Equality: Multidisciplinary Perspectives [1 ed.] 9783030543099, 9783030543105

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Equality Multidisciplinary Perspectives Edited by François Levrau · Noel Clycq

Equality

François Levrau · Noel Clycq Editors

Equality Multidisciplinary Perspectives

Editors François Levrau University of Antwerp Antwerp, Belgium

Noel Clycq University of Antwerp Antwerp, Belgium

ISBN 978-3-030-54309-9 ISBN 978-3-030-54310-5 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54310-5

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © Alex Linch/shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

At least since the Enlightenment the idea of ‘equality’ has served as one of the main political and normative discursive ideals in European and North-American societies. Notwithstanding the consensus on the importance of this idea(l), explaining what it exactly entails has turned out to be quite difficult. After all, if we agree that people are to be respected as each other’s moral equals, what then are the political, social, economic and normative consequences? Different visions have been proposed and so it is not entirely surprising that in current societies still a lot of turmoil exists around equality related issues. Indeed, enduring and even increasing patterns of socioeconomic inequality have led to fierce political, philosophical and public discussions. However, contestations about how (un)equal societies are today, should not be mixed up with contestations about what kind of equality should be aimed at. These issues should be carefully disentangled as it should be explained that the answer to the latter has implications for the answer to the former. For example, those who defend ‘equality of opportunity’ would not argue ‘inequalities of outcome’ necessarily to be a problem. Discussions however are also lingering on the extent to which ‘equality’ provides an impetus for

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policies to recognise and accommodate sociocultural and religious differences. Indeed, it is not only the gap between the rich and the poor (or less rich) that is much debated, as one can also witness strong emotions stirred by the inflow of many (Muslim) migrants and refugees. In the Western world Muslims and refugees are often portrayed and/or experienced as a Fremdkörper, the ‘other’ undermining ‘mainstream society’ of which they do not seem part—a discourse that might bear some resemblances to episodes from Europe’s darkest past. In this volume we illustrate that several of the challenges that modern societies face, raise important and interesting issues about equality’s nature, value, relevance, scope and its relation to other values. Some of these challenges are rather new and point at innovative insights and solutions, while often the tensions also have an enduring character and therefore confront us with the question why they are so persistent. What exactly is the mechanism that explains their longevity? This is just one of the many puzzling questions that this book will address. Indeed, when it comes to equality, the questions are manifold. What articulated normative ideal of equality should we aim at? What does it exactly mean when saying that people are morally equal and how should people be treated as equals? For example, does moral equality imply resource equality or is it about equal opportunities? How does equality relate to other values such as liberty and what type of solidarity comes with equality? What are the conditions that impact on equality? What type of enduring and new challenges are modern societies facing with regard to equality? Are all kinds of inequalities bad? What type of socioeconomic and/or sociocultural policies is to be implemented if some sort of equality is treated as a polar star? Do people actually believe in the ideal of equality and if so, what exactly do they believe? How do people react to inequality? Which model of socioeconomic redistribution do Europeans prefer? How is (in)equality perceived and depicted in media and cultural products? Does it make sense to believe that equality of some sort can be realised, or should we, instead, recognise its utopian character, thereby also considering that the human selfishness and the innate distrust towards ‘the other’ are too intractable to transform societies into more egalitarian ones? As these are all complex questions, we believe the best way to deal with them is a multi- and interdisciplinary approach. However, while

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the concept of equality has been studied in much detail in several disciplines, at date books that bring together the disciplinary insights are rather scarce (notable exceptions are from Baker et al. 2009; Li and Tracer 2017; Lamont and Pierson 2019). While these excellent collections seem to focus rather on specific issues (e.g. housing market, education, city life, class, gender, ideology, health care, democracy) or case studies in order to shed light on equality’s characterisation and importance, the present collection takes academic disciplines as the entry points to the discussion. Hence, the many issue and examples that will be dealt with serve as clarifications for how a discipline defines (the importance of ) equality. This book, thus, could help to fill a gap, as it contains nine disciplinary ‘state-of-the-art’ chapters from expert scholars across Europe. We opted for this approach because from the very moment one starts a reflection about equality, it is almost impossible not to invoke ideas and insights coming from a plethora of disciplines. This need for multidisciplinary research is nicely captured by Lamont and Pierson (2019, p. 6) in their recent paper: “At a moment when societies struggle to deal successfully with inequalities, identifying and exploring connections between economic, social, psychological, political, and cultural dimensions of inequality holds great promise. It can clarify why many forms of social inequalities appear so intractable, often deepening or broadening over time. It also can provide insights into the kinds of interventions that might attenuate, ameliorate, or counteract deepening inequalities.” Books that bring together the viewpoints of several disciplines are even more important in a time where scholars and politicians tend to be experts in only one field of expertise. Some ninety years ago, José Ortega y Gasset (1932) already worried about what he called the Barbarism of specialisation. As such the current volume also feeds into the current trend towards more interdisciplinary approaches to pressing social, political and economic issues. We therefore express our hope that this book will invite the reader to look beyond the boundaries of his/her own expertise or field of interest and get inspired by the many insights that are provided by other disciplines. Antwerp, Belgium

François Levrau Noel Clycq

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References Baker, J., Lynch, K., Cantillon, S., & Walsh, J. (2009). Equality: From theory to action. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lamont, M., & Pierson, P. (Eds.). (2019). Inequality as a multidimensional process. Dædalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 148(3), 1–190. Li, M., & Tracer, D. (2017). Interdisciplinary perspectives on fairness, equity, and justice. Cham: Springer International Press. Ortega Y Gasset, J. (1932). The revolt of the masses. New York, London: Norton & Company.

Contents

Part I 1

Introduction

Introduction: Equality as a Multifaceted Concept François Levrau and Noel Clycq

Part II

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Theories & Histories

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Egalitarianism: A Tour d’horizon François Levrau

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Equality, Rights and Community: A Long Term Perspective Bert De Munck

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Multiculturalism Today: Difference, Equality and Interculturalism Tariq Modood and Tamar de Waal

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Contents

Part III 5

Institutions & Policies

Religion and Equality in the Workplace: A Legal-Philosophical Analysis François Levrau and Leni Franken

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Economic Equality and the Welfare State Wim Van Lancker and Aaron Van den Heede

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Gender, Anti-discrimination and Diversity: The EU’s Role in Promoting Equality Ruby Gropas

Part IV 8

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Experiences & Impressions

How Do People React to (In)Equality and (In)Justice? A Psychological Approach Johanna Pretsch What Welfare Principles Do Europeans Prefer? An Analysis of Their Attitudes Towards Old Age Pensions and Unemployment Benefits Tim Reeskens and Wim van Oorschot A Transdisciplinary Cultural Studies’ Approach to Inequality: What Can We Learn from Precarity Studies and Why Does Art Matter? Sieglinde Lemke

Index

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Notes on Contributors

Noel Clycq is Research Professor in training and education sciences at the research group Edubron at the University of Antwerp. He focuses on issues of diversity, globalisation and the governance of learning. In the past he held the chair ‘European values: Discourses and prospects’ at the History department and was senior researcher at the Centre for Migration and Intercultural studies (University of Antwerp). He publishes in national as well as international journals on issues related to ethnicity, gender, migration, multiculturalism, education and the family. He (co)coordinated large-scale interuniversity projects at the national as well as the European level, and supervises several Ph.D.-projects on early school leaving, collective identity formation, emotion and school belonging, the (un)making of Muslim identities and community education. Bert De Munck is Full Professor at the History Department at the University of Antwerp, teaching ‘Early Modern History’, ‘Theory of Historical Knowledge’ and ‘History of Science and Society’. He is a member of the Centre for Urban History, Antwerp, and the Director of the interdisciplinary Urban Studies Institute and the International Scientific Research Community (WOG) ‘Urban Agency: The Historical

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Fabrication of the City as an Object of Study’. His research concentrates on early modern cities, in particular craft guilds, civil society, poor relief and the ‘repertoires of evaluation’ regarding skills and products. Relevant publications are Guilds, Labour and the Urban Body Politic: Fabricating Community in the Southern Netherlands, 1300 –1800 (Routledge, 2018); ‘Disassembling the City: A Historical and an Epistemological View on the Agency of Cities’, Journal of Urban History (2017), 43, 5, 811–829; and ‘Artisans, Products and Gifts: Rethinking the History of Material Culture in Early Modern Europe’, Past & Present (August 2014), 224, 39–74. Tamar de Waal is Assistant Professor in legal and political theory at the Amsterdam Law School of the University of Amsterdam. Her dissertation Conditional Belonging: A Legal-Philosophical Inquiry into Integration Requirements for Immigrants in Europe (2017) won the VWRprize for best dissertation in legal philosophy in The Netherlands and Belgium. She has published articles in, among others, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Comparative Migration Studies and Buffalo Human Rights Law Review. In 2021, her first monograph will be published by Hart Publishing. Leni Franken studied philosophy (University of Antwerp/KULeuven) and religious sciences (KULeuven). She obtained her Ph.D. in political philosophy at the University of Antwerp, where she currently works as a teaching assistant and senior researcher. Her research focuses on autonomy-based liberalism; church–state relations; financing religions; neutrality; faith-based schools; and religious and citizenship education. On these topics, she published two monographs and numerous national and international journal articles and book chapters. Ruby Gropas is Adviser on Social Affairs at the European Commission and Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges. She holds a Lectureship in International Relations at the Law Faculty of the University of Thrace and has worked at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and McKinsey & Co. She was Southeast Europe Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington, DC, Visiting Fellow with the Centre

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for Democracy Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, and Research Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence. Her research and publications have focused on migration, European integration and human rights. She holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Sieglinde Lemke is Professor of American Studies in the University of Freiburg, and a permanent fellow at the Hutchins Centre at Harvard University. She is also the director of the Black Forest Writing Seminar. She is the author of three monographs and 35 articles and has given guest lectures at numerous universities in the United States, Australia, India and Europe. Her research was funded by the German Research Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Freiburger Institute for Advanced Studies, and the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. Her book Inequality, Poverty, and Precarity in Contemporary American Culture (2017) offers the most comprehensive analysis of the cultural discourse on socioeconomic inequity. François Levrau holds a M.A. in Clinical Psychology and a M.A. in Moral Philosophy and a Ph.D. in Social Sciences. Currently he is senior researcher and teaching assistant at the University of Antwerp. He published about issues related to, multiculturalism, social cohesion, recognition and higher education. Articles appeared among others in Comparative Migration Studies, Cosmos and History, Ethical Perspectives, Ethnicities, Political Quarterly, Research in Higher Education, Res Philosophica, Res Publica, The Pluralist. Tariq Modood is the founding Director of the Bristol University Research Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship. He has held over 40 grants and consultancies (UK, European and the United States), has over 25 (co-)authored and (co-)edited books and reports and over 250 articles or chapters in political philosophy, sociology and public philosophy. He is the co-founding editor of the international journal Ethnicities. His publications include Multicultural Politics: Racism, Ethnicity and Muslims in Britain (2005), Still Not Easy Being British: Struggles for Multicultural Citizenship (2010) and Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism (2019).

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Johanna Pretsch is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Koblenz-Landau in the Department of Differential Psychology and Psychological Assessment and a family therapist and systemic counsellor. While she is dedicated to the transfer of knowledge between theory and practice, her main research interests are justice experiences of children and adolescents, individual differences in education, justice in education as well as the development of civic attitudes and behaviour in children and adolescents. Tim Reeskens is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology at Tilburg University, Netherlands. His research interest lies in the comparative study of political and social attitudes, with a focus on social capital, welfare attitudes and national identity. Tim is the national programme director of the European Values Study Netherlands. His work appeared in several sociological journals, including European Sociological Review, International Journal of Comparative Sociology and Journal of European Social Policy. Aaron Van den Heede worked as a researcher at the Herman Deleeck Centre of Social Policy at the University of Antwerp from 2008 to 2012. From 2012 to 2017 he joined the research department of the Belgian National Union of Socialist Mutual Health Funds. In 2018 he joined the Centre for Sociological Research (CESO) at the University of Leuven. His main research topics have been social and health care inequality and poverty in general. Since 2019, he returned to the Belgian National Union of Socialist Mutual Health Funds in the role of team leader of an administrative unit. Aaron holds a master’s degree in Sociology (Ghent University). Wim Van Lancker is an Assistant Professor of social work and social policy at the Centre for Sociological Research, University of Leuven. He is the governor and treasurer of the Foundation for International Studies on Social Security (FISS). He published widely in high-ranking journals and edited volumes on the redistributive outcomes of the welfare state in comparative perspective, in particular on the design and effectiveness of social policy measures in relation to poverty and inequality in the early years. He is co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Family Policy.

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Wim van Oorschot is Professor of Social Policy at KU Leuven, Belgium. His expertise is in the field of the EU-comparative analysis of the relationships between culture and welfare state. He is initiator and coordinator of the Welfare Attitudes repeat modules of the European Social Surveys 2008 and 2016, and co-editor of The Social Legitimacy of Targeted Welfare: Attitudes to Welfare Deservingness, Edward Elgar, 2017. He is Honorary President of ESPAnet, the Network for European Social Policy Analysis.

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 6.1

Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3

Ten capabilities according to Martha Nussbaum (Source Nussbaum [2000]) Social expenditures as % of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 1880–2015 (Source Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser [2018]) Cycles of want and plenty over the life course (Source Rowntree [1901], taken from Hills [2015]) Income sources in contemporary welfare states over the life course (Source EU-SILC 2016, author’s computations)

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Fig. 6.4

Fig. 6.5

Fig. 6.6

Fig. 9.1

List of Figures

Social spending and poverty (panel A) and income inequality (panel B) (Source OECD SOCX database and OECD Income Distribution database. Note Poverty rate is the share of individuals living in a household with an equivalized disposable income below 60% of median equivalized disposable household income in the country of residence. Disposable household income is equivalized using the modified OECD-scale to render incomes of households of different size comparable. Income inequality is measured by means of the Gini coefficient. Social expenditures comprise spending on social protection, labour market policies and health care, and tax breaks with social purposes) National income (NNI) per capita and poverty (panel A) and income inequality (panel B) (Source OECD Income distribution database. Note national income (NNI) per capita is expressed as a precentage of average NNI per capita across OECD countries. For the definition of poverty and inequality, see note under Fig. 6.4) Poverty (panel A) and income inequality (panel B) based on market and disposable income (Source OECD Income distribution database. Note: Redistribution is measured as the difference in percentage points between market income and disposable income. For definition of poverty and inequality, see note under Fig. 6.4. The dashed bar shows the amount of redistribution achieved) Distribution of preferences towards redistribution of old age pensions and unemployment benefits across countries

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List of Tables

Table 7.1 Table 9.1

Table 9.2

Table 9.3

A comparative look at the scope of EU Anti-discrimination Directives Effects of individual level variables from multilevel multinomial regression analyses for explaining preferences for equity and equality over need Parameter estimates of multilevel multinomial regression analyses of bivariate national-level covariates explaining preferences for equity and equality over need Parameter estimates of multilevel multinomial regression models of multivariate national-Level covariates explaining preferences for equity and equality over need

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Part I Introduction

1 Introduction: Equality as a Multifaceted Concept François Levrau and Noel Clycq

1.1

Introduction

At least since the Enlightenment the idea(l) of equality had a deep influence on the Western world. Despite individual differences, at a deeper level, it was thought that all people are morally equal and therefore should be treated as equals and thus with equal respect and concern. While a political and moral consensus on the importance of this idea(l) gradually emerged, explaining what it conceptually, discursively, and politically entails has turned out to be very difficult. In the nine chapters of this book, it will become clear that equality, despite its function as a leading (moral and political) ideal, remains what Gaillie (1956) coined an ‘essentially contested concept ’, both in terms of theory and practice. F. Levrau (B) Centre Pieter Gillis, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] N. Clycq Edubron, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 F. Levrau and N. Clycq (eds.), Equality, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54310-5_1

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In this introductory chapter we outline some of the main issues in the study of equality, many of which will be picked up in more detail by the contributing authors of this book. We start with the Enlightenment as this was the period where ‘equality’ was forcefully put on the political and philosophical (albeit mostly European and North-American) agenda. While the ideal was put forward, history shows that in many cases the equal treatment of all people was still often distorted. In the next two sections, we deal with contemporary challenges on the socioeconomic and sociocultural level. After characterizing these ‘two faces of inequality’ we explain why and when inequality is a moral wrong and which types of policies can be implemented to make societies more egalitarian. We then consider the question why some forms of equality are so persistent and why skeptic voices remain. In the last section, the nine chapters of the book are presented.

1.2

Moral Equality: An Enlightened and Spiritual Ideal

The ‘enlightened’ eighteenth century was a remarkable period as it was the century wherein European and North American philosophy reached a highpoint. Philosophers in France (e.g. D’Alembert, Diderot, Montesquieu, Voltaire), but also in Scotland (e.g. Hutcheson, Hume, Reid, Smith), Germany (e.g. Kant, Lessing, Mendelssohn) and America (e.g. Franklin, Jefferson, Paine)—to mention just some countries and famous intellectuals—were convinced that one should rely on ‘reason’ to shape societies’ economy, politics, education, and culture. ‘Reason’ provided an instrument that would solve all problems. Moreover, as all people were thought to be gifted with reason, they were, from a moral point of view, considered to be each other’s equals. A just government, therefore, needs to treat all people with equal respect and concern. While this reasoning seems straightforward, we discuss below the many tensions that came with it. Moreover, this ‘Age of Reason’ did not appear ex nihilo. The bold statements that the use of ‘reason’ and the idea of ‘moral equality’ would improve human society and the living conditions of all people originated in the successes that came along with the scientific

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revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The belief in reasonable and scientific progress also matched with ideas of earlier thinkers such as Bayle, Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz, Locke, Spinoza, and humanists like Erasmus and Moore. Several movements, ideas, and inventions thus paved the way for the Enlightenment as an intellectual culmination. The development of the preponderance of the notion of reason was often argued to be one of the main triggers for the emancipation of individuals from religious dogmas, but it has recently been argued that we have to go beyond the antithesis between ‘religion’ and ‘Enlightenment’ because the Enlightenment is in many respects indebted to religious sources and beliefs (see Gillespie, 2008; Sorkin, 2008, but see also the chapter of De Munck in this book). A famous dictum that is often associated with the Enlightenment is ‘Liberty, equality and solidarity’. This dictum reflected the philosophical and political ideals that have helped people to end the traditionally and hierarchically structured Ancien Régime, known for the privileges and power of the nobility and clergy executed at the expense of the common people. However, while the French revolutionaries aimed to replace this regime with a reason-based system, their ‘Revolution’ ended in terror (Robespierre). For historians, the terror that came along with the French Revolution implied the end of the Enlightenment as a relatively distinct period in time. Yet, although the Enlightenment, as a period, ended in rather bloody way, philosophers and politicians today can still think of themselves as ‘enlightened intellectuals’ to the extent that they embrace some elements of the so-called ‘revolutionary ideals’. In that sense, the Enlightenment could be seen as an intellectual movement the end of which has not been reached (and maybe will never be reached). Bristow (2017) puts it thus: ‘For Enlightenment thinkers themselves, however, the Enlightenment is not an historical period, but a process of social, psychological or spiritual development, unbound to time or place’. Indeed, in a matter of speaking, the ideals of ‘freedom, equality and solidarity’ serve as a perpetuum mobile. After all, as the idea of ‘moral equality’ is spread around the geographical and temporal spectrum we can see that more and more people indeed want to be treated as equals. In a quote that seems also appropriate for current times characterized by socioeconomic inequality (see below), Tocqueville (2002, p. 6) puts it likes this: ‘Is it

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credible that the democracy which has annihilated the feudal system and vanquished kings will respect the citizen and the capitalist? ’ Once people have come into contact with the ideal of equality, sooner or later they will revolt when they are not treated as equals. This means that equality reflects a strong moral intuition. Notwithstanding the complexity with which one is faced when starting to elaborate on the Enlightenment ideals of liberty, equality, and solidarity—particularly what it means to put them into practice—the essence of these ideals remains crystal clear. People, it was argued, should be stimulated to become more self-directed both in thought and action, as this awakening of the intellectual and autonomous powers is key to a more fulfilling human life. People should thereby become free to live according to their own chosen conception of the good life and be able to reject or release the chains that bind them (liberty). Kant (1970, p. 54) stated in still one of the most cited philosophical passages that ‘Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self -incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self -incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own understanding! ’ Therefore, what ultimately emerged from the eighteenth century, was a rather ‘spiritual image’ of the human being. People can vary from a physical point of view, but not from a spiritual point of view, considering they are each gifted with reason and thus with a capacity for autonomous thinking. No matter how different people are in terms of body, capacities, age, gender, etc., at the most fundamental level they are all the same and are therefore each other’s moral equals (equality). This perspective highlights the humanity within each individual being—and thus the equal moral value—and it is this humanity that is protected by means of all types of ‘equality politics’. Solidarity, then, refers to the involvement of individuals with other individuals: people should take care of each other because they are connected and are all part of one ‘spiritual species’. As we have seen, views on politics, philosophy and science in the Western world reached their peak during the Enlightenment. The idea of

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the moral equality of all men, along with freedom and solidarity, gradually led to established principles such as (1) the democratic governance where all people must have an equal say in matters that affect all; (2) the rule of law that equally protects people against the power of the state by ensuring that the government is bound by its own laws; (3) the welfare state with social rights that ensure that all people have equal and sufficient opportunities to make use of their liberties; and (4) the democratic (and assumed meritocratic) institutions such as the educational system and the labour market that ensure upward social mobility for all categories of individuals. The idea of human equality was also taken up formally in all kinds of declarations, charters, and modern constitutions, notably the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789), the American Declaration of Independence (1776), the US Constitution (1787), and later also in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (2000), and was followed in international organizations such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization of American States, and the African Union. As the idea of human equality spread throughout the Western European and Anglo-American world, it has also generated a series of political and emancipatory movements designed to contest the lingering presence or enduring effects of older ethnic and racial hierarchies (i.e. decolonization, African–American civil right movement, multiculturalism) (Kymlicka, 2007). Moreover, it also inspired movements to contest all types of hierarchies, such as gender, disability and sexual orientation.

