Proceduralism – the notion that equal distribution produces substantive equity abstracts from concrete social hierarchies – an orientation that ignores the full scope of social relations implicated by “equality” as a value becomes siloed within institutions of power and undermines democratic agency

Nick Pearce, “What should social democrats believe?” Institute for Public Policy Research, 19 September 2013, https://www.ippr.org/juncture/what-should-social-democrats-believe#note1.

It is a curious feature of current intellectual debate on the political centre-left in Britain that so little of it reflects on the fundamental goals of modern social democracy. In part, this is because these goals are taken for granted: the Labour movement stands for equality, often expressed as social justice and a fairer society. This egalitarian commitment seems so foundational and instinctive that discussion tends to take on a largely empirical and procedural hue, such as whether Labour was too tolerant in government of increased inequality at the top of society.

Consequentially, the content or meaning of equality is simply assumed, despite the manifold diversity of its expressions as an idea. As important, there is little discussion of how the normative ambition for greater equality should relate to other values that have resonance on the centre-left. For example, how might a commitment to equality need to be bolstered, or tempered, by demands for personal liberty, democratic self-government, the priority of human relationships, or the desire to protect and conserve things of value to people?

There is an array of ideological orientations that could emerge from the interactions among these different ideas. It might be argued that such ambitions are enemies of equality, or at least subordinate to it, and so should be rejected or downgraded. Alternatively, they might not be viewed as competitors to equality at all, but as goals that are incorporated within it, at least when properly understood and expressed. A converse contention might be that some or all or the political instincts laid out above constitute a profound challenge to the idea of equality, requiring it to be substantively modified, or even replaced as the guiding ambition for the centre-left.

Such debates are not only relevant to the question of the type of society to which the contemporary left aspires. They also have purchase on the character of politics it advances and the kinds of methods it deploys in the service of its goals. Significantly, such wider questions of statecraft and political strategy have also been largely unexplored in recent years. And while the Labour party's policy review is gathering pace, a firmer ideological stance would help to provide a framework for its policy orientation and a perspective on how its normative goals should be thought about in its plans for different areas of our national life. Indeed, without such clarity, there is a real danger that social democrats remain fundamentally directionless.

Whereas earlier periods of revisionism, particularly in the 1950s and the 1980s, saw extensive debates within the Labour party and across the wider left about core philosophical convictions and the means of achieving them, contemporary discussion has largely been confined to thinkers associated with 'Blue Labour' and its twin critiques of left liberalism and Fabianism.1 Social democratic self-reflection has been far more limited.2 Unlike previous eras, when Labour leaderships have ridden wider intellectual currents, it is striking that much of what new thinking there has been has come from Ed Miliband himself, through themes such as 'predistribution' and 'responsible capitalism'.

The relational critique

This is all the more surprising given that academic debates in the disciplines of political theory and political philosophy have flourished in recent years. In particular, lively arguments have taken place in Anglophone theory on the meaning of equality. The theory of equality has been shaken out of its post-Rawlsian introspection by powerful arguments from 'relational' or 'active' egalitarians, most notably the US political theorist Elizabeth Anderson, who contends that equality does not consist in an equal distribution of a particular good - whether income, capabilities or welfare - but in egalitarian social relations, that is, relationships of equal power, esteem and standing between citizens in society.3 This perspective problematises the predominant view on the centre-left that the core egalitarian task is to reduce inequalities of outcome (whether between rich and poor or 'the rich and the rest') and, although it does not displace distributive concerns, it starts from the experience of existing injustices and real-world struggles against social hierarchies, rather than ideal theory.

It may seem perverse in post-crash Britain to question a focus on income and wealth distributions. Surveys of public attitudes show considerable concern about inequality and widespread support for reducing the gap between rich and poor.4 Public opinion is hostile to the excesses of the financial sector and to the vastly inflated salaries and the bonus culture with which it is associated. There has perhaps never been a better time in recent years to get a hearing for redistributive policies, or for a broader challenge to the dominance of finance capitalism.

Yet a theoretical focus on abstract patterns of distribution tells us little about what constitutes a good life, or indeed how to achieve our goals. Such patterns are painted on blank canvasses, rather than drawn from real historical struggles against exploitation and oppression. Viewed through the spreadsheets of a Whitehall department, they can denude people of their own agency in overcoming injustice, turning the pursuit of equality into a set of transfers and transactions. And gains made in reducing arithmetic inequality by transactional means are likely to prove narrow and transient, vulnerable to retrenchment and repeal.

These concerns can be seen in debates about public attitudes to inequality. Attention is often drawn to the apparent contradiction that a majority of people agree that the gap between rich and poor is too wide but do not then support government action to redistribute incomes. By looking beyond abstract or arithmetic forms of equality, however, this result might not be so hard to explain. For instance, people are sceptical about the agency of the state, and understand that it is not just money that matters in making life go well. The reasons why people are in material need and the efforts they make to improve their situation are also widely thought to be relevant factors in determining desert.

Relational egalitarians argue that movements for greater equality have been most successful when grounded in social struggles and popular movements. This opens out their scope to embrace, alongside class inequality, the demands of a wider range of interests and actors, particularly new social movements concerned with advancing the position of women, ethnic minorities, LGBT groups and others. On each of these grounds and more, major advances have been made. Egalitarians have also learned to extend their strategies out to engage in civil society and wider popular culture, instead of restricting their scope to state action and legislative reform, vital as these remain. In these ways, they have achieved more durable advances than would be apparent from the recent history of changes to income and wealth distribution.

Instead of the equal distribution of a particular good, relational egalitarianism seeks equality in social relations: that is, a society in which people relate to each other as free and equal citizens and in which unjust social hierarchies of power, esteem and standing have been progressively overcome. It accordingly stresses active participation in achieving greater equality, the importance of social integration, a wide dispersion of power in the economy and society, and the necessity of a vibrant, alert and widely engaged democracy.

This is not to say that class inequalities simply disappear from view or that relational egalitarianism cannot embrace distributional concerns. If our starting point is that society is a cooperative endeavour between free and equal citizens, then wide disparities of income and wealth undermine the mutual recognition on which the commonality of citizenship depends. To protect the integrity of social cooperation, a line of sight between citizens is necessary, which gross material inequalities can make untenable. Constraints on the concentration of economic power are also required to stop these bleeding into the colonisation of political power. At the other end of the scale, individuals require a sufficient income to live free of stigma or shame, and should receive public services, such as education, that are distributed in such a way that each can fulfil their potential and enjoy equal standing with their peers.5 Market inequalities are necessary for economic efficiency and freedom of choice, but within ranges constrained by these factors. Relational egalitarianism therefore still furnishes strong grounds for reducing inequalities of income and wealth.

In general, as Anderson puts it, 'a distribution is objectionable from an egalitarian point of view if it causes, embodies, or is a specific consequence of unjust social hierarchy'. Yet she insists that:

'The concern for equality cannot be reduced to concern about the distribution of a single good or expressed in a single simple formula ... for its distribution. Social relations of equality are complex and require a complex response.'6

To rethink equality in these terms therefore offers the prospect of a richer politics conducted on wider sites of power.