doesnt reflect their life-plan. His approach also shows us that
because inequalities must be justifiable on rational terms to everyone (as anyone
could veto them from the original position), they must be to the benefit of everyone,
including

the

worst

off.

When

they

disadvantage

the

worst-off

through

no

responsibility of their own, they are unjust, because in this case they could not be
explained to and accepted by those very people (where maybe the inequalities could
be explained if those people had in some way brought them upon themselves).
In my opinion then, the most useful concept Rawls employs is that all arrangements of
the basic structure should be acceptable to every purely rational mind, no matter how
low down the basic structure. With more space, we could examine what this would
mean in practice. But in principle, it means equality of citizenship, and a prevention of
oppressive or exploitative relations in favour of free, equal and cooperative ones
which is what we must surely mean by equality.

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Bibliography
Anderson, E., What Is The Point of Equality?, in Ethics, Volume 109, 1999
Freeman, S., Rawls and Luck Egalitarianism, in Justice and the Social Contract: Essays
on Rawlsian Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2006
Kymlicka, W., Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (Second Edition),
Oxford University Press, 2002
Scheffler, S., What Is Egalitarianism?, in Philosophy and Public Affairs, Volume 31,
2003

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