1.3

Why Enlightened Politics Were/Are Not Always so Enlightened

However, if history makes one thing clear, it is that we cannot speak of an obvious linear and straightforward trajectory towards more equality for all; neither in the (recent) past, nor in current times. Despite the positive depiction made by Pinker (2018) and Rosling (2018), ‘equality’ has been (and probably will always be) a precarious ideal, the survival of which cannot simply be assumed. More often than not, the ideal and its

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realization has been impeded by all sorts of countermovements, ideals, or convictions (see also the chapter of De Munck in this book). A first example of how linear progress is hampered is ‘race science’. Rather than that the so-called rationalization and scientification of European states led to more (universal) equality, in the nineteenth and twentieth century a whole ‘race science’ was developed precisely to rationally prove that the white European race was superior and to legitimize the subordination of other races. This ultimately gave rise to specific convictions (i.e. social darwinism) and policies (i.e. eugenics, separatism, racism, and fascism) (Bashford & Levine, 2010). A second example relates to revolutionary France as it became clear that equality was ‘bounded’ to specific groups in society. The Enlightenment ideals of ‘Fraternité, Liberté & Fraternité ’ were, for example, not meant to be applied to the ‘natives’ in France’s colonies. The political and legal equality that was enforced by the French Revolution also left intact the socioeconomic inequality and therefore the associated political and social lack of freedom. On the basis of the right of election, there was a distinction between ‘les citoyens actifs’ and ‘les citoyens passifs’, which means that the constitution excluded some three million of the total of seven million men (women were excluded from the beginning) above twenty-five from all electoral transactions. Moreover, the political and legally validated economic freedom of the bourgeoisie led to huge socioeconomic inequalities with the lower classes (Tocqueville, 2002). So, while ‘equality for all’ was at least officially proclaimed by many leading thinkers during the Enlightenment, what history illustrates is that despite people being eager to protect the so-called universal ideal of human equality, they usually defended that idea within the realm of specific (e.g. national) contexts and/or communities, and most often only for specific categories of citizens within these contexts. Entitlement to civic rights, for example, was (and still is) restricted (in every nation state of the Global North), and from the very start this created processes of civic stratification (Morris, 2009). To put it like this: the universal moral equality was rapidly translated into concrete policies to protect specific rights of specific people, in casu government’s own citizens. This is already visible in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a document influenced by the idea of a universal human nature, and

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drawn up by the French National Constituent Assembly in 1789. That Declaration became the basis for a nation of free French citizens, which became equally protected by the French law. Drafted on the foundational idea of the ‘universal’ human nature and adjoined rights, it led to a declaration of civil rights (but not necessarily their full implementation) for (all) French citizens in a specific French national context. The protection of universal rights thus rapidly became a protection for the equal rights of particular citizens. Let us take the elaboration of the last point as our third example. Throughout history clear signs of processes of civic stratification that revolve around the question of who is entitled to citizenship or to acquire citizenship—and thus to equal treatment as equal citizens before the law and the state—were always present (Morris, 2012). These examples emphasize the importance of studying the ‘real life’ limitations that are placed upon conceptualizations of the ‘ideal’ of human equality. From early on these tensions were present in discussions about race, nationality, and citizenship, and they are still at the heart of the tensions emerging in ongoing discussions on migration and the inflow of refugees (Bhambra, 2015; Morris, 2011). Moreover, as several new studies have shown, the idea of an equal and cosmopolitan European ideal is fundamentally flawed. Not only, as is shown above, does this ideal go hand in hand with the emergence of some of the most severe and exclusionary scientific studies and policy actions, it also steered supranational European politics in the postwar period. Hansen and Jonsson (2017), for example, showed that the political discourses and practices of the founding fathers of European Unity (the current European Union) were rife with references to the superiority of European civilization and contained fundamental contradictions in their reasoning and ambitions with respect to equality. The EURAFRICA project is a particularly illuminating example. After WW II the emerging ‘European Community’ in the 1950s and 1960s was mainly focused on the inclusion of the African countries (and its resources and peoples) colonized by individual European countries such as France and Belgium into the collective European Unification project to the benefit of all European states included in this unity. Or, to put it in the words of Jean Monnet himself: France could give Africa as a

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dowry to Europe (Hansen & Jonsson, 2011). This was felt to be necessary to share the ‘benefits’ of the colonies across European countries to strengthen them all together, instead of strengthening individual European states. So, in the early postwar decades, one can speak of a collective colonialism (of united European states) rather than of an individual colonialism of individual states. The ideal of universal equality was clearly not part of the practices of the ‘European unification project ’. Thus even in such comprehensive and cosmopolitan political and economic projects to prevent war in Europe and to encourage intra-European cooperation on a supranational level, the ideal of ‘equality’ was mainly focused on achieving ‘equality’ for ‘in-group members’ rather than for ‘out-group members’. A fourth example is that Enlightenment was not only been held responsible for the reign of terror during the French Revolution, in later times it was also accused for being the breeding ground for fascism, communism, mismanagement in psychiatry, economic exploitation, sexism, extinction species, reckless utopian projects, environmental pollution, and much more (Garrard, 2006; Gottlieb, 2016). While some will argue that this has nothing to do with the Enlightenment ideals, the point is that there are several possible readings of the Enlightenment. The mentioned historical examples show that ‘equality’ was certainly part of the political and public narratives in European societies, but they also illustrate the limitations of the narrative of equality. It sounds well in theory, but in reality, it was hard to find a society where all people were indeed treated ‘as equals’ or that really brought the idea of ‘moral equality’ into practice. Also in current times the ideal of equality is challenged. While some claim that there is a more or less (though fragile) linear progress towards more equality (Pinker, 2018), others point strongly at the tenacity of specific inequalities, even to the extent that certain inequalities—e.g. in the socioeconomic domain as shown by Piketty (2014)—are increasing, thus empirically denouncing the linear progress approach. Also in the field of sociocultural equality, it would be foolish to claim that there is only a steady progress to be observed, as not all people nowadays enjoy a full and equal amount of respect and ‘new’ groups may encounter stigmatization (e.g. LGBTQ). In the following two sections we focus on the ‘two faces of inequality’: socioeconomic and

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sociocultural face. What are some of the equality challenges for modern societies?

1.4

Current Challenges on the Socioeconomic Level

While the recent work of Atkinson (2015), Piketty (2014), Piketty, Chancel, Alvaredo, Saez, and Zuckman (2018), and Stiglitz (2012) has put the debate on socioeconomic inequality from a macro-level perspective back on the agenda and while former President of the United States of America, Barak Obama, described rising income inequality even as the ‘defining challenge of our time ’ (Newell, 2013), there is no general trend to higher inequality when one takes a look at inequality across the globe. In some countries inequality has risen, while in other countries it has fallen. Based on estimates from two databases (PovcalNet which is run by the World Bank and the Chartbook of Economic Inequality), Hasell (2018) comes to the conclusion that there are clear regional patterns. Almost all Latin American and Caribbean countries show very high levels of inequality, but considerable declines from 1990 to 2015. Conversely, advanced industrial economies show lower levels of inequality, but it increases in most, though not all, instances. There were, for example, rises in inequality in some of the world most populous countries, including China, India, the United States, and Indonesia (together accounting for around about 45% of the world population). A number of Eastern European countries experienced rising inequality as they transitioned from socialist regimes. Across the studied countries from the Middle East and North Africa region, there are falls. In SubSaharan Africa and East Asia and Pacific region, the trends are more mixed. Even though the figures are different from region to region, it is clear that socioeconomic inequality still exists. Socioeconomic inequality is accompanied by several challenges of which we will mention only four. These closely related challenges all point at the danger that not all people are treated as moral equivalent persons, in the sense that they cannot fall back on the same secure and stable grounds upon which they can built up their personal lives.

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The first challenge has to do with the welfare state. Though welfare policies have been installed for many decades as concrete ways in which national and European politicians can show the extent to which they value socioeconomic equality, recent research has illustrated serious flaws with respect to the protection of vulnerable groups (Cantillon & Vandenbroucke 2013; Cantillon & Van Lancker, 2013; see also the chapter of Van Lancker & Van den Heede in this book). The paradox, however, is that economic growth has not always been a way to feed the welfare state, but it has rather become a (neoliberal) end in itself and yet a way to condone the dismantling of the welfare state. Many welfare states in fact did not succeed in making any further progress in the fight against (relative) income poverty, particularly within the working-age population. How, then, should the welfare state be reconceptualized in an era of increasing fluidity, globalization, mobility, meritocracy (see below), and neoliberal dictates that might condone forms of inequality? And, what type of inequalities can we accept? This brings us neatly to a second challenge; the role of meritocracy and hence the expectation that one’s educational and/or labour market success is primarily (or solely) due to one’s individual ambitions, efforts, and choices. It is not a coincidence that while the equalizing impact of welfare states is in decline, meritocratic narratives have become more popular as they shift the responsibility for one’s socioeconomic situation towards the level of the individual. What people have or have not, is what they deserve. Yet, according to some, the welfare system spoils and even maintains the ‘underclass’ (see, e.g., Dalrymple, 2001). The ethos that comes along with meritocracy, however, can lead to increasing social tensions and even to a demonization of the (poor) working class. Owen (2011), for example, has described how the working class has gone from ‘salt of the earth’ to ‘scum of the earth’. The stereotype of the ‘chav’ is invoked to both avoid engagement with social and economic problems and to justify the inequality gap. Also egalitarian philosophers such as Wolff (1998) have argued that ‘luck egalitarianism’—the view that inequalities are legitimate and thus should not be compensated when they derive from personal choices—promotes a wrong kind of ethos by encouraging the state to view the disadvantaged with distrust and as potential cheaters. Needless to say, but this stereotypical portrayal can

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be detrimental for the shared sense of belonging together, in particular combined with emerging tensions related to an inflow of refugees and continuing migration (as migrants often preoccupies the less paid jobs). The question, thus, is the extent to which meritocracy jeopardizes social cohesion? A third related challenge has to do with the ‘numerous and rapid successive technological innovations’ that have dramatically changed current societies. The evidence and the speed with which these changes take place have endangered some jobs, especially low-skilled jobs that can be taken over by all sorts of technology-driven equipment (Goldin & Katz, 2008). Some highly skilled jobs (especially those with cognitive and manual routine tasks that can be executed by computers) are also endangered. Nevertheless, the technological developments also provide opportunities for the creation of new jobs. These new jobs will increasingly rely on specific profiles and on the so-called ‘21st century skills’, even though there is still much debate on what these skills precisely are (Voogt & Pareja Roblin, 2012). However, all kinds of institutional factors, such as rigidities in the labour market, the insufficient influx of students (especially those with a migration background and/or lower socioeconomic status) to higher education or the use of ‘non-adapted curricula’ (where, e.g. routine skills are taught and creativity is not encouraged), make some countries and individuals to greater or lesser degrees able to compensate for the loss of certain jobs and to match the fast creation of jobs which arise precisely because of innovation. The emergence of ‘knowledge-based societies’ that rely on the capacities of their citizens to drive the innovation, entrepreneurship, and dynamism of society’s economy bears the risk of creating new social and economic division between those that are sufficiently ‘adapted’ and those that have ‘anachronistic profiles’ (due to e.g. the unadjusted curricula or the mere lack of talent to acquire the wanted skills). How to secure that people with ‘anachronistic profiles’ will be treated as equals, given the already mentioned popularity of meritocratic discourse and the stigmatization of the working poor? The mentioned appeal to responsibility also becomes apparent in a fourth challenge that is related to discussions about ‘global and environmental justice’ (e.g. Miller, 2007; Pogge & Metha, 2016). What do we owe to those with whom we might not have a direct relation, but who

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certainly suffer (in)directly because of our actions (e.g. carbon emission)? Climate change is a global issue, but some will be more disadvantaged (IPCC, 2018). The climate change, is just one example, others are the refugee crisis, the threat of terrorism, the banking crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Beck (1986) coined the term ‘risk society’ to refer to those problems and challenges for which national institutes cannot provide adequate solutions. What is needed is a global form of solidarity implemented by powerful global policies. However, it remains uncertain whether this can be ever be installed. After all, modern notions of solidarity and social justice materialized in redistribution are first and foremost based on national income taxes and national collective agreements. The Brexit is just one example of the fragility of pan-national organizations, and as we have seen in the previous section, despite the universal consensus about the moral equality of all people, this ideal has not automatically lead to a treatment of all people with the same degree of respect and concern. How, thus, should we deal with the hazards and insecurities induced by a global world if even our pan-national institutions and goals seem so fragile?

1.5

Challenges on the Sociocultural Level

In recent years a specific way of describing current Western societies, and in particular urban areas, is to define them as ‘superdiverse’ (Castles, De Haas, & Miller, 2014; Vertovec, 2007). The diversification of societies also impacts on current perceptions of and considerations on equality. Indeed, in deservingness studies ‘migrant background’ is one of the few ‘identity categories’ that seems to play a crucial role in people’s view on who ‘deserves’ support (see also the chapter of Reeskens & van Oorschot in this book). When it comes to the increase of diversity due to migration, the challenges for equality are at least fourfold. What these challenges have in common is that they point at a collapse of social cohesion. If a society lacks a shared sense of togetherness, it lacks the social basis for redistribution. Socioeconomic challenges, thus, go hand in hand with important sociocultural transformations in societies. When people don’t care about the fate of others because they do not feel sufficiently

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connected, it will become very difficult to uphold the idea of treating people as equals. A first challenge is related to the so-called ‘heterogeneity-redistribution trade-off ’ (Banting & Kymlicka, 2006). Several studies indicate that redistributive attitudes would be difficult to maintain when societies become more diverse. Goodhart (2004) and Pearce (2004) refer to what they call a ‘progressive dilemma’ between diversity and redistribution. The idea is that the more different we are from one another, and hence the more diverse our ways of living and our religious and ethnic backgrounds are, the less we share a moral consensus or a sense of fellow feeling, the less happy we will be in the long run and the less we will support a generous welfare state. According to Putnam (2007) diversity brings out the turtle in all of us: in the superdiverse era, people are more afraid of each other and therefore tend to hunker down or withdraw. The relation between heterogeneity and solidarity has been the subject of many studies—not least because Putnam believed to have found a ‘social law’ and therefore invited fellow researchers from all over the world to examine his thesis. The broad post-Putnam research, in fact, has led to what Van der Meer and Tolsma (2014) call a ‘cacophony of empirical findings’ that make it difficult to make strong and general statements. While there are many variables that need to be taken into account, it is clear that increasing amounts of diversity forms a challenge, in particular for societies that ware generally imagined as rather homogenous. According to Bauböck (2016) there is no dilemma, but rather a trilemma between openness for immigration, multicultural inclusion, and social redistribution. The question then concerns the possibility of achieving social solidarity in culturally diverse states with fairly open borders. A second challenge is related to what is known as the ‘recognition-redistribution trade-off ’ (Banting & Kymlicka, 2006). Policies that recognize the ethnocultural diversity by means of diversity accommodating and multicultural policies would be detrimental for redistribution attitudes. The claim here is that recognition policies emphasize too much what is different and therefore undermine the shared sense of belonging together as a condition for feelings of solidarity and redistribution attitudes (Fraser, 1995; Koopmans, 2010). Or, as Barry (2001, p. 8) puts it: ‘A politics of multiculturalism undermines a politics of redistribution’.

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However, this is up until now not substantiated by empirical evidence (Kymlicka, 2012; Levrau & Loobuyck, 2013; Vertovec & Wessendorf, 2010). Whether or not multiculturalism leads to a collapse in feelings of social belonging, it is a fact that reciprocity and exchange between equals, have become challenged by ‘social imaginaries’ that construct rigid boundaries between specific social groups. Nussbaum (2012), for example, has pointed at the impact of populism and far-right parties that feeds on a ‘politics of fear ’. Increasing amounts of uncertainty, fear, complexity, and individualism as a consequence of rapidly changing social, cultural, and economic processes pose fundamental challenges to ingrained notions and practices of solidarity that were easier to trigger in rather homogeneous cultural and stable communities. One of the issues that societies (from the local to the supranational level) will have to deal with is how to keep people together given the impact of migration, globalization and technologization which have led to a ‘superdiverse’ and ‘liquid’ modernity, to use the apt phrases of respectively Vertovec (2007) and Bauman (2000). A third and related challenge has to do with the observation of Habermas (2008), namely that large parts of European societies have become ‘postsecular societies’ as they witness the persistence or resurgence of religious beliefs and practices. What is the place of religion in a society that has become more and more secular? To what extent is Islam (and other types of religious diversity) compatible with the western liberal-democratic rule of law, and settled freedoms, equalities, and rights? This question has become even more important since the rise of Islamic extremism. While Marx (1978), for example, wrote about the ‘Jewish Question’ in the nineteenth century, nowadays, it seems fair to say that it is not the situation of the Jews that stirs attention, but of Islam, eventually leading to a much-debated ‘Muslim Question’ in European societies (Norton, 2013; Parekh, 2008). Islam has undoubtedly become ‘the religion of the pariahs’, which may destabilize the common ground for inclusive societies built upon a shared sense of belonging together. All societies thus have to be vigilant about the possibility that they become imbalanced as specific groups get negatively targeted. A fourth threat is caused by the belief in what is called ‘Big Society’, a political ideology developed in the early twenty-first century that aims for

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strengthening the initiatives of citizens and their associations, reforming public services and addressing the power of local networks in order to deal with the economic, democratic, and social crisis (Scott, 2011). Formal British Prime Minister David Cameron (2010), for example, has argued that ‘the Big Society is about a huge culture change where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighborhoods, in their workplace don’t always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face but instead feel both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities’. Citizens must be empowered to play a more active role in society. Therefore the government pulls back and leaves more space for citizens and professionals, while highlighting the responsibility of people rather than their weaknesses. While encouraging people to work together in close networks might seem a promising strategy to foster solidarity and tackle inequality, the government in fact retreats and delegates responsibility to the people. Social divisions may then occur between those who are willing to and capable of empowering themselves both on the individual and communal levels and those who are not. Furthermore, the need for citizens’ initiatives is clearly most stringent in vulnerable neighbourhoods (which are often areas segregated in terms of ethnocultural origin), but they are frequently populated by residents who are not always able and do not have the resources to absorb the effects of a receding government (Engbersen, Snel, & ‘t Hart, 2015). The Big Society responsibilities relate well with the contemporary focus on ‘civic integration for newcomers’. While in this reasoning multicultural policies are thought to pamper newcomers leading to a so-called backlash against multiculturalism (see above), civic integration would provide newcomers with the necessary opportunities to find their own way in society (Joppke, 2004). If newcomers fail to integrate, it is easier to assert that it is their own fault, as they were ostensibly given the necessary tools. The rigor with which Big Society and civic integration policies are implemented, is a good illustration of the meritocratic ideal that can be increasingly detected in current societies (see above). The risk is, again, that not all people will enjoy equal status: those who find themselves in unequal circumstances primarily have themselves to blame as they have not taken up their responsibilities.

