Purely redistributive measures fail – gains are transitive and vulnerable to repeal
Pearce 13 – Director of The Institute for Policy Research (IPR) and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Bath,
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.
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.