Out comes equality - Village Magazine

November 2014 25

NEQUALITY is in vogue – from a recent

editorial in Village calling for equality of

outcome, to Thomas Piketty – extensively

covered in this magazine – to academics such

as Piketty and Wilkinson and Pickett, and –

surprisingly – to conservative institutions

such as the International Monetary Fund and

the Standards & Poor ratings agency.

Even Janet Yellen, US Federal Reserve Chair,

professes concern about income inequality. “The

past few decades of widening inequality can be

summed up as signiﬁcant income and wealth

gains for those at the very top and stagnant living

standards for the majority”, she said last month.

She went on: “It is appropriate to ask whether this

trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation’s

history”. She set out no strategy for advancing

equality and identiﬁed no goals for equality.

While recognising that inequality is a problem many

of the commentators may not actually want equality.

And if they do it may be equality of opportunity rather

than anything more disruptive to their established

comfort zones. Equality of opportunity is about

fairness not equality. It seeks to ensure that everyone

has access to some minimum standard – social-

welfare safety nets for example. It aims to ensure

that, after this, the competition for advantage is

fair and without discrimination. The problem with

equality of opportunity is that it sits easily with

persistent inequality, as long as it is the product of fair

competition. It takes no account of diﬀering capacities

to compete (to get the opportunity in the ﬁrst place!)

due to legacies of inequality and discrimination.

Village went with Janet Yellen in moving away

from an economic case for equality to base the

case on values. It usefully identiﬁed equality

as an ‘ethical not an economic imperative’.

This is in contrast to all the commentators

cited above whose concerns are for economic

equality and who focus exclusively on the

manner in which resources are distributed.

Historically, in times of economic crisis we

focus on poverty and economic inequality. In

boom times we tend to focus on identity and the

inequalities constructed around it such as gender,

disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion

and age. Why must it be one or the other? Both are

equally important and you don’t get to solve one

form of inequality without solving the other.

We could start with an acknowledgement of

diversity as a predictor of economic inequality.

The pay gap between women and men stands at a

striking 13.9%, for example. Unemployment too

is a function of diversity. Travellers experience an

84.3% unemployment rate. And wealth. People with

disabilities experience a 17.6% rate of consistent

poverty. Equality of outcome depends on breaking

down generic ﬁgures to address the particular

experience and situation of speciﬁc groups.

Beyond this we need to recognise the diﬀerent

interconnected FORMS of inequality. Village’s mission

statement, dutifully framing the contents page of

every edition refers to “resources, welfare, respect

and opportunities”. Inequality of power and inﬂuence

transects most of these. Women for example only

make up 15% of Dail representatives, for example.

Inequality of status and standing tends to stereotype

and sideline young people, women, Black and minority

ethnic people and older people. Inequality of respect

drives high levels of homophobic bullying in schools.

Equality of outcome needs to embrace

power and inﬂuence, status and standing

and respect as well as resources.

Reﬂecting this, the former Equality Authority

set out four interlinked objectives for equality

in its strategic plan: “Redistribution, involving

access to resources and economic activity;

Representation, involving access to decision

making and capacity to organize; Recognition,

involving an acknowledgement and a valuing of

diﬀerent identities, experiences and situations

of the groups experiencing inequality; Respect,

involving an underpinning of the interdependence

and mutual support aspects of human welfare”.

We need to go further and also establish a vision for

a society that encompasses all these dimensions. In

other words we need to deﬁne the scope of equality of

outcome, and then promote it. Amartya Sen valuably

promoted the vision of a “ﬂourishing” society. This

is a society where people and communities have the

capabilities to achieve their full potential and to live

lives they have reason to value. Equality of outcome

is not about some mathematical sameness but about

real choices between real options, for people. •

For a

ﬂourishing

society equality

of outcome

must be deﬁned

widely, and

promoted

Out comes equality

NIALL CROWLEY