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Why and When Is Inequality Is Morally Wrong?

If we look at the examples of socioeconomic and sociocultural cleavages, it becomes clear that what is wrong with inequality—and hence why equality is important—is that the moral equality of people is denied as some people are considered or treated as inferior or, in the worst case, as even not fully human. Scanlon (2018) has summed up several specific reasons why inequality is morally objectionable. The first reason has to do with the fact that inequality creates status differences that are humiliating and stigmatizing. In some societies members of certain groups (e.g. caste, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation) are perceived as inferior and are therefore excluded from social roles and occupations that have a high standing. A second reason has to do with the unacceptable forms of power and control that the rich can exert over those who have less. The management of large corporations, for example, can determine the working conditions of the others. When people become extremely dependent on the owners (in terms of how and when they should work, what they earn, etc.), their feelings of autonomy and control over their own life and their self-esteem will decrease, even to the extent that they might feel humiliated or worthless. A third reason is that a great imbalance in wealth and income jeopardizes the idea of equal socioeconomic opportunity. People who grow up in a poor family usually have not been given the same support, did not have access to the necessary resources or cannot rely upon the full recognition of their agency and thus lack equal opportunities. The place where the cradle stands has an unfairly large impact on the possibility to become successful in later life, also due to the limitations put on poor individuals and families by structural obstacles and institutional actors such as policymakers, educators, and employers. A fourth reason is related to the possibility that inequality in wealth and income undermines the fairness of political institutions. The rich can manipulate political life in the sense that they can weigh heavily on political debates and influence particular outcomes (Christiano, 2012). A fifth reason is that inequality can result from a failure of governments to treat all people as equals by ignoring the needs and interests of specific categories of people/groups thereby differentiating between those deserving

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support and those that do not. A sixth reason for why inequality (of income and wealth) can be called morally wrong is that inequality can be the result of economic unfair institutions. What is deemed to be unfair here is, for example, the way in which unequal rewards are assigned to certain economic roles or positions. Frank and Cook (1996) have famously declared current society to be a ‘winner-take-all society’. There are of course other objections to inequality. With an abundance of figures, Marmot (2004) and especially Wilkinson and Pickett (2009, 2018) have shown that unequal societies have far-reaching consequences on almost all criteria of health, including for the middle class and even the higher class. The titles of the books of Wilkinson and Pickett say it all: ‘Why more equal societies almost always do better ’ and ‘How more equal societies reduce stress, restore sanity and improve everyone’s wellbeing ’. Equal societies might also be preferred because it leads to more social stability. After all, people share a sense of belonging, trust each other more, and feel that the government cares for all people. If, for example, a small group owns a disproportionately large part of the resources and if that group can also slip through the loopholes through fiscal blackmail, then the poor have reasons to think that their government is mainly in favour of the ‘strongest’ or ‘richest’. A society that maintains great socioeconomic inequality seems to have more attention and respect for the needs of the rich group. Moreover, if the ‘strongest’ do not set a good example and if politics seem unable to restrain the ‘strongest’, feelings of resentment at the ‘bottom’ of society will grow. The listed arguments make clear that demands for equality are not necessarily expressions of envy and that redistribution does not necessarily imply an immoral interference of the individual liberty of the rich who deserve their wealth (as proposed by Nozick, 1974). However, if equality is indeed so important, should we then reduce the difference, even if this means that no one becomes better? Many objections can be made against this type of reasoning. Some (Parfit, 1984) have said we should focus on the worst off, while others have claimed it is about making sure that everybody has ‘enough’ (Frankfurt, 1987). These considerations (which will be examined in the chapter of Levrau in this book), however, remain deeply egalitarian when the poorness, lack of priority, or insufficiency

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results from unequal status, violations of equal concern, or when they reflect a lack of fairness in political and economic institutions.

1.7

Politics of Equality

A politics that wants to treat all people with equal concern and respect, has to engage with the ‘two faces of inequality’ (socioeconomic and sociocultural inequality). Both the socioeconomic and sociocultural hierarchies can overlap as the most economically vulnerable groups are frequently those who score the lowest in terms of sociocultural status. However, they must be treated distinctly, since highly educated, affluent immigrants, for example, may also be victims of racism, discrimination or misrecognition. Thus, although the two politics can work together (since in reality they frequently focus on the same target groups), they are nevertheless distinct (because they focus on different dimensions of equality). According to Honneth (2001), however, the politics of redistribution falls under the politics of recognition because redistribution claims ultimately are expressions of struggles for recognition (see also Fraser & Honneth, 2003). Multicultural policies are good examples of policies that deal with both recognition and redistribution issues, for they often involve a significant redistribution of economic resources and political power besides the symbolic recognition of cultural identities (see the chapter of Modood & De Waal in this book). Multiculturalists like Kymlicka (1995) and Modood (2007) generally argue that it is too one-sided to define justice exclusively in terms of distribution of material resources. Moreover, they refer to the fact that thinking in terms of universal rights (such as freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and assembly) may not address the specific needs of minority groups. It is precisely in its contrast with this standard liberalism that one can define the raison d’être of (liberal) multiculturalism. Indeed, one popular way to deal with cultural and religious diversity is the implementation of a citizenship model based on common citizenship rights. Multiculturalists argue that what appears on the surface to be a neutral system is, on closer inspection, a system that often favours the majority group. Due to seemingly inevitable processes

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of nation-building, it is indeed the majority’s language that is used in public institutions, the majority’s holidays that are recognized in the public calendar, the majority’s history that is taught in schools, etc. The consequence of this inevitable lack of cultural and language neutrality is that access to one’s culture can be difficult for cultural minorities. A compensating or accommodating multicultural policy is needed here. In its liberal incarnation, such a policy is not concerned with bestowing unfair privileges on certain groups; on the contrary, it tries to balance laws and eliminate unfair disadvantages. According to multiculturalism, there are cases in which differentiated treatment and thus the emphasis on difference is the best way of treating all citizens as equals.

1.8

Enduring Equality

Thus far we have explained in general terms what equality refers to (moral equality), how it can be denied (two faces of inequality), how the denial comes to the fore in previous and current times (the challenges) and how it can be dealt with (politics of equality). What we have not considered yet is why some forms of inequality seem to endure. Given the moral and political consensus about the importance of equality—at least since the French Revolution, the idea of ‘equality’ has served as one of the main political and normative ideals in European and North-American societies as it has been taken up in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is affirmed in many human rights documents and treaties, is a nodal point taken up in many national policies, and is at the heart of many political and philosophical reflections—it is remarkable that many societies nowadays are still gripped by equality debates. As Lamont and Pierson (2019, p. 5) state: ‘It is the persistence and deepening of inequality that raises many of the most troubling issues’. Also Piketty (2014) worried about the extent to which inequality takes extremely durable forms. In one way or another structures of advantage and disadvantage seem to be self-reinforcing and cumulative. Equality-generating policies and realities that mitigate excessive inequalities are (at least partly) overshadowed by inequality inducing processes. How does this come? How does inequality exists, how is it perpetuated and, above all, how does that inequality over

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individual life courses and generations become enduring? With Durable inequality, Charles Tilly (1998) has written one of the key texts that deal with these questions. Central in the work of Tilly is the idea of ‘categorical inequality’. Categories are asymmetrical, unequal social groups that often occur in pairs and that can only be understood in relation to each other (e.g. male/female, black/white, citizen/foreigner, have/have-nots, child/adult,…). ‘The central argument runs like this: Large, significant inequalities in advantages among human beings correspond mainly to categorical differences (…) rather than to individual differences in attributes, propensities or performance’ (Tilly, 1998, p. 7). Tilly sees the boundaries drawn between the two halves of categorical pairs as essential for creating and maintaining inequality. Categories have two important functions in perpetuating inequality: (1) a categorical structure facilitates the exploitation and/or establishment of (old and/or new) favoured members and (2) the high costs of a change of a categorical order perpetuate the existing relationships or facilitate the introduction of existing relationships in new circumstances. According to Tilly there are four basic mechanisms that create and sustain categorical inequality: ‘exploitation’, ‘opportunity hoarding’, ‘emulation’, and ‘adaptation’. Exploitation means that if people already have some power, they can create added value through the efforts of others (people who usually do not belong to their own category). The second mechanism, the hoarding of opportunities, refers to the fact that if members of a non-powerful group see an opportunity to gain access to a resource that is valuable, they will attempt to monopolize this access for their own group. By hoarding opportunities and monopolizing knowledge within their own group, the non-powerful group also creates inequality. Tilly does not see these mechanisms as deliberately creating inequality. For him, inequality is rather a side effect of organizational improvisation of individuals/groups to achieve something for themselves. The inequality that results from exploiting and hoarding opportunities is given a more sustainable form by two other mechanisms. Emulation refers to copying existing social relationships because this is easier than inventing new social relationships. An example is the phenomenon that inequality in the division of labour between women and men within families is ‘copied’ on the labour market in a division between men

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and women professions. According to Tilly, this means that inequality in households—women doing unpaid work for men—has entered the labour market: women get paid less for work that looks like domestic or care work. Adaptation is a process of socialization, whereby even the most disadvantaged develop routines based on the existing structural inequality. While copying and adaptation help solving many problems, it also leads to the fixation of categorical pairs, and therefore of inequality. Tilly is rather pessimistic about the possibilities of politics to reduce or eliminate the patterns of inequality. According to him, states are also subject to the described mechanisms. Moreover, they have the power to legally fixate the categorical couples. States, for example, establish the categorization of citizens, and thereby install inclusion and exclusion: who is a citizen, who has a conditional citizenship, etc.? Members of the dominant categorical groups also have more opportunities for exploitation or for hoarding opportunities. They make continuous decisions about how to draw the line between groups, how to arrange solidarity, loyalty, and control, how to monopolize knowledge that leads to more benefits for themselves. Equality reduction, in fact, is often the result of the functioning of a broad democracy, for example in the form of social movements. However, even in that case, Tilly remains skeptical in the sense that social movements often create or activate categorical couples, albeit with the aim of preventing unjust treatment of the ‘weaker’ half of these couples. In their struggle for recognition and inclusion, they present their own category as coherently as possible and other categories are excluded or seen as less important. This is a well-known critique that has also been formulated by critics of identity politics who claim that struggles for recognition often lead to essentialisation of a group and to ignoring the interests of the so-called ‘minorities within the minorities’ (see, e.g., Eisenberg & Spinner-Halev, 2005). However, at the same time (dominant) majority groups also engage in ‘identity politics’ but this is often overlooked as their engagement seems self-evident and often remains unquestioned. Since the birth of ‘nationstates’, in particular in the past two centuries, top-down strategies have been implemented to secure the position of certain cultural emblems,

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such as language and religion, deemed essential to further development and continuity ‘the nation’ across future generations of ‘nationals’ (Wimmer & Feinstein, 2010). While at the time the imposition of, e.g. one national language has had a major impact on social life and individuals, this has become a widely accepted strategy. However, mainly due to ongoing migration in various countries these issues have come to the fore again. For example, in national public education systems in countries (and regions) such as The UK, The Netherlands, and Flanders curricula on Britishness, Dutchness, and Flemishness are designed to be taught to all school-aged children in these countries to instill positive identification and feelings of belonging to the so-called ‘national values and identity’. Whereas in the past the development of a national identity was an explicit goal, nowadays these strategies are implemented with a different goal. Developing these strategies is not necessarily an expression of mainstream majority’s struggle to have its identity recognized, as the country’s constitution and various laws explicitly protect majority’s cultural emblems, rather these strategies are developed to incorporate ‘minorities’ into the national imagination. However, in many parts of the world, and particularly in Europe, this incorporation process is often based upon an underlying ‘assimilation rationale’ as minorities are much more limited (and in some cases even forbidden) to express certain linguistic, cultural, or religious identities in society’s main institutions such as schools or public office (Alba & Foner, 2015). This is fundamentally different for the ‘native majority’ as, for example, its mother tongue language is often the official language and citizens are often obliged to use them in these institutions. Thus, also from this perspective, minorities are much more limited in expressing ‘their’ identities and the recognition of minority identities, languages, and religions in society’s institutions is often (very) difficult. This leads to an unequal playing field wherein not everybody can apply the (cultural) resources at their disposal in the same ways. Charles Tilly obviously is not the only one who has examined the mechanisms that explain the persistence of inequality. Lamont and Pierson (2019) have identified several related social mechanisms that illuminate how, over time, particular forms of inequality may be reinforced.

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The first mechanisms are ‘evaluation’ and ‘legitimation’. These mechanisms refer to the categorization of individuals, goods as well as the justification of hierarchies. As Lamont and Pierson (2019) explain, evaluation is central to the creation of the standards of deservingness and meritocracy that increasingly guide the distribution of resources as well as the recognition of status. Banting and Kymlicka (2015), for example, state that nowadays people are no longer accepting the excessive gap between the 1% and the rest, but one can also witness hardening attitudes towards specific recipients, including the unemployed, single mothers and, especially, immigrants. So, although the public is inclined to think that the rich do not necessarily deserve all their good fortune and should be taxed more, it has also apparently started to believe that the disadvantaged deserve their bad fortune, and is therefore less keen on supporting them. Likewise, support for multicultural policies is less substantial if the majority believes that migrants cannot be trusted. In the words of Kymlicka (2012, p. 2): ‘Multiculturalism tends to lose support in high-risk situations where immigrants are seen as predominantly illegal, as potential carriers of illiberal practices or movements, or as net burdens on the welfare state’. People seem to accept the status quo by holding to the conviction that the society with its institutions is fair. When confronted with unjust situations, people solve the felt cognitive dissonance by believing that the world is, all in all, a fair place and that people, therefore, get what they deserve. ‘Legitimation’ thus implies the conviction that those who really want, can become successful and that those who are poor must be held responsible for not having taken the provided chances. Enduring equality, thus, does not mean that social mobility is difficult, but it rather confirms prejudices towards the poor as merely lazy people. Son Hing, Wilson, Gourevitch, English, and Sin (2019), for example, have examined why the rising inequality does not lead to more public outcry. They contend that intensifying degrees of inequality activates psychological processes that stifle outcry (see also the chapter of Pretsch in this book). People then are blind to the true extent of inequality, and legitimize rising disparities, and reject redistribution as an effective solution. The result is that the institutions that produce all types of inequality are legitimatized.

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‘Policy drift ’ is yet another mechanism that explains why inequality has such a persistent character. It refers to the effects that follow when policy arrangements remain static at a time where social conditions shift. This can happen when political reform is complicated and obstructed while society is characterized by rapid economic change and weaken political commitments to equality. A policy that does not observe closely and does not react rapidly can intensify inequality, for example, when minimum wages or social benefits are not adjusted to the dynamics of inflation, or when regulatory arrangements are not adapted to changing markets or social relationships (Lamont & Pierson, 2019). Another example might be the emerging knowledge economy the effect of which is that people with some profiles will become rather anachronistic. A politics of equality should estimate well the short and long term impact of rapidly transforming economies and should generate sufficient solutions for people who are left out. ‘Quantification’ (the quantitative measures of performance) and commodification (the process whereby more and more aspects of human actions and the results thereof are expressed in a monetary value instead of the intrinsic or inherent value) are two other mechanisms that provide insights into the phenomenon of enduring inequality. While metrics might increase fairness, it can also reinforce inequalities. Metrics can, for example, obfuscate the needs of the disadvantaged, as all people can be compared to the same performance standard. Those who fail are seen as ‘losers’, while those who meet the expectations are successful. However, if the proper situation of the disadvantaged is not properly taken into account, the idea that metrics can help rewarding merit may in fact rather reinforce existing inequalities. This eventually leads to an economical ‘survival of the fittest’. The examples can be found in any sector. To give just three diverse examples: (1) multinationals that have exorbitant bonus schemes for management but exploit employees; (2) academia with the ‘publish or perish discourse’; (3) hospitals which turned into ‘healthcare companies’ that maximize profits and minimize costs so that ultimately the provided care is of poor quality (Sennett, 2006; Verhaeghe, 2014; Watermeyer, 2019).

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Egalitarian and Skeptical Voices

As illustrated, current societies are still witnessing political, philosophical, and public turmoil due to issues related to equality. Where tense discussions on increasing socioeconomic inequalities are dominating public and political debates, discussions on the sociocultural recognition of difference are also lingering. The persistent gap between the ideal and the real vis-à-vis equality might lead to rather cynical comments. Skeptics may invoke the observation that there is an intractable human selfishness that will prevent equality to prosper, or that those who do act in accordance with what Cohen (2000) has coined ‘the egalitarian ethos’ and Levrau (2018) ‘the interpersonal ethos’, will be exploited by those who follow their selfish impulses. Critics here may also point at an innate tendency to show distrust towards ‘the other’. Moreover, they can argue that it is nowadays difficult to ignore the impact of harsh populist voices, the neoliberal hegemony that promotes competition, and a form of hyper-individualism supported by narrow positivism (e.g. the dominance of quantitative measurements) and fierce meritocracy in a wide range of disciplines and professions (including academia and healthcare). This is, of course, not to say that neoliberalism has brought us anything but pain; on the contrary, but it is important to study the deep (in)egalitarian effects of a climate where a certain ideology seems to prevail (Dorling, 2015). However, even in current neoliberal societies there are moments when people do relate to each other in a spirit of equality and community, for example, on a camping trip where everyone—regardless of their background—lives together in relative harmony and where everybody both gives and takes equally (Cohen, 2009). This is of course an atypical situation, but, as Cohen notes, is it not possible to think that it is only because of the lack of such means and situations that people rely on market principles that foster greed and egoism? The market systems that have resulted in large socioeconomic inequalities will not thrive when the background culture with its social norms places a higher emphasis on values such as equality, generosity, friendship and care. If people believe that the right thing to do is to show solidarity rather than to go for the maximization of individual property, this might have a severe impact on the functioning and dominance of the free market.

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Likewise, multicultural societies seem to be swamped by all sorts of anxieties. We are neither arguing that people should fully embrace multiculturality, nor that the ethnocultural and religious diversification of societies and cities is only a success of conviviality. We, however, believe that the worldwide surges of populism have led to a dangerous situation where the equal rights of people are endangered. We should therefore be cautious about how things are presented—a critique that also comes to the fore in the chapter of Lemke in this book. Beaman (2017), for example, argues that currently too much emphasis is put on (religious) differences and conflicts. It gets ignored all too often that in the many everyday negotiations people who may be very different from each other get along well, inspired by what she calls ‘deep equality’. People spontaneously search for what they have in common in order to relate to each other, and those commonalities often weigh far more than the differences, which in turn gives rise to an alternative narrative to that of diversity being a problem to be solved. When people believe that migrants should be handled with dignity and when the ‘politics of fear ’ (Nussbaum, 2012) is somewhat tempered, the chances will be higher that solidarity, equality and an enduring, shared sense of belonging together will be created. The voice of the skeptic can also be somewhat mitigated by pointing at the fact that the current states of inequality have regularly stirred the emotions of those who are committed to the questions and realities of inequality. After all, based upon large-scale values surveys across the world, Schwartz (2012) showed that one can find ten basic human values in almost every ‘society’. Moreover, the most important values in these societies—rather independent of their socioeconomic, religious, or ethnic composition—are similar and concern values related to selfdirection, freedom, social justice, and equality. To put it like this: ‘equality’ is not just a philosophical highbrow term, it is something that is embraced by most people as a fundamental value. In the wake of the financial and economic crisis, for example, a lot of public and political debate has arisen about the legitimacy of the 1% richest, about the feasibility and desirability of the global tax on wealth, the need for international redistribution, the (mis)management of the financial sector that has led to the financial crisis, the ‘bonus culture’ in private and in public

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companies, the most desirable wage pressures in companies, the need for minimum wages, and social minima, etc. (Chomsky, 2012). The ‘common man’ has also expressed his concerns through among other means, the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests, which have inspired a wide international response. This movement was organized as non-violent protest action against socioeconomic inequalities. People used it as a means to express their anger and disappointment as well as their hopes for a more egalitarian future. One of the slogans that was frequently chanted and that has obtained symbolic and ‘community-building’ power was ‘We are the 99%! ’ referring to the top 1% wealthiest people that have a disproportionate amount of capital, political influence, and means of production (Dorling, 2019). The social platforms of resistance and the rise of the ‘enraged citizen’ (see also the gilet jaunes) may lead egalitarians to allow for some optimism. All sorts of citizens who would otherwise never meet or know each other demonstrate and strike together in the traditional forms of protest, but they also come together in deliberative platforms and work out their own proposals for public issues. Authors like Judt (2010), however, remained skeptic. He agrees that people are bound together on these rallies and marches by a shared interest, but the effort to convert these interests into real collective or egalitarian goals is undermined by the fragmented individualism of their concerns. ‘Laudable goals – fighting climate change, opposing war, advocating public healthcare or penalizing bankers – are united by nothing more than the expression of emotion. In our political as in our economic lives, we have become consumers: choosing from a broad gamut of competing objectives, we find it hard to imagine ways or reasons to combine these into a coherent whole’ (Judt, 2010, p. 135). The emergence of the protest movements would not surprise behavioural biologists and evolutionary psychologists such as Boehm (2012), de Waal (2009), and Tomasello (2014) as they argue that the depiction of man as ‘a ruthless wolf ’ does not correlate with human nature. These authors assert instead that the homo sapiens has a natural capability to become a ‘super homo sapiens’ on the condition that the ‘homo socialis’ in him/he can flourish. This notion should inspire all those who strive for the realization of more egalitarian societies. Indeed, two fundamental tendencies are typical of every human being: the craving to

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be part of a greater whole whereby feelings of solidarity, care and altruism are nourished, and at the same time, the quest for independence whereby personal and quite often aggressive satisfaction is sought. However, it is often the societal and cultural environment that steers which tendency— empathy or egotism—becomes predominant. The current trends—the backlash against diversity and the neoliberal obsession with the individual at the expense of the other and the community—have rather ignored the fundamental human need for empathy, love, and hospitality. One of the major questions of our time, then, is how people can be stimulated to nourish egalitarian preferences, ambitions, goals, and aspirations. Therefore, if we have reasons to value equality, we need not only deeply consider its role, character, and impact, but also should we examine how equality can be communicated, promoted, and sustained. What is needed is a toolbox of strategies that are efficient when it comes to forming people’s egalitarian beliefs and attitudes. Examining the mechanisms by which beliefs are formed and changed and investigating how people can be motivated people to act on the basis of their egalitarian convictions is a fundamental challenge for current societies, and, at least from our standpoint, one of the most crucial ones, as—to put it a bit solemnly—the future of humankind may depend on it.

1.10 Outline of the Book As this introductory chapter has illustrated, there are a lot of controversies about equality. The challenges and conundrums not only occur at the conceptual and institutional but also take place at the daily experiential levels. This is why the current volume addresses equality from a multidisciplinary perspective. After all, given the complexity of equality, in order to draw an accurate picture of equality’s nature, value, relevance, scope, and its relation to other values, a multidisciplinary approach is needed. This means that we need not only consider what history and (political) philosophy has brought us, but we should also take other insights into account; insights from adjoining disciplines, most prominently from cultural studies, political studies, psychology, socioeconomics, and sociology. With the aim to structure the insights in an accessible and elegant

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way, we use a classic tripartite framework, including the macro level (broader systemic, historical, conceptual, and societal level), the meso level (the labour market, the welfare state, and concrete policies) and the micro level of the individuals and their relations and thoughts about equality. The collection is divided into three parts comprising a total of nine chapters. The first part (‘Theories & Histories’) contains three conceptual chapters. The focus is on political philosophy, history, and multicultural theory. The second part of the book (‘Institutions & Policies’) deals with the implementation or institutionalization of equality. How is ‘equality’ translated in welfare policies, European policies, and in concrete policies such as the ones that defend reasonable accommodations at the workplace? The third part of the book (‘Experiences & Impressions’) considers the individual experiences and awareness of inequality. Insights coming from psychology, sociology and cultural studies are central. As the nine chapters disentangle equality from different theoretical perspectives they not only summarize the disciplinary state of the art on equality, but also identify promising areas of future research. Obviously, the collection does not cover all disciplines or all issues—only a fist thick book could capture all nuances, but that is not the ambition here. As the book is considered to be a comprehensive, yet introductory book on equality, we hope the collection offers a convenient starting point for anyone interested in ‘equality. The first part of the book is about theory and history and brings together three chapters. In his chapter François Levrau provides a political philosophical tour d’horizon. From a political-philosophical point of view, explaining what ‘equality’ exactly amounts to has turned out to be very tough. When equality is to be treated as a moral ideal, many issues come to the fore. Some of these deal with distributive justice. What is it that should be distributed equally? Should we strive for equal conditions or is it about equal endstates? Which political and social institutions are needed? Has equality implications for how people behave in daily life? These are just a few questions of a long list that has occupied the minds of our greatest political philosophers. In his chapter Levrau takes a helicopter view in order to elucidate how the egalitarian debate has been held so far and why it still leads to

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pressing debates. In the next chapter Bert De Munck presents a historical overview of the thinking about equality. Present-day political ideas to fight inequality are mostly based on a logic of productivity and redistribution. While taxes on wages and on returns on capital dominate the political debate, alternative political imaginaries like the basic income or the commons are hardly taken seriously. In an attempt to transcend the current framework, this chapter traces its historical origins in the eighteenth and nineteenth century and reveals the alternative conceptions of inequality which have been eclipsed as it developed. While late medieval and early modern communal ideas fall short of providing political ground for modern alternative theories (due to the absence of basic ideas about natural rights and universal equality) the very emergence of equality in terms of universal rights will be shown to explain the impossibility to escape the present-day logic of redistribution. In the last chapter of the first part Tariq Modood and Tamar de Waal discuss the current state of the academic debate on multiculturalism and multicultural equality. Their chapter gives a brief historical overview of the political-philosophical paradigm and policy perspective of multiculturalism. In addition, it discusses a new frontier in academic multicultural debates: the so-called multiculturalism-interculturalism debate. Modood and De Waal also reflect on where multiculturalism and multicultural equality is now. The second part of the book contains three chapter about institutions and policies. In their chapter François Levrau and Leni Franken deal with the extent to which religion can be accommodated in the workplace. As such they provide a legal-philosophical analysis of equality in the workplace. After elaborating the difference-blind and the difference-sensitive approach, they illustrate how and why both liberal egalitarian positions can lead to different outcomes. In order to flesh out the principle of reasonable accommodation, they discuss several cases that were ruled by the European Court of Human Rights and by the European Court of Justice. A distinction is made between ‘neutral’ companies (these can be private, semi-private or public) and ‘non-neutral’ or religiously affiliated organizations. Levrau and Franken conclude with some critical remarks and illustrate how discussions about religion in the workplace are hampered by the ambiguity of a number of frequently used concepts

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such as ‘religion’, ‘reasonableness’, ‘discrimination’, and ‘neutrality’. The next chapter is from Wim Van Lancker and Aaron Van den Heede. These authors examine equality through the socioeconomic lens by analyzing the welfare state. Welfare states, they argue, emerged in times of industrialization and globalization, have since then withstood several economic downturns and financial crises, and have now adapted to profound changes in the labour market and in society. Today, the welfare state is heralded as an economic and social system that is superior to other forms of social organization in ensuring economic equality among its citizens. Yet, poverty figures demonstrate that substantial numbers of people are left behind and do not fully reap the benefits from the welfare state, while income inequality is rising within most welfare states. In their chapter, Van Lancker and Van den Heede discuss how and to what extent welfare states achieve economic equality. They focus on similarities and differences across the world, and review what type of welfare states achieve equality more than others. They conclude with a discussion of the major challenges that may jeopardize the achievement of economic equality in the future. In the third chapter of the second part of the book, Ruby Gropas focuses on the European Union perspective. In her chapter, she explains and illustrates that the EU has developed a substantial framework to promote equality, address discrimination, and manage diversity. Over the course of six decades of EU integration, the Union has integrated equality across the Union’s policies through multiple pillars combining law; funding for positive action programmes; a set of policy instruments that contribute to social cohesion, anti-discrimination and equal opportunities; and by creating spaces for mobilization, exchange of good practices, mutual learning and cooperation. Gropas considers what has driven the EU equality framework and its limitations. How have the concepts of discrimination, diversity and equity framed the EU’s framework? In a detailed way, the chapter traces the development of the Union’s framework, and argues that beyond attempting to steer Member States towards a common approach to equality, the EU institutions have taken a prescriptive approach aimed at promoting fair treatment, non-discrimination, and equal opportunities. In the third part of the book, the focus is on experiences and impressions. In her chapter Johanna Pretsch considers the relationship between

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(in)equality and (in)justice from a psychological perspective. Putting the focus on distributive justice, she outlines different justice principles (equality, equity, and need), their application, and their meaning for questions of (in)equality. Pretsch shows that from a psychological perspective one can neither say that inequality is fundamentally unjust nor that equality is fundamentally just. Rather, whether (in)equality is perceived as just or unjust depends on individual and subjective justice evaluations made on the basis of justice principles. In order to shed light on the question of how people react to inequality, Pretsch describes different psychological reactions to unfair distributions of limited resources in general. This is done for different spheres of life, namely the educational context (distribution of grades, learning conditions, attention, praise, etc.), the workplace (distribution of pay, benefits, rewards, performance evaluations, etc.), and the family (distribution of affection, recognition, control, etc.). Pretsch shows that reactions to unfair distributions are often similar regardless of the sphere of life where the unfair distribution is perceived. In their chapter, Tim Reeskens and Wim van Oorschot present an empirical answer to the question which model of redistribution Europeans prefer. Based on data from the 2008 wave of the European Social Survey, they examine whether people are appealed to the principle of equity, equality, or need. The authors consider redistributive justice preferences applied to two distinct welfare provisions, namely unemployment benefits and old-age pension schemes. In order to come up with detailed analyzes, they examine individual and contextual factors as individual opinions are not only imprints of personal circumstances, but also reflect national contexts. In the last chapter of this collection, Sieglinde Lemke discusses the role of the media in shaping the dominant view of (in)equality because artistic and media representations of economic suffering determine how a society perceives inequality. Lemke clarifies why cultural studies might inspire inequality scholars to move the current paradigm towards a transdisciplinary perspective. From its inception, this young discipline has endorsed equality to combat different, intersecting forms of discrimination. It has always integrated different approaches to generate a new critical paradigm. This chapter also bridges inequality studies with the germinating transdisciplinary field of precarity studies. Since the

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socioeconomic conditions of precarity are so diverse, and its effects so farreaching, any attempt to analyze inequality must incorporate different disciplinary approaches to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of class-based inequity. With this idea of the incorporation of different disciplines, Lemke captures neatly the main ambition of this book.

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Part II Theories & Histories

2 Egalitarianism: A Tour d’horizon François Levrau

2.1

Introduction: Treating People with Equal Concern and Respect

As ‘equality’ became an unquestioned ideal in the Western-European and Anglo-American world, both Dworkin (1977) and Kymlicka (2002) have claimed with some authority that nearly all contemporary political theories share an ‘egalitarian plateau’, that is a deep commitment to the idea that a just and neutral state should treat its citizens with equal concern and respect. Treating people on equal footing is, to borrow an apt phrase of Dworkin (1977), the sovereign duty of a political community. However many differences characterize people, as citizens they remain equal from a moral point of view and therefore deserve the same amount of respect and concern. While this moral equality is

F. Levrau (B) Centre Pieter Gillis, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 F. Levrau and N. Clycq (eds.), Equality, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54310-5_2

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unquestioned and forms the axiomatic starting point for nearly all theories, disputes arise when it comes to fleshing out the ideal of ‘treating all citizens with equal concern and respect’. For most political philosophers and in particular the proponents of (distributive) egalitarianism, treating people with equal concern and respect, is not solely about political or democratic freedom (people are equal before the law and over the law), voluntary association (the individual right to join or leave groups voluntarily) and the primacy of individual judgement (autonomy), as they take it for granted that there is also something that should be distributed in the name of equality. Notwithstanding this abstract consensus, egalitarians disagree about a range of concrete issues. One of the questions that divide the minds is what it is that needs to be distributed. This question leads to a so-called ‘currency debate’ that has stretched out far beyond the realm of philosophy, as it has also taken into account insights of the fields of economics, social psychology and public policy (Cohen, 1989; Sen, 1979). Another issue around which fierce and ongoing debates are held has to do with the principles that should guide distribution. Should we distribute according to the principle of strict equality, should we give priority to the worstoff or should we follow an alternative principle such as sufficientarism or limitarianism? A third issue deals with what is to be counted as a disadvantage that needs to be compensated. In other words, what is the place of luck and responsibility in an egalitarian theory? Should we compensate only those disadvantages that derive from brute bad luck? A fourth issue is addressed by so-called social, relational or democratic egalitarian philosophers who argue that too much energy is spent in solving the questions about the metric and distributive pattern. They claim that the real egalitarian worries should spin around the question of how to ensure that all people can face each other as equals. Distribution remains important, but its fairness is to be assessed according to the degree that it reflects egalitarian relationships (Fourie, Schuppert, & Wallimann-Helmer, 2015). A fifth issue appeals to the level and scope of application. Whatever currency and principle is chosen, egalitarians have to respond to the question whether we need to focus on the micro-level (e.g. daily choices, interactions and behaviours of individuals) and/or on the meso-level (e.g. the functioning of the national welfare state) and/or

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on the macro-level (e.g. the redistribution across countries, generations and even species). In this chapter we take up some of these questions and provide a summary about how the ‘egalitarian debate’ has been held so far. As the egalitarian literature is enormous, we cannot provide a detailed survey of that literature (for some excellent and helpful book-length assessments, see e.g. Hirose, 2015; Moss, 2014). Instead of trying to do the impossible, we make a selection of some of the most influential ideas, arguments and authors. The chapter contains seven sections of which this introduction is the first. In the second section we briefly introduce right-wing libertarianism, an influential philosophical tradition that upholds liberty as the key principle. Equality then primarily signifies an equality of individual rights, most prominently property rights. As egalitarians view the libertarian stance as highly controversial, the introduction of right-wing libertarianism provides a convenient starting point for the plethora of egalitarian ideas with which we will further engage in this chapter. In the third section we examine the ‘currency debate’ and consider ‘resources’, ‘welfare’ and ‘capabilities’, hence the three equalisanda that can roughly group the many different proposals. In the fourth section, we deal with luck egalitarianism. To what extent should a commitment to equality account for individual responsibility? In the fifth section, we consider the most popular distribution principles: ‘strict equality’, ‘prioritarianism’, ‘sufficientarism’. We also deal with ‘limitarianism’, a relatively new distribution pattern. In the sixth section we focus on what has been advocated by social egalitarianism. In the seventh and final section, we recapitulate some of the main points.

2.2

Equality and Liberty

So-called right-wing libertarians argue that justice is all about respecting people’s natural rights and freedoms, in particular, their rights to property and their rights to self-ownership. As each person is ‘separate’, he must be treated as an autonomous person that should be free to decide whatever he wants to do with whatever he owns. People are ‘ends-inthemselves’ and therefore cannot be used as a means or in a way they

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do not agree with, even if this were to lead to some supposed ‘greater good’ (a critique that Rawls formulated against utilitarianism; see section “Resource Theories”). This, for example, means that the rich do not owe something to the worse off, and certainly not as a matter of justice. If the rich and fortunate give to the poor and the weak, they must do so voluntarily (e.g. because of humanity or charity). Suppose a famous rock star such as Beyoncé Knowles whom people love to hear/see, asks to be paid 20 euros of each ticket sold for her concert. The manager agrees and also the fans seem to be willing to pay 20 euros per ticket. If 50,000 people visit her concert, our singing and dancing celebrity would earn 1,000,000 euros. In case she gives 20 performances a year, her talent and the luck she has that people admire her talent will make her earn 20,000,000 euros and thus she would become very wealthy. According to Nozick (1974)—who used the example of Wilt Chamberlain, a famous basket player to make this point—this is not unjust because everyone gave the money voluntarily. Moreover, to take the earnings away from Beyoncé in order to redistribute it according to some pattern—equality, need, sufficiency—would violate her rights to the money which she received in a rightful way. For right-wing libertarians such as Nozick, the ‘separateness of people’—the idea of Rawls (1971) that one cannot legitimately coagulate the different talents and attributes of people into one common good as if society was a person—leads to the claim that these talents and attributes belong to them and them alone, and therefore may not be used to benefit others without their consent. People thus have the right to what they produce because they own their own labour which they have invested in creating a product. Therefore, the ideal state is a ‘nightwatchman state’, a minimal state that confines itself to the protection of people’s negative rights (i.e. the rights not to be interfered with by others) and the provision of public goods (e.g. street lights and defence through the institutions of the military, police and courts). Since right-wing libertarians advocate private property rights, they strongly defend laissezfaire capitalism and, as a consequence, reject all kinds of redistribution programmes, as these are considered to be unjustifiable infringements of the freedom of people. Libertarians are convinced that the free market with its prices and division of labour gives rise to a spontaneous order

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based on the interactions of individuals who are free to do with their talents and attributes as they please. Hayek (1998, pp. 108–109) has famously defined the free market as a catallaxy, the order ‘brought about by the mutual adjustment of many individual economies in a market. A catallaxy is thus the special kind of spontaneous order produced by the market through people acting within the rules of the law of property, tort and contract ’. Moreover, the economic growth that a market economy generates would also spontaneously benefit the poorest (the so-called ‘trickle-down effect ’). The idea that the free market is ultimately to the benefit of the poor has been defended in many ways. Well-known is the Mandeville’s paradox, named after Bernard Mandeville, an seventeenth-eighteenth century philosopher, which indicates that while actions can be seen as unsound from an individual perspective they may nevertheless benefit the society as a whole. This becomes clear from the subtitle of Mandeville’s work The Fable of the Bees (1989), which reads: ‘Private vices, public benefits’. When vices flourish (e.g. an entrepreneur who works hard and becomes successful out of a need for luxury and prestige), inequality will undoubtedly arise, but ultimately all members of society will benefit. After all, the economic growth will be stimulated and due to a trickle-down effect everyone will eventually become richer. Whether or not people are virtuous may be of importance to those who want to get into heaven, but that is not necessarily required for a flourishing society. While criticizing some parts of Mandeville’s approach, also the eighteenth-century philosopher and economist Adam Smith (2007) believed that the pursuit of self-interests automatically leads to the general interest. If all people work for their own self-interest, it is as if an invisible hand leads their efforts to the common good. Let us return to Nozick. As said, Nozick radically rejects the distributive welfare state. Any random distribution of income is fair if it has been established correctly even if that would mean a reality with large inequalities. What counts is that the inequality is the product of the free exchange of consenting adults (e.g. people were willing to pay 20 euros for a concert of Beyoncé) and that a just starting position is present (e.g. everybody is free to dance or sing and to ask money for that performance). Taxes can be justified if and only if they are used to maintain

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a constitutional state that protects property. Taxes that redistribute are illegal, and nothing else than theft. For distributive egalitarians, this rightwing libertarian depiction is highly problematic as it might justify very unequal distributions of property where 1% bathe in luxury while others simply can hardly survive. Nozick, they argue, too much suggests that a choice has to be made between a tax rate of either 0 or 100%. It is perfectly possible to, for example, argue for a tax rate of 50%. In that case, Beyoncé is still well rewarded for her effort to develop her singing and dancing talents, but she has to give up part of her income for redistribution to those who have fewer talents or luck. Moreover, if justice rested indeed solely upon liberty, and if property is important to liberty, should we not ensure that everyone has at least enough property to live a free and autonomous life? In that case the redistribution from the rich to the poor becomes a matter of guaranteeing real freedom to all. These are only some of the objections that (distributive) egalitarians have directed towards right-wing libertarianism. In the next sections we unfold the egalitarian debate by focusing on several issues. We start with the question of what it is that should be distributed equally.

2.3

Equality of What? What Needs to Be Distributed Equally?

Proponents of distributive egalitarianism agree that inequality needs to be compensated. They differ, however, when it comes to defining the right equalisandum, hence the question regarding what it is that needs to be distributed equally. The answer has come in many variations which can be grouped into three categories: ‘resources’, ‘welfare’ and ‘capabilities’ (Moss, 2014).

Resource Theories Resource theorists push forward a basket of ‘all-purpose means’, things everybody needs irrespective of his/her particular conceptions of what a good life entails. While advocates of the resource position acknowledge

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that it is the ends—a term used here refers to commitments and attachments such as relationships, projects, convictions, loyalties, loves, ties and aims—that are essential to a person’s life, they believe that distributive equality is about equalizing the means to them, and not the ends themselves. To put it boldly: people should be given the possibilities to do what they want, but it is not up to the government to make sure that people effectively do what they want. The resource response comes in two main forms: John Rawls’s (1971) theory on primary social goods that should be distributed according to a number of principles that emphasize the importance of freedom, equal opportunity and solidarity and Ronald Dworkin’s (2000) modification of Rawls’s approach through a system of social security that redistributes resources according to the principles of ambition-sensitivity and endowment-insensitivity. Other examples are from those who defend a basic income and similar ideas. For all those working in the field of (distributive) justice, Rawls’s seminal work, A Theory of Justice, published some 50 years ago, is undoubtedly the most influential work. Central to Rawls’s theory of distributive justice are two principles. The first principle is the basic liberty principle that says that each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for all. The second principle says that social and economic equalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) attached to offices and positions open to all under the conditions of fair equality of opportunity (the principle of fair equality of opportunity); and (b) of the greatest benefit to the least advantaged (the difference principle). Rawls also argues that the basic liberty principle has lexical priority over the second principle, meaning that it has priority in cases of conflict. The principle of fair equality of opportunity has also priority over the difference principle. This means that people should be free to live as they want and that everybody should have had equal opportunities before redistribution can be considered. Both principles are the result of a thought experiment about ‘the original position’. Representatives of several groups have to imagine themselves in the position of free and equal persons who have to agree upon and commit themselves to the same principles of social and political justice. To insure impartiality of judgement, the parties have to reflect behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ which means that they are deprived of

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all knowledge of their personal characteristics and social and historical circumstances. Rawls believes that the conditions of the original position lead the parties to think that the most rational choice consists of the two principles of justice. After all, if people don’t know anything about their own talents, race, health, sex, age or social role, they will be inclined to consider themselves potentially occupying every position in society and will then conclude that it is in their own interest to try to make all societal positions as attractive as possible. This consideration explains why they will strive for the maximization of the minimum position, hence the ‘maximin principle’. Rawls also invokes a ‘leximin rule’—the lexicographic extension of the maximin rule—which holds that the level of the worst-off should be maximized first. It is only when all the preceding worst-off groups are equal across distributions that the level of the bestoff needs to be maximized. According to Rawls, the worst-off are those who have the lowest level of social primary goods, defined as the goods that every individual would rationally want to have (no matter which conception of the good they embrace), such as wealth, income, liberty, the social bases of self-respect and that can be distributed by a fair basic structure. The ‘basic structure’ contains the major social, economic and political institutions that distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine the division of advantages from the cooperative venture. Rawls considers a society to be a cooperative venture among free and autonomous individuals since they all agreed with the basic principles and therefore understand that it is mutually beneficial. What exactly does this mean and thus, what is the main lesson to be drawn from Rawls’s theory? A just society gives priority to the individual civil rights (basic liberties) and not to other social objectives such as economic growth or prosperity. People remain free to live their life as they please—and that freedom cannot be simply restricted by a government who would know which choices people need to make in order for them to become more happy, successful or healthy. A second principle that a just society needs to follow is equality of opportunity. Some positions are inevitably better than others. Since it is impossible to distribute all attractive positions equally among all people, access to these positions must be the same for everyone with the same competence. This suggests ‘meritocracy’ (you get what you deserve), but Rawls criticizes

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this. After all, the lack of competence can be often traced back to an unequal distribution of talents. As people have no real influence on their talents, the lack of talents must be corrected by society. Apart from the natural talents, people also do not choose their social background. While some people are born into a family or societal context that provides them with opportunities, others lack that kind of luck. There are also random factors that can hinder or favour the life prospects of people. Paul became disabled because of a congenital disease while Mary won the lottery and suddenly became a millionaire. Mohammed met an inspiring teacher like John Keating from Dead Poets Society who helped him so that a successful career became possible. Marc instead became lonely and depressed after losing his wife to cancer. Rawls argues that a correction of those three sources of inequality (i.e. the natural lottery, social origin and coincidences) is needed. The correction that he proposes is the difference principle. Inequality in income and wealth (and the power and prestige that is associated with it) can only be justified if it is to the maximum benefit of the weakest members of society. Rawls believes that absolute income equality would take away the motivation to work hard and to make an effort to further develop one’s talent. The risk is levelling down whereby ultimately not the wealth but the poverty is equally divided. A certain degree of income inequality can stimulate economic growth, but then it should benefit the least fortunate as much as possible. The question how much inequality is to be accepted remains unanswered. Some will say that a flourishing market economy in itself meets the difference principle (cf. trickle-down effect); others argue that a just society needs a substantial welfare state in order to maximize the benefits of the weakest (see also the chapter of Van Lancker & Van den Heede in this book). Rawls has outlined his theory in contrast with utilitarianism, a theory (with e.g. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill as its well-known defenders) that states that an act is right if it maximized the total sum of people’s well-being in a given society. An utilitarian thinks that some individuals may be sacrificed for the benefit of the great majority. If, for example, some people were forced into ill-paid labour and if this could benefit society as a whole, utilitarians would not always have a problem with this. Rawls, however, criticizes this by arguing that utilitarians fail to respect the ‘separateness of persons’. By focusing exclusively

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on aggregate well-being, utilitarians do not treat all individuals with equal respect and concern. By protecting the rights of every individual (i.e. the liberty and fair opportunity principles) and by promoting the economic well-being even of the least advantaged (i.e. the difference principle) Rawls makes a serious attempt to treat each individual as an equal moral being. Although most philosophers subscribe to Rawls’s advanced political thinking, his theory is not free from critique. In fact, most of the alternative theories that we will discuss in this chapter have been presented as critiques, adjustments or alternatives to the Rawlsian theory of (distributive) justice. Dworkin’s theory is exemplary. Rawls assigns value to ‘social primary goods’ according to a simple criterion: social primary goods are goods that everyone needs objectively, regardless of their interests or preferences. For Dworkin (2000), however, the resources can be personal and impersonal, the exact value of which is determined by the value that others give to it, measured objectively according to the price formation system in a free market. Impersonal resources are goods, opportunities, property, wealth and services which are transferable and which can be reassigned by social institutions. Personal resources entail such things as general fitness, physical and mental health, and wealth-talent (that is, the innate capacity to produce goods or services that others will pay for). These personal resources cannot be transferred among people. In Dworkin’s account, an equal distribution is obtained when all people have an equally satisfactory overall share of personal and impersonal resources, which is realized when people do not envy each other’s share. Since personal resources are not transferable, inequalities in their distribution should be compensated by impersonal resources. Those with disabilities, to give just one example, are entitled to extra financial resources, so as to preserve equality in the overall distribution. Dworkin, however, also believes that the distribution of goods ought to be ‘ambition-sensitive’ over time, which means that it needs to reflect people’s voluntary choices about their preferences, projects, convictions and tastes. As people live different lives have different personalities and preferences, they should not end up with an identical bundle of resources. Thus, as people should have the freedom to live their lives as they please, the overall distribution of resources can become unequal. For Dworkin this is unproblematic, as long as the inequality stems from

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voluntary choices, preferences or tastes and not from endowments—the distribution therefore should also be endowment-insensitive. The point is that someone’s share in resources can change during life, but the distribution may not be affected by differences in talents among people with the same ambitions. Being disabled cannot (to a reasonable extent) justify a difference in the possibility to realize ambitions. This might imply that Charlotte, who is disabled, needs extra finances compared to her sisters Emily and Anne. However, the fact that Emily has lived a rather ascetic life while Anne chose a hedonics lifestyle with liquor, fast car and plenty of caviar is not a reason for Anne to complain when she has a shortage of money to buy a house that is as comfortable as the one of her sisters. Dworkin clarified his ‘luck egalitarian’ ideas through several thought experiments which we will describe in somewhat more detail in section “Dworkin’s Luck Egalitarian Critique to Rawls”. Other influential resource proposals come from Philippe Van Parijs (1995) and from Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott (1999), who believe that all citizens have a right to share in the wealth that has been accumulated by preceding generations. This unconditional resource, as they argue, would lead to a society that is more democratic, productive, equal and free. It would give ‘real freedom’, in the words of Van Parijs (1995), as people would be freed from the need to do wage labour or to do dirty and dangerous work. For Van Parijs this unconditional resource takes the form of a ‘basic income stream’ whereby the government pays a regular sum to each citizen over an adult lifetime with no conditions attached. This means that it is an income that is monthly paid in money, not in nature, that is not only independent of the willingness to work (so also people who spend their days surfing in Malibu should be given the income as to guarantee equal opportunities to live their life as they want), but also of the family situation (divorced, no children, ten children) and of the income or assets of the recipient that is being granted each month (the rich and the poor get the same amount). When combined with the Rawlsian maximin principle, it could be considered an instrument that counters enduring types of socioeconomic inequality and promotes social mobility. After all, since socioeconomic inequality is accepted if and only if it is in the advantage of the worst-off, the unconditional resource should be as high as possible while still being payable for the

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state (there must be enough willingness to work and tax capacity to finance the unconditional resource). At least in theory the basic income could be universal, but that is—given that distribution usually takes the form of national schemes—not possible, at least in short terms. Van Parijs, however, has worked out a proposal for a Eurodividend, meaning that the basic income could be developed at three levels: the nation state, Europe and the world. However, it is unclear whether those levels can really be separated. A country that has a high basic income would most likely attract plenty of migrants, a situation that could jeopardize the national system of basic income. It is also difficult to really predict the consequences. What will be the impact on people’s willingness to work? Will the system be financeable? Will it be sufficient as a tool to fight poverty? Will it make societies more tight and cohesive? Although smallscaled experiments have been done, it is hard to draw general conclusions (Van Parijs & Vanderborght, 2017). Ackerman and Alstott (1999) have not defended a ‘basic income’, but a ‘basic capital grant ’, a one-time unconditional capital grant from a government to all young adult citizens. Recently also Piketty (2020) has defended a similar idea. He wants to use the proceeds from a wealth tax to finance a general subsidy for every citizen. At the age of 25 all French citizens should receive a lump-sum cash payment of 120,000 euros. This could bring more justice as at this moment half of the French population does not inherit anything. The money could, for example, be used for the purchase of a house. In this way, what is prevented is the social division between people who have to pay rent (often from generation to generation) and those who receive the rent (a position which is often also passed on from generation to generation). The lump-sum could also be thought to encourage people to start a business themselves or to buy shares in a company. Although Van Parijs might have some sympathy with that proposal, he believes that a monthly payment of a basic income better mitigates the possibilities of people wasting all their money due to bad decisions, addictions, etc. An alternative, therefore, could be a negative income tax. In that case the government gives money to people who earn less than a certain amount and those who earns more are (progressively) taxed on capacity. So money is not just given to everyone, but only to those who

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earn less than a certain amount (which is calculated each year on the basis of the tax bill). The advantage is that the amount of money that needs to be redistributed becomes smaller. However, such proposal can also be criticized: for example, the poor have to wait a year before they get anything while they might have pressing needs, and they are also left in the dark for a long time before they know if they will get something. Atkinson (2015) has criticized the unconditional character of the basic income or basic capital grant. He states that one can demand people to do something for the income they receive. People should do something for society in return (e.g. volunteering, unpaid care, help in education). This would turn the unconditional income into a ‘participatory income’. Yet another alternative would be a basic income in natura. This might take the form of strong investments in public goods: free education of good quality, accessible healthcare, efficient administration of justice, good infrastructure for roads, sports, arts, etc. While these public goods may not be so important for the rich, for the poor they are really vital. The ideas of a basic income or basic capital connect to a school called ‘left-wing libertarianism’. Like ‘right-wing libertarianism’ that we referred to in Sect. 2.2, its proponents argue that persons have moral property rights over their own person and that they can acquire a right to full (self-)ownership. However, like Rawls and Dworkin and many other egalitarians, they also assert that property rights over external resources (that is, natural resources such as fertile soil, water, minerals, energy sources and artefacts such as money) should be distributed in an egalitarian manner. Right-wing libertarians defend a large degree of inequality in property rights over external goods. Initially, natural capital belongs to everyone, but anyone who makes the effort to exploit it can claim it for himself. However, if someone claims something for himself, he thereby limits the possibilities of the other. The basic restriction they accept is that one can only claim something as own property if enough and of the same quality remains for others. This is the so-called ‘Lockean proviso’ as it has been introduced by seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke. Otsuka (2003) does not plea for ‘enough and as good’, but for an egalitarian distribution of the external resources and therefore start from what has coined the ‘egalitarian proviso’: ‘You may acquire previously unowned worldly resources if and only if you leave enough so that

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everyone else can acquire an equally advantageous share of unowned worldly resources’ (Otsuka, 2003, p. 24). The idea that everyone is entitled to an equal share of the world’s natural resources leads to the idea that a fair distribution of natural resources means that those who acquire more than an equal share should compensate those who have less (e.g. Otsuka, 2003; Steiner, 1994; Van Paris, 1995). However, this is not a form of ‘redistribution’, but rather a recovery for those who took too much to those who are left with less than they were entitled to, namely an equal share of the earth’s natural resources. Left-libertarians like Otsuka thus argue that natural resources, but also manufactured goods that are in no one’s possession (so-called ‘declared goods’, such as goods that were found or were given like heritages) equally belong to everyone and therefore defend such policies as an universal basic income or basic capital grant. It is argued that, from a moral point of view, nobody has a greater claim on such resources and goods than others. Therefore, this so-called ‘manna from heaven’ (the wealth that nature and previous generations offer) must be distributed among all persons in an equal or fair manner (Vallentyne & Steiner, 2001). For left-libertarians it is a bitter observation that social mobility is still an illusion. Clark (2014), for example, has illustrated that despite the Enlightenment, the industrial revolution, the advent of capitalism, mass education, the welfare state, universal suffrage, the emancipation of women social mobility in all the countries that were surveyed (i.e. England, USA, India, Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Chile, Sweden) is still as small as in the Middle Ages. So, despite all rhetoric about elevation and emancipation social status is, so to speak, as hereditary as one’s height. Similarly, in an interview with McElwee, Branko Milanovi´c (2014), leading scholar on income inequality, states that: ‘At least half of your income is determined by where you live, which for most people is where you were born. Then about 20 percent is due to the income level of your parents. So, your citizenship plus your parental background explain around two-thirds or even 70 percent of your income. Then, obviously, if I had data for gender, race, ethnicity and other things, which are similarly exogenously ‘given’ to an individual, that percentage would go up, perhaps to more than 80 percent ’. This means that more than 80% of someone’s income depends on matters over which he has no control. The fact that

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people do not owe the vast majority of their prosperity to themselves, but to their ancestors and, more generally, to the rest of society, should not surprise us as it was already known by the classical liberal thinkers. Thomas Paine (1974 [1796]), for example, was one of the first who claimed that people do not really deserve their wealth. Already in 1797 he wrote that every principle of justice, gratitude and civilization would suppose that the right to property is temporary and that possession needs to flow back to society (e.g. via succession taxes). If individual prosperity largely comes from ancestors, according to Paine, it would only be fair to give everyone a dividend of progress. With such a dividend, all people could benefit from the resources of the earth and the hard work of previous generations. The most important redistribution, therefore, would not take place between the rich and poor, but between generations. As such Paine clearly was one of the first to advocate a certain universal and unconditional basic income—not as a gift or reward, but as a right (see also Van Parijs & Vanderborght, 2017).

Welfare Theories Resource theories rely on a basket of objectively identifiable goods that every individual would rationally want to have, such as income, liberties, social bases of self-respect, rights and wealth. Welfare theories, instead, invoke a subjective currency. The general claim is that what should be equalized is what is supposed to really matter to individuals, namely their preferences as to how to live their lives. Granting people equal resources does not necessarily mean that people will have equally satisfactory lives. Therefore, if it is ensured that everyone’s preferences are equally satisfied everyone has been provided with the same respect towards their different values and choices about how life ought to be lived. Thus, according to welfarists, one should not check the amount people have in terms of resources, but whether all people subjectively experience their life as equally enjoyable. Richard Arneson (1989, 2000a) and Gerald Allen Cohen (1989) are two of the main scholars committed to this view. Arneson has made the particular claim that what needs to be equalized is people’s opportunity to welfare and not so much welfare itself. In order

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to obtain ‘equal opportunity to welfare’, everyone should be provided with a range of options that is equivalent in terms of prospects for preferential satisfaction. Arneson thus sees welfare as preferential gratification. The preferences he uses as a measure of individual welfare are ‘hypothetical ideally considered preferences’ or ‘hypothetical rational preferences’, which are preferences that one would have after a perfect deliberation (where decisions are made with complete information, in a calm mood and with a clear spirit that abstains from reasoning errors). Arneson does not claim that the opportunities for welfare should be equalized at any particular moment in someone’s life, since people remain responsible for (some of ) their choices. If Mireille, for example, has cultivated an expensive taste for haute couture dresses and, as a consequence, has fewer opportunities at a specific moment, she should not complain. What is important to assure is that she was initially provided with an equal opportunity for welfare. Think also of two people, Basil and Manuel, at a certain point in their lives. They both have the choice between a whole series of options, each associated with a possible outcome. Suppose we know the probability of every outcome given that Basil and Manuel would choose that option. If Basil chooses a certain option while Manuel chooses another option, different outcomes will be realized. As a consequence both Basil and Manuel will have different vectors of new choices. When they then make new choices, new outcomes will be the result, as well as new vectors of choices will appear. As such it becomes possible to construct a decision tree that represents all possible life courses. Arneson asserts that we need to count the expected preference gratification for every possible life course and then compare whether or not Basil and Manuel had the same opportunity for welfare. ‘Equal opportunity for welfare obtain among persons when all of them face equivalent decision trees – the expected value of each person’s best ( = most prudent) choice of options, second best,… nth best is the same’ (Arneson, 1989, pp. 85–86). No matter how interesting this theory may be, it remains a very abstract one and it is not sure if it will be ever possible to measure the ‘welfare tree’ in the way Arneson proposes. Cohen (1989) has criticized Arneson’s view. Based on an example of Dworkin, he wants us to consider a person, Jude, whose starting position is characterized by fewer resources than everyone else, but also by

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equal welfare since his desires are easily satisfied. However, after having read Death in the Afternoon, the book written by Ernest Hemingway about the ceremony and traditions of Spanish bullfighting, Jude starts to cultivate expensive tastes such as watching bullfighting, which requires making trips to Spain. However, since Jude has so few resources, he cannot go to Spain and thus is unable to satisfy his (new) desire. As Jude has less welfare than everyone else, he might ask additional resources to equalize the distribution of welfare. Arneson then would probably reply that since Jude had an equal opportunity for welfare at the beginning and has voluntarily chosen to cultivate the expensive bull fighting, his request should be refused (think about the example of Mireille). Cohen, however, believes that Jude should be given additional resources, as his starting position was characterized by fewer resources than everyone else. While Cohen criticizes Arneson’s theory for having neglected the importance of resources, he also criticizes Dworkin for having neglected the importance of welfare. To illustrate his critique to Dworkin, he invokes the example of a man who is only able to move his arms effectively at the cost of serious pain, which can only be relieved by an expensive medicine. Egalitarians, Cohen asserts, should provide the medicine, but not for reasons that have to do with correcting a deficiency of resource. What drives egalitarians in this case is easing the pain, and it is this idea that makes Cohen a welfarist. As Cohen assessed both Arneson’s and Dworkin’s theories as incomplete, he considered an alternative, which is a somewhat hybrid currency of ‘equality of access to advantage’ that takes into account a person’s resources as well as his welfare. This makes his theory broader than the ones of Arneson and Dworkin, insofar as ‘advantage’ includes welfare as well as the resources needed for the satisfaction of one’s preferences. Unlike Arneson, it is for Cohen not about ‘equal opportunity’, but about a stronger version thereof: ‘equal access’. Cohen’s ideal can be understood through the example of friends who go on a camping trip. Cohen (2009) argues that on a camping trip, the traditional market principles disappear and are replaced by solidarity and community reciprocity. Whoever uses capitalist market principles based on greed and fear in this context would quickly become unpopular. If, for example, one of the friends discovers an apple tree, he would not think of claiming ownership and of demanding money for every apple that the

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others want to eat. Someone with a huge talent for fishing will also not request that he gets the best fish that he has caught. On a camping trip everyone is touched by the same principles of solidarity and community and therefore contributes according to his abilities. Cohen believes the camping trip is based on a specific type of equality of opportunity. He distinguishes three levels. The first level is ‘bourgeois equality of opportunity’ which involves the removal of formal and informal restrictions on equal life chances. Examples of formal restrictions are serfdom and slavery, while racial prejudice is an example of ‘informal restriction’. The second level is ‘left liberal equality of opportunity’, which seeks to compensate for circumstances of birth and upbringing. The aim is to ensure that people’s life chances are determined by their native talent and their choices rather than by their social backgrounds. Examples are head-start education programmes for those from deprived backgrounds. The aim is that in the end those with the greatest talent get the best jobs. The third level is the ‘socialist equality of opportunity’ which holds that differences in native abilities are as unchosen as differences in social background. As a consequence, also the inequality that arises out of native differences needs to be compensated. This leads to a socialist society (like in the camping example) where differences of outcome only reflect differences of taste and choice, and not differences in natural and social capacities and powers. In a society where socialist equality of opportunity prevails, for instance, everyone is paid the same hourly rate for their work, leaving differential outcomes a matter of pure taste or preference. Differences in income thus reflect nothing more than different tastes for the time spent working. It is this type of society that Cohen prefers, as everyone enjoys the same access to advantage. Although adopting welfare as the currency of equality might have a strong intuitive appeal, it runs into several problems. Shorten (2015) mentions two issues that need to be considered. The first is the possibility of ‘adaptive preferences’ (Sen, 1992). People may have lowered their desires and ambitions in light of the circumstances or they may suffer from ‘false consciousness’ which makes them believe that they deserve low degrees of satisfaction. The welfare they seek is thus not an authentic form of welfare. The second consideration refers to ‘expensive tastes’. Should people be given more resources so that they can achieve the same

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level of welfare as those with less expensive tastes? To put it like this: should people like Mireille who developed a taste for champagne be given extra resources compared to those who prefer drinking water and milk? It might be counterintuitive to compensate people who have embraced expensive tastes; but are these people always responsible for their tastes? We deal with this in Sect. 2.4.

Capability Theories The capability approach was initially proposed by Amartya Sen (1992, 1999) and further developed by Martha Nussbaum (2000). Sen (1979, p. 216) famously wrote that it ‘can be argued that there is, in fact, an element of “fetishism” in the Rawlsian framework. Rawls takes primary goods as the embodiment of advantage, rather than taking advantage to be a relationship between persons and goods’. Capabilists share the conviction that what matters is not which resources you have or what level of subjective welfare you can achieve, but rather what you can actually do and be (Robeyns, 2017a). Both Sen and Nussbaum promote the role of empowerment in human development, which means the enhancement of substantive freedom of individuals to achieve a lifestyle they value. According to Sen one should not look at what people have, but what they can do with what they have. After all, different individuals might need different packages of resources to function to the same degree, dependent on their particular needs. To make his point clear, he introduced the distinction between a ‘functioning ’ and a ‘capability’. The former is an achieved being or doing (e.g. being nourished, literate or healthy), whereas the latter is one’s opportunity to achieve a certain functioning. If, for example, a rich individual decides to fast, he lacks the functioning of nutrition, but he still has the capability to nutrition. While the rich person can still nourish himself if he would want to, he simply chooses not to do so. This situation is fundamentally different for a poor person who lacks the money to feed himself and therefore involuntarily suffers from hunger. According to Sen, what we should be concerned with is ensuring capabilities rather than functionings. After all, the larger the set of capabilities, the greater the (real and positive)

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freedom. For Sen, ‘real freedom’ is an object of equality. A government should give its people real freedom, as much as possible, in the sense that the basic capabilities should be equally present among all. This also means that his theory does not care about individual responsibility. While ‘luck egalitarians’ (see Sect. 2.4) seem to act as judges, Sen abstains from making judgements on how people live or should live. While Sen assumes that different societies may have different priorities and thus never came up with a list of capabilities, it is Nussbaum (2000) who provides a provisional list of ten capabilities, a list that she claims has universal validity (see Fig. 2.1). This means that everyone should be entitled to these capabilities. If one does not have them up to a certain threshold, truly human functioning has not been achieved, and therefore justice has not been done. Nussbaum presents the list as an absolute minimum requirement of humanity. As compromises are not possible, the consequences of this view are substantial. Take the example of Charlotte, a disabled woman. As she deserves equal opportunity to have a fulfilling life, this might imply expensive medical care as well as substantial support to live independently, to move everywhere and hence a lot of accommodations so that she has equal opportunities to sport, study or work. The costs can be very high and therefore one could ask whether the society should not spend the money on other goals, for example to the expansion of the port. For Nussbaum, however, the right of every human being to develop his/her capacities to a reasonable maximum is primordial. Wolff (2015) asserts that the strength of the capability approach of Nussbaum is at the same time its weakness. Arguing that there are many things that define human development and a good functioning life is an appealing idea, but, if there is indeed a plethora of dimensions of well-being, it is unclear how one can know who is worst-off in a society and to whom the egalitarian attention should be directed. Wolff and de-Shalit (2007), however, have argued that disadvantage tends to ‘cluster’ and those who do badly in one respect usually also do badly in another. People who suffer from poor health frequently also lack social networks, a sense of belonging and have no real control over their life, etc. These authors have also emphasized that one should examine whether people can sustain their functionings. This means that

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the capability approach also needs to consider ‘risk’ and ‘vulnerability’. As Nussbaum also defends the view that animals are equally entitled to a thriving life, there is not only a lack of a clear rule of any prioritization between the various requirements on the list, but there is also no real priority rule between human and animal claims. A further complication is that Nussbaum does not really take into account the scarcity of 1. Life: Being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length. 2. Bodily health: Being able to have good health, including reproductive health; to be adequately nourished; to have adequate shelter. 3. Bodily integrity: Being able to move freely from place to place; to be secure against violent assault, including sexual assault and domestic violence; having opportunities for sexual satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction. 4. Senses, imagination, and thought: Being able to use the senses, to imagine, think, and reason – and to do these things in a way informed and cultivated by an adequate education. 5. Emotions: Being able to have attachments to things and people outside ourselves; to love those who love and care for us, to grieve at their absence; in general, to love, to grieve, to experience longing, gratitude, and justified anger. 6. Practical reason: Being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one’s life. This entails protection for the liberty of conscience and religious observance. 7. Affiliation: Being able to live with and towards others, to recognize and show concern for other humans, to engage in various forms of social interaction; to be able to imagine the situation of another; having the social bases of self-respect and non-humiliation; being able to be treated as a dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others. 8. Other species: Being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature. 9. Play: Being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities. 10. Control over one's environment: Being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one's life; being able to hold property; having the right to seek employment on an equal basis with others.

Fig. 2.1 Ten capabilities according to Martha Nussbaum (Source Nussbaum [2000])

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money and social resources. As a philosopher she is very generous, but her generosity is impossible to be directly translated into concrete political actions. Compared to Nussbaum, Sen may be a better source for politicians. After all, unlike Nussbaum he does not defend the provision of capabilities in deontological terms, but he rather takes a consequentialist stance. So, it is not about absolute requirements but rather about a set of policy objectives and the associated search to create fulfilling lives. Compromises are then inevitable. Unlike Nussbaum, Sen connects justice much more with deliberative democracy, a model that is based on citizen consultation. As such Sen believes philosophers should not impose an image of how society should look like; the social priorities should be set by the citizens themselves in democratic debates.

2.4

What Is the Role of Individual Responsibility in Egalitarian Theories?

Proponents of ‘luck egalitarianism’ consider it to be of fundamental importance to know how the inequality occurred. When the inequality reflects differences in factors that are beyond someone’s control or choice, then it is bad or unjust and needs to be compensated. As we have already touched upon, Dworkin probably was the first to defend this stance, as he criticized Rawls for having neglected people’s responsibility for their choices. Dworkin in fact has started an interesting discussion about the role (and definition) of luck.

Dworkin’s Luck Egalitarian Critique to Rawls Rawls believes the design of a fair basic structure should not be affected by morally arbitrary factors. This is why he invokes the idea of an ‘original position’ whereby the parties sit behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ and thus are unaware of their talents, natural and physical endowments, social position, gender, race, etc. Rawls believes that in this situation where morally arbitrary factors are neutralized, the parties will unanimously choose the two principles of justice. Rawls’s theory has led to

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an enormous philosophical library filled with critical notes, adjustments or rejections (see e.g. Freeman, 2003; Kukathas & Pettit, 1990). As we have seen, capability theorists such as Sen and Nussbaum point at the likelihood that the chronically ill, physically handicapped and untalented are still worse off in terms of functioning, even if they possess the same bundle of social primary goods. These individuals need additional resources. Rawls’s difference principle, they assert, fails to neutralize the bad effects of arbitrary natural or social endowments. Another critique states that the parties in the original position are supposed to be deprived of specific attitudes towards risks. But, as the parties are supposed to support the difference principle, Rawls believes them to be very risk-aversive. Why would the parties, for example, not opt for other principles, such as the maximization of the average-position with a certain floor? At this point, Rawls’s theory might benefit from a stronger connection with psychological experiments/insights (see also the chapter of Pretsch in this book). Another critique is that the difference principle considers the basic structure and the end-state distribution of representative individuals of different groups (i.e. the worst-off ) in society. Nagel (1979), instead, argued that it makes more sense to consider specific cases of distributive judgements, the states of individuals as such, and to identify the worst off as those who have the greatest potential loss. A related critique is that people’s choices obviously impact their life situation. Some people, for example, may have chosen to spend their days surfing in Malibu rather than working for a living and, as a result, suffer from a lack of wealth and income. Should a distributive theory not check what has caused people to be disadvantaged? Dworkin (2000) takes these and related critical points seriously. He has clarified his ideas by elaborating a thought experiment about a shipwreck whereby the survivors come ashore on a deserted island full of resources. How then should the resources be distributed? A preliminary remark here is that everyone is to be treated as an equal and therefore must be granted equal purchase power. A first idea concerns the distribution of all available resources according to an ‘auction system’ where everyone receives the goods and services he values. Dworkin emphasizes the importance of the ‘no-envy principle’: in the end nobody may envy the bundle of goods and services of someone else. It is precisely an

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auction that provides the best guarantee for the no-envy principle since the prices that arise from bidding at an auction reflect the value that people attach to goods. The action thus leads to ‘equality of resources’ (that means that all people have the resources they wish to have). When time goes by, inequality will arise as people with disabilities, for example, will have used their resources more rapidly and will therefore find themselves in a situation where it is no longer possible to lead ‘normal lives’ compared to others. Dworkin, therefore, invokes two additional principles: ‘ambition sensitivity’ and ‘endowment insensitivity’. Differences that arise because of differences in personal preferences should not be compensated, while resources that arise because of differences in innate talents must be eliminated. It is at this point that Dworkin introduces another idea, namely the ‘hypothetical insurance market ’. All people at the island are asked to imagine that they will, at a certain moment in their life, become disabled. They then have to consider how they want to cover that risk financially. This means that everyone contributes to the insurance market, meaning that those who in real life do become disabled will be compensated with the average amount for which citizens have secured the risks. People obviously will not invest all money in the insurance market because they want to hold money for other things in life. People will also not choose to be insured for treatments with a minimal chance of success and they will spend less money to the insurance company at the end of their lives. Note again that the hypothetical insurance market gives an indication of the extent of the social solidarity that we, as a collective, want to accept. The average of the preferences of the citizens is a guideline for answering the question of what percentage of the national income should be spent on health insurance, care for the disabled and the like. The question, however, remains whether those who indulge expensive tastes to the detriment of their resources also deserve compensation. Dworkin believes that people should bear the costs of voluntary preferences (such as expensive tastes). This means that Dworkin wants to provide compensations for differences in resources resulting from differences in circumstances (the distribution of resources should be

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endowment-insensitive), but not for differences that arise from ambitions and preferences (the distribution of resources should be ambitionsensitive). In order to compensate endowments, Dworkin considers two alternatives. One might, for example, argue that talents are resources for a society and that the more naturally talented are not allowed to benefit from their talents. Dworkin, however, rejects this because it would lead to the ‘slavery of the talented ’. Another option is a ‘hypothetical insurance market ’ analogous to the already described insurance market. People are placed behind a veil of ignorance and are not informed about the income that can be earned with certain talents. People, obviously, would not sacrifice all their initial resources, as that would lead to them being unable to pursue their ends. Dworkin’s thought experiment is thus a tool to predict (1) which type/amount of insurance the average member of a community would purchase and (2) the extent to which people are willing to claim the fruits of their talents and hence what a fair distribution could entail. At this point it becomes clear that Dworkin wants to compensate for all shortfalls in resources (material resources and mental and physical capacities) but he is not eager to compensate for preferences. ‘Dworkin’s cut ’, so to say, is the distinction between preferences (people are considered to remain responsible for their tastes, choices and ambitions) and resources (people are not held responsible for the shortfall in material resources, and mental/physical capacities or talents). Inequality may only reflect differences in what people seek and aspire, but not in their ability to get things. This view has been criticized, among others by Roemer (1986) who argues that if people have different preference structures, this is often the result of differences in congenital characteristics (e.g. hormones, adrenaline). People can also not be fully held responsible for how they deal with their preferences, because how you deal with preferences—are you capable of suppressing desires or are you rather impulsive—can also be traced back to innate characteristics.

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Expensive Tastes: Dworkin vs. Cohen According to Dworkin, a distributive scheme should be ‘ambitionsensitive’ (sensitive to people’s voluntary choices) and ‘endowmentinsensitive’ (only those inequalities that do not result from people’s choices give rise to moral concern). To make this intuition somewhat more substantial, he proposes two types of luck: ‘option luck’ and ‘brute luck’. ‘Option luck’ refers to luck that is in a person’s control and therefore people could be held responsible for the bad effects. ‘Option luck is a matter of how deliberate and calculated gambles turn out – whether someone gains or loses through accepting an isolated risk he or she should have anticipated and might have declined ’ (Dworkin, 2000, p. 73). ‘Brute luck’, instead, implies luck that is beyond someone’s control. Brute luck is ‘a matter of how risks fall out that are not in that sense deliberate gambles’ (Dworkin, 2000, p. 73). If Jenny goes blind as a result of a genetic disease, her brute luck is bad. If she falls over a stone and finds a hidden treasure, her brute luck is good. If Jenny buys a lottery ticket and wins a huge amount, her option luck is good. If she gambles and loses a lot of money, her option luck is bad. According to Dworkin, only the bad conditions resulting from brute luck that, in no way can be foreseen and that one could not be protected from, should be compensated as, in that case, people cannot be held responsible for being worse off compared to others. Lippert-Rasmussen (2001, p. 551) somewhat summarizes the view of Dworkin as follows: ‘Equality does not require the state to tax people with good option luck in order to compensate people with bad option luck, however. Nor does it require the state to compensate people who suffer bad brute luck where suitable insurance was available to them’. In Dworkin’s account, a certain misfortune is the result of option luck, if and only if the agent has deliberately chosen a certain option out of a pallet of alternatives. Although Dworkin admits that it is difficult to draw a clear line between option luck and brute luck, he argues that people should be held responsible for the bad effects of their preferences and tastes, as these are not matters of brute luck but of option luck. Take two friends, Lionel and Christiano, whose resources are equal. While Lionel prefers a diet of milk, bread and beans, Christiano has a deep preference for expensive wines and plover’s eggs. Since Christiano’s epicurean

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lifestyle is expensive, he must spend more resources to satisfy his preference and therefore ends up worse off than Lionel. If equality of welfare were the main idea, Christiano, who cultivated expensive tastes, should be provided with extra resources compared to Lionel, who decided to stick to cheap meals. According to Dworkin (2000) it makes no sense to provide him with additional resources, considering that he embraced his preference and must therefore be held responsible. It would be different if he had not endorsed his preference for the expensive diet. In that case there is a ‘craving ’, a preference Christiano wishes not to have, and therefore, does not form a part of his personality. In that case he is merely saddled with the taste and regrets it, like in the case of obsessions and addictions. His taste would be like an unwanted disease. Cohen (1989, 2004) has criticized this Dworkian view on expensive tastes. Cohen appreciates that Dworkin has attempted to incorporate the ideas of choice and responsibility into an egalitarian theory, but he believes the right cut is not between ‘preferences’ and ‘resources’ (cf. people are responsible for their preferences, but not for the resources), but between ‘responsibility’ and ‘bad luck’. He argues that if people are to be held responsible for their tastes and preferences, we must examine first whether they had a genuine choice in developing the taste and preference (see also Roemer, 1986). Cohen, therefore, distinguishes between expensive tastes for which the bearer can reasonably be held responsible and those for which he cannot. ‘There are those [tastes] which he [an individual] could not have helped forming and/or could not now unform, and then there are those for which, by contrast, he can be held responsible, because he could have forestalled them and/or because he could now unlearn them’ (Cohen, 1989, p. 923). So, while Dworkin argues that people with expensive tastes should bear the differential effects of their tastes (with the eventual exception of cravings), Cohen argues that they must only bear these effects if the taste reflects a genuine choice. According to Cohen someone is responsible for the outcome of his choice if he had control over the formation of his preferences or taste. As we have already mentioned in Sect. 2.3, for Cohen, an ideal (socialist) society is a society where inequality reflects the outcome of genuine tastes and choices. Suppose a young woman, Virginia, has a preference for expensive art

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books. This preference is not a matter of bad luck, as she strongly identifies with this preference and does not regret having it. The fact that art books are expensive, however, is not something for which she can be held responsible. Virginia not only had no influence over it, she even might dislike the high prices. Cohen would say that there was no equality of access to advantage. It would, however, be different if Virginia cultivates expensive art books for snobbish reasons. But, as Lippert-Rasmussen (2013) mentions, if Virginia regretted living in a social context in which it is valuable to satisfy snobbish preferences, it would be unjust not to compensate her expensive preferences.

A Plethora of Visions Hirose (2015) defines Dworkin’s understanding of option luck as the ‘crude choice view’, while Cohen’s proposal is defined as the ‘genuine choice view’. While Dworkin and Cohen are some of the brightest philosophers who have dealt with the question what ‘luck’ entails, they are not the only ones as the issue has caught the attention of other philosophical heavy weights (see Hirose, 2015). Peter Vallentyne (2002) and Shlomi Segall (2010), for example, endorse the view that a person should be held responsible for a certain outcome if it had been reasonable for him to expect the outcome and to avoid it. This vision could be called the ‘reasonable avoidability view’. Suppose Winston is a heavy smoker of cigars. It would be reasonable for him to know the risk associated with tobacco consumption and consequently to stop smoking. The outcome (e.g. bad health) is reasonably avoidable if he could foresee and understand that this might result from his choice for smoking. In Eric Rakowski’s view (1991) there is hardly any ‘brute luck’, as almost all inequalities reflect the differential effects of option luck. The upshot is that people can be held responsible for almost any bad outcome. This ‘no-luck view’ sharply contrasts with the view of Barry (2008), Fleurbaey (2001), Lippert-Rasmussen (2001) and Otsuka (2001) who are more attached to the ‘all -luck view’, hence the view that ‘option luck’ hardly exists as almost all inequalities reflect differential effects of brute luck. For proponents of the ‘all-luck view’ only a few

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people can be held responsible for bad outcomes. They thus place the cut between ‘intended outcomes’ and ‘unintended outcomes’. Barry (2008), for example, argues that a person can only be held responsible for a bad outcome if he deliberately and intentionally chooses that outcome. Winston must bear all the costs of his choice if he really wants to have bad health caused by smoking. However, since only a few people would intentionally choose to end up worse off, the ‘all-luck view’ is likely to support equality of the outcome. Most proponents of luck egalitarianism, however, are to be placed somewhere between the ‘no-luck views’ and the ‘all-luck views’ (Hirose, 2015). Peter Vallentyne (2002), for example, proposes an ‘equal initial opportunities view’. He makes a distinction between two types of brute luck. Initial brute luck refers to those factors that affect the lifetime prospects of people up to the moment where they can be considered responsible for their choices and decisions. By contrast, later brute luck is about those factors that have an impact on the individual outcomes after people can be considered responsible. According to Vallentyne, only the initial brute luck should be compensated. Another view is the ‘fresh start view’ as outlined by Marc Fleurbaey (2005, 2008). In this view, ‘forgiveness’ takes up an important role. Imagine Bart who regrets the mismanagement of his share of resources at an earlier stage of his life. Dworkin, Arneson and Cohen would claim that since Bart is responsible for his earlier spendthrift ways, he should now bear the negative consequences and not rely on a resource transfer from better off people (e.g. the steadfast frugals like his sister Lisa). Fleurbaey, however, asserts that the possibility to make mistakes and to change one’s mind is an important aspect of freedom. If Bart regrets his past and is committed to a new life trajectory, he must be forgiven. This means that he should be given a fresh start, thereby justifying a transfer of resources from better off people. The ‘fresh start view’ endorses the idea that the costs of past decisions must be shared by the whole community. By introducing the notion of ‘forgiveness’, Fleurbaey hopes to make luck egalitarianism less harsh. Luck egalitarians have indeed been criticized for espousing a very crude paradigm. If the granting of compensation depends on the way people live, people’s lives have to be examined and evaluated. According

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to Anderson (1999), this goes hand in hand with intrusive, moralizing and stigmatizing judgements of people’s life. This appeal to responsibility could undermine the emergence of a society where everyone stands as an equal. Wolff (1998) has made the particular claim that luck egalitarianism results in humiliation and insult because of ‘shameful revelation’. Take the example of Homer who got an unemployment benefit, but first had to prove that he tried to get a job, but simply was not talented enough to be accepted. When Homer was granted a compensation for natural misfortune such as ‘lack of talent’, this can be experienced as highly humiliating. Intrusion into someone’s privacy would then be considered to be worse than accepting that some people are unrightfully compensated. According to Segal (2010) things are not as bad as they seem. Instead of being a comprehensive theory of justice, luck egalitarianism is just a distributive principle that is part of a broader theory that consists of many principles, some of them possibly implying the meeting of basic needs. This pluralism would lead, for example, to helping Dominic, who drove ‘too fast and furious’ and as a consequence was heavily hurt and to help Winston who got cancer because of his reluctance to quit smoking cigars. Luck egalitarians may deny medical care to the reckless driver and smokers, but they can invoke that other values might override considerations of responsibility. Relational egalitarians (see Sect. 2.6) such as Anderson (1999), Wolff (1998) and Scheffler (2003), for example, do not deny the importance of responsibility, but its role should not be decisive in determining when and how much distribution is needed.

2.5

Which Redistribution Principle?

So far we have examined what should be distributed. This is not the only question that worries egalitarians and that has led to many different visions. One of the main questions in the egalitarianism debate deals with the preferred principle. Should we distribute according to ‘strict equality’, or should we consider who has priority or should we think that everybody must have enough?

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Let us, however, as an entry to the discussion first consider why we would value equality. Why, thus, should we think that ‘equality’ of some sort is important? One reasoning says that equality has an ‘instrumental value’. In this case equality is good as a means. We value equality because we know that it contributes to other valuable outcomes and because we are concerned with the bad effects of inequality. Wilkinson and Pickett (2009, 2018), for example, have illustrated the many pernicious effects that inequality of income and wealth have on the individual and societal well-being. Besides the concern that inequality leads to poor ‘biopsychosocial outcomes’, there is also the hypothesis that it would impede economic growth. This has been elaborated upon in the works of scholars like Atkinson (2015), Piketty (2014), and Stiglitz (2012), as well as in several recent OESO and IMF-reports (Cingano, 2014; Ostry, Berg & Tsangarides, 2014). The overall claim here is that redistributive progressive taxes and all kinds of measures that minimize the income inequality are not necessarily at odds with economic growth. This sort of socioeconomic evidence confirms that ‘equality’ might have an instrumental value, as it would lead to a ‘better’ and generally more pleasant society. Another reply is that we have moral reasons to strive for equality. Deontological or deontic egalitarians as they are called, believe that we should strive for equality insofar as inequality involves the violation of rights, fairness or justice. Gosepath (2015) refers to the ‘presumption of equality’: equal distribution is not just one alternative among many, but it is the inevitable starting point of justice. The presumption is that everyone, regardless of individual differences, should have an equal share in the distribution unless certain types of relevant differences justify, on universally acceptable grounds, unequal distribution. This stems from the unquestioned viewpoint of moral equality and hence from the equal standing of people as members of the political community. Treating people with equal respect and concern thus implies strict distributive equality, unless there is an overruling reason. Also Scanlon (2002, 2018) asserts that what is wrong with inequality—and hence why equality is important—is the comparative character, meaning that income and wealth inequality denies the moral equality of people as some are considered or treated as inferior or, in the worst case, as even not fully human (see also the chapter of Levrau & Clycq in this book). According to

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O’Neil (2008) and other ‘social egalitarians’ equality is a much needed ideal because it leads to social relations where self-respect can flourish (see Sect. 2.6). Yet another possible reply comes from ‘teleological or telic egalitarians’ who believe that equality has an intrinsic value. Equality is valuable for its own sake, independently of any other feature external to equality. This means that equality is always valuable and hence cannot be trumped by other values. The distribution of resources, for example, will always be better if there is a strict equal distribution. Derek Parfit (1995), however, has argued that there are two serious problems with this idea of strict equality: ‘the levelling down objection’ and ‘the scope problem’. In response to both flaws, he has defended another distributive principle, namely prioritarianism. This ‘priority view’, however, is not the sole alternative to ‘strict equality’, as other principles have been put forward, such as ‘sufficientarism’ and ‘limitarianism’. Below we consider this quartet of distribution patterns.

Strict Egalitarianism According to Parfit (1984, 1995) the ‘strict equality view’ runs into two problems. The first problem that Parfit has detected is the ‘scope problem’. As equality is intrinsically valuable, telic egalitarians must hold the view that everybody should be equally well off. However, Parfit (1995) believes this is highly problematic, as there are at least two cases in which this appears counterintuitive. The first is the ‘divided world case’. Parfit does not think that it would be problematic in itself if population A is unequal with population B, given that both populations are unaware of each other’s existence. The second is the ‘Inca case’. Parfit does not believe it is in itself bad if Inca peasants who ceased to exist ages ago were worse off than we are now. Telic egalitarians, however, can respond here that equality is valuable for its own sake when it is about related groups and when it is about living (or future) people (Hirose, 2015). The second problem with telic egalitarianism is the ‘levelling down objection’. If inequality is deemed to be an intrinsically bad thing, telic egalitarians are committed to strict equality, which means that it would

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be a good idea to lower the well-being of the better off to the level of the worse off without benefiting any person. So, if they believe equality has an intrinsic value and is therefore valuable for its own sake, they must be concerned with eliminating inequality whenever and wherever it occurs. In that case they must agree, for example, with taking away people’s sight in order to make them equal with the blind. In Parfit’s account this ‘strong egalitarian position’ is absurd. The levelling down objection, however, has led to many responses. One response is from Andrew Mason (2001) who believes the levelling down objection can be avoided. He defends ‘conditional egalitarianism’ the view that equality is valuable for its own sake if and only if some people are benefitted. The ideal of equality does not allow making the situation of one person worse if that would not lead to a better situation of another person. Another response is from Larry Temkin (2002) who believes that most people would think it is morally bad if sinners fare better than saints. People, for example, would prefer a situation X where the well-being of the saints is higher than that of the sinners to a situation Y where the saints and the sinners have the same level of well-being (which is equal to the level of the saints in X). So, while someone like Parfit would claim that situation Y is to be preferred as the saints are not less well off and the sinners are better off—Parfit believes that the well-being of people should not be compared but should be assessed on its own—Temkin would posit that X is to be preferred because there are ‘impersonal principles’ that are relevant to assess the positive value/good of certain outcomes. Parfit, in fact, cannot cope with the fact that our most treasured ideals (e.g. fairness, but also justice, knowledge, truth, beauty) are impersonal, meaning that they do not necessarily contribute to individual well-being. So, according to Temkin it is certainly possible that a change that makes everyone worse off, and no one better off, can be a change for the better. The third response is from John Broome (1991) who holds the view that if inequality is bad, it is bad for the worse off person, but it is neither good nor bad for the better off person. This means that it is impossible to make everyone equal without at least making one person better off. This reply, however, expects that we are willing to analyze injustice in pure individualistic terms (personal badness).

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Prioritarianism The intrinsic view of telic egalitarianism holds that equality is about the relation between different people’s well-being. That explains why they have no problem with levelling down, as it equalizes the outcomes of different people. Parfit (1995), however, rejects strict equality. He does not claim that inequality is bad in itself, but contends that our attention should foremost go to benefiting the worse off, hence he proposes the ‘priority view’. To avoid the allegedly absurd implication of levelling down, Parfit’s preferred distribution principle is non-relational . People are worse off in absolute and not in relative terms. The level of well-being of people thus should not be compared—what counts is that people are at a lower absolute level than they might have been. Parfit (2000) captures this idea via the analogy of people at higher altitudes for whom it is harder to breathe. In one obvious sense it is clear that they face these difficulties because they are higher up than other people. Parfit, however, emphasizes that even if they were the only people on earth, they would find it just as hard to breathe—comparison with others living at lower altitudes is thus not so relevant. In the same way, benefits to the worse off matter more, but that is only because these people are at a lower absolute level. For prioritarians it is irrelevant that these people are worse off than others. This non-relational character implies that the ‘maximin rule’ (giving absolute priority to the worst-off ) and the ‘leximin rule’ (giving lexical priority to the worse off ) are no versions of prioritarianism. After all, both rules judge who is entitled to compensations by comparing the well-being of people and therefore are not non-relational. This also means that Rawls’s difference principle (see section “Resource Theories”) that allows social and economic inequalities on the condition that these are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged is no real example of prioritarianism. Another defining feature of prioritarianism (next to ‘non-relationality’) is the ‘law of diminishing moral goodness’ which states that benefits to people who are better off matter less; consequently the importance of well-being diminishes as the absolute level of well-being increases. The positive value of an increase in people’s well-being diminishes independently of other people’s well-being, because it is about the difference with

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an absolute level. This is an important difference with utilitarianism (the view that an act is right if it maximizes the sum or average of people’s well-being). As Hirose (2015) explains, according to utilitarianism, the moral importance of one unit of a person’s well-being remains constant, regardless of the absolute level of his well-being. Take a society where ten rich people received extra welfare, compared to a society where the same amount of welfare has come into the hands of ten people who live under a generally accepted minimum. For utilitarians, the total welfare in both societies has equally increased; for prioritarians instead, the welfare in the second society has increased more because of the law of diminishing moral utility. Like all distribution principles, prioritarianism is not free from critique (Hirose, 2015). One concern is that the absolute weighing of the needs of the worst-off might lead to less efficient outcomes. Take the example of Abraham, an old person who suffers from a rare disease. This disease cannot be cured, but if one were to provide him with some extremely expensive medical treatment, he would be brought at the level of well-being just above adequate. Should we not instead choose to use the financial resource to raise a lot of people in a less worse off group to a very high level of well-being? This is an important question as in any society, the resources are limited and distribution choices need to be made. Arneson (2000b) takes this objection seriously and defends a version of ‘weighted prioritarianism’. The moral importance of a benefit to a person depends on criteria such as the existing absolute level of advantage of the recipient and the degree of responsibility of the recipient for that level of advantage. Another critique comes from Otsuka and Voorhoeve (2009). Prioritarianism, they say, is unconvincing as it violates the principle of ‘the separateness of persons’ (a principle that we already touched upon in Sect. 2.2). The priority approach cannot distinguish between intrapersonal and interpersonal cases. Take the example of Maggy, for whom it would be legitimate to sacrifice one unit of her present well-being for the sake of ten extra units of her well-being in later life. The ten extra units of her future well-being offset one unit of her present well-being. It is, however, not legitimate for Maggy to sacrifice one unit of her current well-being for the sake of ten units of benefit for another person. The difference between both cases is that in

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the former case, Maggy experiences both the one unit of loss and the ten units of gain, whereas in the latter case, there is no single person who experiences the gain as well as the loss. This viewpoint resembles Rawls’s critique of utilitarianism whereby some people may be sacrificed if that maximizes aggregate utility (see section “Resource Theories”). As Hirose (2015) points out, those who believe that Otsuka and Voorhoeve have made a strong critique must agree that the idea of the separateness of people is an overriding moral argument not to ask people to lose a little when that loss could be a great help for others.

Sufficientarism While telic egalitarianism and prioritarianism contend that we should give priority to benefiting the worse off (respectively in a relative and absolute sense), the sufficientarism doctrine contends that we should examine whether or not people are below a certain threshold. Prioritarians focus on the worst off, but the worst-off may not always have urgent moral needs and thus their situation should not automatically upset us. Like prioritarians, sufficientarians are interested in how people’s lives go in an absolute and not a relative sense. While there are several versions of sufficientarism, most are committed to two theses, which Casal (2007) calls the ‘positive thesis’ (benefits to those below the sufficiency level are prioritized over those above the sufficiency level) and the ‘negative thesis’ (benefits to those above the sufficiency level are given no priority). According to Harry Frankfurt (1987), what is important from the point of view of morality is not that everyone has the same, but that each has enough. So, if everyone has enough, it is of no moral consequence whether some have more than others. Hirose (2015) understands Frankfurt’s version of sufficiency as a ‘headcount view’ since the only thing that really matters is the maximization of the number of people above the sufficiency level (the positive thesis). Well-being above that level is morally irrelevant (the negative thesis). David Wiggins (1998), however, has proposed a less extreme version. While Frankfurt only considers the number of people beneath the sufficiency level, Wiggins also takes into account the size of the shortfall from the sufficiency level. Take two

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groups of five people. In the first group, there is only one person who falls deeply beneath the sufficiency level. In the second group, there are two people who only fall slightly beneath that level. Frankfurt would think the first group is better, while Wiggins would say it is the second group. This is so because Wiggins argues that stronger vital needs must not be sacrificed to lesser ones. Another difference is that Wiggins is not committed to the negative thesis. He does not say that well-being above the threshold level is morally irrelevant (as Frankfurt does). He, however, does not take position in what distribution principle is to be preferred for those above the sufficiency level. He might as well defend a principle called limitarianism, as we will discuss below in section “Limitarianism”. John Skorupski (1999) puts forward a ‘threshold justice version of sufficientarism’ which holds that one should maximize aggregate utility subject to a threshold below which no individual is allowed to fall. His theory takes into account both the positive and negative thesis. The positive thesis is accounted for since bringing everyone up to the sufficiency level is considered to be a constraint on the maximization of aggregate utility above the threshold level. The negative thesis is reflected in the fact that equal weight is given to lifting each person above the threshold and thus no priority is given to people above the threshold. In the same vein, it should be mentioned that while Rawls’s theory is well-known for two principles of justice (the basic liberty principle and the principle that says that inequalities are to be arranged so that they are of the greatest benefit to the least advantaged and reflect fair equality of opportunity), he admitted that in the real world situations can occur which hamper people from enjoying the basic needs. This reality leads him to consider the need for the third principle of justice that lexically precedes the two other principles. For a possible formulation of this principle, Rawls (2001) refers to Peffer (1990, p. 14) who claims that ‘Everyone’s basic security and subsistence rights are to be met: that is, everyone’s physical integrity is to be respected and everyone is to be guaranteed a minimum level of material well -being including basic needs, i.e., those needs that must be met in order to remain a normally functioning human being ’. Rawls agrees that there is much discussion about the specific height of the ‘social minimum’ and discusses several ‘ideal institutional descriptions’. He prefers ‘liberal democratic socialism’ and in particular ‘property owning

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democracy’. This means that Rawls’s theory is, at closer examination, also a version of ‘threshold justice’. Yet another version of sufficientarism is from Roger Crisp (2003, p. 16) who has proposed the ‘compassion principle’ which runs like this: ‘Absolute priority is to be given to benefits to those below the threshold at which compassion enters. Below the threshold, benefitting people matters more the worse off those people are, the more of those people there are, and the greater the size of the benefit in question. Above the threshold, or in cases concerning only trivial benefits below the threshold, no priority is to be given’. This means that there is (1) an absolute priority to benefiting those below the sufficiency level over those above that level (the positive sufficiency priority thesis); (2) relative priority to benefiting the worse off among those below the sufficiency level (the positive sub-sufficiency priority thesis) and (3) no priority to those above the threshold (the negative sufficiency thesis). The upshot is that a non-trivial benefit to people below the sufficiency level outweighs the large loss for people above, as long as nobody falls below the sufficiency threshold. According to Crisp, the sufficiency level is the point at which compassion is no longer an issue. To put it like this, benefiting people above the sufficiency level has nothing to do with compassion. But, while Crisp simply assumes that compassion does not come into degrees, Hirose (2015) argues that it makes perfect sense to think that it does. If the level of compassion is indeed not discontinuous between those above and those below the sufficiency level, trade-offs might arise between the badness of sub-sufficiency and the goodness of supra-sufficiency well-being. The sufficientarism doctrine is not without critique. A rather obvious remark is that the choice of the absolute level of sufficiency is morally arbitrary. If that is indeed the case, the whole doctrine rests on a morally arbitrary factor. However, it is not sure whether a ‘vague criterion’ is by definition an ‘arbitrary criterion’. Anderson (1999), for example, has connected ‘sufficiency’ to the possibility to participate in democratic society. According to Nussbaum (2006), everyone is entitled to the threshold levels of capability necessary for a truly human life. Frankfurt (1987) believed the thresholds to be determined by whether or not people are content with what they have. But when are people content? The threshold could be very high and therefore not attainable for many

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people (which leads to a reintroduction of priority and ranking considerations). Frankfurt’s claim is also prone to the critique of ‘adaptive preferences’, whereby a person is content with what he has because of his habituation to bad circumstances. Frankfurt, however, believes that contentment is a matter of what we can reasonably expect people to be content with. But, in that case, the character of the threshold changes from a rather subjective (what a person should be content with) to a rather objective character (what people should be content with according to some standard). Another objection is a direct criticism of the negative thesis (Hirose, 2015). The claim is that it matters a lot whether or not transferring benefits come from a person far above the sufficiency level or from a person just above it. In response, proponents of sufficientarism can install multiple thresholds. Benefiting people below the lowest threshold matters more than benefiting people above that threshold, and benefiting people below the second lowest threshold matters more than benefiting people above the second lowest threshold, and so on. They can additionally claim that in order to bring a person to the level of the lowest threshold, benefits should be transferred from the person far above the lowest threshold rather than from a person just above it. This altered version of sufficientarism, however, comes very close to prioritarianism.

Limitarianism Telic egalitarianism (equality is something intrinsically valuable), prioritarianism (attention should go to the worst off ) and sufficientarism (attention should go to ensuring that everyone has enough) provide alternative ways of determining how social institutions should be arranged and how the equalisandum (be it resources, welfare or capabilities) should be distributed. While these three schools differ, they have in common the presumption that we should place foremost in our considerations the position of the ‘weakest’ (be it in a relative sense or in an absolute sense and be it in terms of priority or sufficiency). ‘Limitarianism’, however, provides an innovate perspective as it changes the scope insofar as it focuses on the ‘best off ’. Limitarians are worried about the fact that some people are extremely rich. To give just one staggering

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example: according to Oxfam (2017), the economic richness of the eight richest people in the world is as big as the poorest half of the entire population. According to limitarians it is morally objectionable when people have ‘too much’; they therefore aim to justify an upper limit to wealth. Limitarians are shocked by the ‘incredible’ imbalance in wealth. In the words of Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist known for her (self )portrays, states: ‘There is so much wealth and so much misery at the same time, that it seems incredible that people can endure such class difference, and accept such a form of hunger while on the other hand, the millionaires throw away millions on stupidities’ (Kahlo, in Ankori, 2013, p. 85). Ingrid Robeyns (2017b) has sketched some of the basic ideas of this new and promising approach. If the aim is to limit richness, it should first be made clear what ‘richness’ exactly entails. ‘Richness’, she argues, is the opposite of ‘poorness’. Poverty is usually grasped by a ‘poverty threshold’. Those below the threshold are not living a minimally decent life and therefore can be qualified as ‘poor’. If richness is the opposite of poorness, there must be a kind of ‘richness threshold’. Anyone who is above this threshold has more money and material goods than necessary for a maximally flourishing level. The limitarian metric is ‘the power of material resources’, a monetary metric that reflects the power individuals have to turn their income into material quality of life. Limitarianism, then, can be restated as the doctrine that holds that it is morally bad to have ‘surplus money’. It is therefore not about those who are the best off, since they can also be below the threshold. Richness should also be conceptualized in a way that accounts for context since depending on the place and time, other convictions exist on what it means to live a ‘fully flourishing life’ and therefore what it needs for such a thriving lifestyle. Robeyns (2017b) argues that the definition of such a life should be the outcome of a political decision, and therefore must be determined through a deliberative process. Philosophers could then give input as to what a flourishing life would look like. Marx and Engels (2004, p. 53), for example, famously wrote about a life where it would be possible for people to do several things, ‘to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic ’. This, however, is only one portrayal

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of a good life around which a possible deliberative and intersubjective consensus might arise. Robeyns (2017b) defines two main reasons for limitarianism. The first argument is the ‘democracy argument ’ which says that richness is detrimental to political equality insofar as rich people are able to translate their financial power into political power. She also relies on Christiano (2012) who has described four mechanisms that clarify how the rich might gain political impact. (1) The rich can fund political parties and individuals. Those who donate will get special treatment or greater support for their causes. (2) The rich can set the agenda for collective decision making. Since the affluent are much more likely to contribute to campaign financing, and since donors choose to give money to people who have the same values and beliefs, those who cannot donate will not have their interests and views represented in the election debates or on the ballot. (3) The rich can influence opinions by buying media outlets which they can use to control both the spread of information and the arguments that are exchanged in public debate. (4) The rich can undermine democratically chosen aims by using their economic power. Large companies, for example, can blackmail politics by threatening to relocate their economic activity. One might counter that this is not so much a problem of wealth, but about the ‘spill -over effect ’ of the financial sphere to the political domain. Walzer (1983) referred to the possibility that in hierarchical societies high-status groups may use their power, advantages and superiority in one sphere to gain influence and dominance in other spheres. To correct this, Walzer has outlined the idea of ‘complex equality’, which posits that inequalities in the many spheres of society may not invade one another. ‘(…) complex equality means that no citizen’s standing in one sphere or with regard to one social good can be undercut by his standing in some other sphere, with regard to some other good. Thus, citizen X may be chosen over citizen Y for political office, and then the two of them will be unequal in the sphere of politics. But they will not be unequal generally so long as X’s office gives him no advantage over Y in any other sphere – superior medical care, access to better schools for his children, entrepreneurial opportunities, and so on’ (Walzer, 1983, p. 19). The spill-over effects should be mitigated through institutional measures, but it remains to be seen whether this would actually limit the impact of the rich as they usually

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have a lot of social capital and thus can fall back on influential networks. We should thus not only consider what Wolff and de-Shalit (2007) have depicted about clustering disadvantages in section “Capability Theories”, but should be aware that also advantages go together—which they call ‘fertile functioning ’—and that it remains a fairly open question how they can be disentangled. Walzer’s (1983) conviction is that a just society must be able to protect its weakest members from the power and impact of money. It must create spheres where money is simply not such an issue. Also Sandel (2012) has influentially claimed that there are moral limits of markets and that we should not allow that money can buy everything. That, in fact, is a call for a sufficient supply of high-quality public facilities. Especially for those who are poor, accessible healthcare and legal assistance, free education, well-organized public transport, public parks and sports infrastructure are of great importance. The rich can afford a large garden, they can send their children to elite schools, hire private security firms, consult the best specialists with regard to health problems. A just society is therefore one that guards the boundaries between the various social spheres and where there is no room for class medicine or elite schools. The second justification for the limitarian doctrine is the consequentialist ‘argument from unmet urgent needs’ (Robeyns, 2017b). Limitarianism depends on whether or not one of the following three conditions are met: (1) ‘the condition of extreme global poverty’: a world in which there are many people living in extreme poverty, and whose lives could be significantly improved by government-led actions that require financial resources; (2) ‘the condition of local or global disadvantages’: a world in which many people are not flourishing and are significantly deprived in some dimensions and whose lives could be significantly improved by government-led actions that require financial resources; (3) ‘the condition of urgent collective-action problems’: a world that is faced with urgent (global) collective-action problems that could (in part) be addressed by government-led actions that require financial resources. Robeyns (2017b) argues that in the world as we know it, all three conditions are met. The upshot is that there are needs that have a higher moral urgency than the desires of the rich that could be met by their surplus money. The limitarian principle is thus supported by a modified version

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of the ‘rescue principle’ as first outlined by Singer (1972) and recovered by Scanlon (1998) which states that it would be morally wrong if people did not make a slight/moderate sacrifice when in a situation where they could potentially prevent something very bad from happening or where they could alleviate someone’s dire plight. Robeyns (2017b), however, argues that the ‘argument from unmet urgent needs’ is less demanding and radical, considering that it only makes a claim about moral duties related to surplus money. So when Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, and one of the richest persons in the world, donates to charities via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, this is to be qualified not as an example of philanthropic charity, but as a moral duty to distribute surplus money.

2.6

Social Egalitarianism

Limitarianism is a promising approach as it gives a new twist to the question what egalitarians should focus on, in case the question whether there should be a limit when it comes to richness. Limitarians do not strive for strict equality, but they want to redistribute the surplus money so that the excessive inequality is undone and people, all over the world, have enough to live a flourishing life. It is the approach that seems to be defended by Shakespeare in the play of King Lear: ‘So distribution should undo excess, and each man have enough’ (Pascussi, 2013). One of the arguments (i.e. the democracy argument) that limitarians invoke comes from a branch called ‘social egalitarianism’. Social egalitarians remind us that not all goods are scarce—for instance belonging, community, friendship or status. One person’s enjoyment of these goods is not done at the expense of others. If one were to focus only on the equal distribution of material goods, one would be neglecting social (or relational or democratic) equality. Social egalitarians thus acknowledge the moral significance of distribution, but they determine the fairness of a distribution by the extent to which it contributes to a society where all members can live together as equals (Fourie et al., 2015). Although questions raised by distributive justice remain important, social egalitarians consider them to be subservient to the broader idea of relational

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equality. According to Shorten (2015) three different characterizations can be given to the ideal of social equality: (1) no status hierarchy and domination; (2) no oppression and (3) the presence of an egalitarian, social ethos. In the three first sections below, we present the central tenets.

No Status Hierarchy and Domination The first feature is that social equality contrasts with ‘status hierarchy’. What matters for social egalitarians is that people are regarded and treated as each other’s equals. This means that they condemn hierarchies indicating that some individuals or groups are thought to be superior to others (Miller, 1999; Scanlon, 2018). Such status hierarchies can be found in aristocratic and caste societies where a person’s title or ancestry goes hand in hand with nobility and honour. It can, however, also be observed in a more subtle way, as in modern hierarchies based on class, religion, gender and race. Philip Pettit (2012, 2014) has claimed that hierarchies often come along with domination, which is a social relation where one person/group has the capacity to interfere arbitrarily in another’s course of action. In Pettit’s philosophy, one can hear an echo of Voltaire (2010, p. 115) who wrote: ‘All men would then be necessarily equal, if they were without needs; the poverty connected with our species subordinates one man to another: it is not the inequality which is the real misfortune, it is the dependence’. For Pettit people are always ‘vulnerable’, being unable to develop their human ability outside social life. This means that they are forced to live together—a viewpoint that he shares with among others Axel Honneth (1995) who has argued that people are fundamentally dependent on the recognition of others. According to Pettit people are not equally vulnerable, since it is the social conditions that reduce or increase vulnerability. Politics should therefore prevent the transformation of relations of mutual interdependence into ones of domination. Politics should not aim to eliminate all forms of vulnerability—as said, human beings are social creatures—but should try to create a state of non-domination where nobody is threatened in their autonomy and capacity to participate

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equally in society. To see if people are equal and thus free from domination, Pettit (2014) proposes three tests (for interpersonal relations, for relations between the individual and the state, and for relations between states). The first is the ‘eyeball test ’. People do not depend for their security on the indulgence and condescension of others. They can walk and talk and assume the status of an equal with anybody else (even the most powerful in the land). People’s basic liberties are protected to the extent that they can look each other in the eye without any reason for fear or deference. It is basically about freedom under the law. Somewhat in the same vein, Walzer (1983, p. xiii) has sketched ‘a society of misters’, hence a society ‘without bowing, scraping, fawning and toadying and with no fearful trembling and high-and -mightiness’. The second test is the ‘tough luck test ’. Governments equally support and protect its people so that any collective decision that goes against an individual gives him no reason to think that the decision is a sign of a malignant will working against him or his kind. He just had tough luck. It is basically about freedom over the law. The third test is the ‘straight talk’ test whereby people know that their states are considered as equals and that their concerns will be taken into account during negotiations. ‘(…) the straight talk test requires that the peoples of the world each have such resources and protections in dealing with other states and other global bodies that the contributions of their representatives in international debate and diplomacy can reasonably be construed at face value. They are contributions made in public exchanges where the parties each command respect; none has reason to speak in the presumptuous tones of the master and none in the mealy mouthed tones of the servant ’ (Pettit, 2014, p. xxvii).

No Oppression A second element is that social equality contrasts with ‘oppression’. The most influential voice here is Iris Marion Young (1990), who argues that egalitarians need to focus on how social structures empower some people while oppressing others. If one looks at the raison d’être of social

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movements, it becomes clear that they did not (only) strive for distribution, but wanted emancipation, namely to become free from slavery or bondage. Young argues that there are ‘five faces of oppression’ in modern society and that all types of oppression share two elements. The first of these elements is that oppression is always experienced by groups (such as the disabled, elderly, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, immigrants, the poor and women). The second element is that oppression is structural, meaning that it is being produced and reproduced as a part of the institutional infrastructure of collective lives. The ‘five faces of oppression’ are the following: The first face is ‘violence’, which entails the overt expression of the majoritarian power. Homosexuals, ethnic minorities and women, for example, are oppressed when they live in homophobic, racist and sexist societies in which they are harassed, intimidated, degraded, stigmatized or ridiculed. Another face is called ‘exploitation’ and occurs when an employer is able to make employees work on whatever terms he determines. The employer’s power, status and wealth are hereby built upon the efforts of the have-nots and their lack of access to the means of production. While the term ‘exploitation’ is mostly used to describe a specific relation between employer and employee, there can also be exploitation in the marital sphere when women, for example, have to do unpaid domestic labour that benefits the male spouse in order that he be free to engage with other and often higher-status activities. Feminist scholars such as Susan Moller Okin (2005) have also vigorously argued that the rights of women are often not respected in minority cultures as they are supposed to listen to patriarchal dictates. ‘Powerlessness’ is the third face of oppression and means that people lack the autonomy that is needed to really influence the decisions that shape their life. Employees, for example, may suffer from powerlessness when they have no impact on the decisions made by their employers and immigrants are powerless when they lack the right to vote. ‘Marginalization’, the fourth manifestation, occurs when certain groups have no real opportunities to participate meaningfully in major social activities and institutions (e.g. the workplace). A fifth face is ‘cultural imperialism’ which occurs when the identity of certain groups is excluded or stereotyped or made invisible by the majority group.

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This last type of oppression has been given particular attention in the so-called ‘multiculturalism debate’ with such authors as Will Kymlicka (1995), Tariq Modood (2007), Bhikhu Parekh (2000) and Charles Taylor (1994) (see also the chapter of Modood & De Waal in this book). Since people’s distinct identities heavily depend on the dialogical negotiation with others (see also Pettit’s concept of ‘vulnerability’), multiculturalists believe it is important that these identities are not misrecognized by fellow citizens and social institutions. Honneth (1995) famously argued that if (1) people are maltreated, they will feel humiliated and their self-confidence will be damaged; (2) when they are excluded from citizenship and denied the rights to which they are entitled, their self-respect will suffer and (3) when their way of life with which they identify is denigrated, then their self-esteem is at risk. So, what proponents of the ‘multicultural politics of recognition’ assert is that not only are conditions of physical insecurity and resource deprivation a source of oppression, but also the misrecognition of ethnocultural or religious identity. Multiculturalists believe that treating members of minority groups or disadvantaged or oppressed groups ‘as equals’—the fact that one is being given equal respect and concern—does not always imply ‘identical treatment’, since it may well require ‘differential treatment ’. Here follows just one example. Due to history and nation-building policies, the majority religion is incorporated in public holidays. Multiculturalists then defend either a politics where rules imply also accepting exemptions or the formation of new and more inclusive laws so that exemptions are unnecessary. Some luck egalitarians, most prominently Brian Barry (2001), however, have responded that religious and cultural claims are similar to expensive tastes and therefore should not be recognized (see also the chapter of Levrau & Franken in this book).

An Egalitarian Social Ethos While Young (1990) has outlined a detailed theory of oppression, other and often more subtle forms of oppression could be added to her list. Shorten (2015), for example, gives the example of students who are unable to afford high-status brands and are therefore ridiculed by fellow

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students and are not invited for social activities. This type of oppression is not captured by what Young had in mind with ‘violence’ and ‘marginalization’. In a similar way, certain women (but also men) can suffer from a lack of self-esteem and can be ridiculed because of not meeting the ideal of beauty (whatever that may be) (Fourie, 2015). Rodrigues and Przybylo (2018) and Sims (2018) have discussed issues related to ‘lookism’ (inequitable treatment based on physical appearance discrimination) and have considered the need for a ‘politics of ugliness’ that fights against visual injustice and uphold notions of self-worth. Social egalitarians can put the finger on these types of maltreatment by defining, respectively the societal ethos of the school and of the wider society as inegalitarian. Jonathan Wolff (1998) and Gerald Allen Cohen (2008, 2009) have influentially claimed that egalitarians need to consider what it takes to live together in harmony. What should then be put under scrutiny is the ‘ethos of a society’ and thus whether the members of a society share a commitment to the same underlying set of egalitarian values that influence the principles people adopt, and that inform their everyday behaviour, choices and practices. In the example of the camping trip (see section “Welfare Theories”), we already mentioned how Cohen (2009) believes the ethos to be connected with ‘communal reciprocity’. People feel committed to each other and serve one another because they truly care about each other and not because they want something in return. In such a community, people acknowledge the ideal of equality and take egalitarian principles to be the polar star for their everyday decisions and behaviours. Their actions are not led by market incentives such as economic greed and fear or jealousy, but are spontaneously directed towards the least advantaged members. Cohen (2008), in fact, has launched a fierce critique of Rawls’s difference principle (see section “Resource Theories”). Rawls, he says, has not considered in much detail the behaviour of the talented people who receive incentives. The only condition is that the incentives maximally benefit the worst off. Cohen, however, believes that if one were really devoted to the ideal of equality, one could not agree with, for example, a surgeon who asks more money than necessary—this means to ensure that he becomes a surgeon in the first place and does not choose to do a job that requires less knowledge and responsibility. At a certain point the

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surgeon can blackmail the weak and thus the society as a whole. Cohen proposes the ‘interpersonal test ’ for ‘talented citizens’ such as the surgeon to justify their extra financial rewards. ‘An argument fails the interpersonal test, and is therefore inconsistent with community, if relevant agents [such as talented and rich person] could not justify the behavior the argument ascribes to them’ (Cohen, 2008, p. 44). In Cohen’s account, the surgeon cannot justify why he needs additional incentives if he can achieve the same productivity without incentives. The face-to-face condition of the ‘interpersonal test’ makes it difficult for the surgeon to say that he will only save someone’s life if he is paid more money. The ‘rich/talented’ who request extra incentives must therefore be considered as outsiders of the community or as insiders who behave unethically. If the ‘talented’ were truly devoted to the equality that the difference principle intends, they would apply it in a stricter manner, only asking for extra financial incentives if proven strictly necessary (e.g. to improve the quality of medical services). This point is nicely captured in the intriguing title of one of his books: ‘If you are an egalitarian, how come you’re so rich’ (Cohen, 2000). If the rich are inspired by the ideal of equality, they should feel shame when asking the extra money. In a sense Cohen’s interpersonal test resembles Pettit’s eyeball test—although the latter was especially for the weak to check whether they were socially accepted so that they no longer have to be ashamed or feared. Cohen is particularly worried about the contrast that is usually drawn between personal and political issues and therefore emphasizes the importance of creating and maintaining a moral climate that makes society ‘egalitarian’ and, therefore, according to Cohen, ‘just’. A just society must therefore cultivate an ‘egalitarian-economic ethos’ that determines personal behaviour. With his dictum ‘the personal is political ’, his thoughts connect well with feminist concerns for the need for caring relations (e.g. Noddings, 1986). While Cohen has examined the role of the egalitarian ethos in the sphere of distributive justice, in another publication (Levrau, 2018) I have somewhat argued why and how the way ordinary people socially interact across ethnocultural and religious diversity shapes the stability, success and fairness of a multicultural society. In that sense I plead for the embrace of an ‘interpersonal ethos’, a concept

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that relates well with the idea of ‘deep equality’ (Beaman, 2017), hence the micro processes that make up the everyday negotiations with a focus on respect, humour, neighbourliness and friendship.

Redistribution and Recognition The main message of social egalitarians is that redistribution measures are necessary because they lead to more egalitarian relations. This means that ‘social relations’ are the fundamental, overarching moral category. Nancy Fraser (1995), however, seem to deplore this, stating that ‘distribution’ and ‘social recognition’ need to be considered as two distinct, yet essential, parts of a socially just society. She fears that the attention to aspects of recognition can only come at the price of proper attention towards distribution. Honneth (2001, p. 54) does not see any tension, since ‘Conflicts over distribution, as long as they are not merely concerned with just the application of institutionalized rules, are always symbolic struggles over the legitimacy of the sociocultural dispositive that determines the value of activities, attributes and contributions. In this way, struggles over distribution, contrary to Nancy Fraser’s assumption, are themselves locked into a struggle for recognition’. According to Lippert-Rasmussen (2015) the relational phenomena with which social egalitarians are preoccupied can be subsumed under the distributive realm as ‘civic friendship’, ‘equal relations’, ‘freedom from public shame’, ‘non-domination’, ‘recognition’, ‘social respect’ and the like can be treated as the equalisanda that need to be equally distributed. He thus seems to be on a different track than Honneth. Some people, he says, are lucky to be recognized, while others have bad luck and need to be compensated by a redistribution of recognition. Some multicultural champions have also formulated their ‘recognition theories’ in distributive terms. Kymlicka (2007), for example, has stated that the access to the societal culture—the national context that provides options and makes them meaningful to us—is like a Rawlsian primary social good that needs to be equally distributed or a resource the loss of which will be covered by the insurance market of Dworkin. Social egalitarians, however, would not entirely agree with these stances.

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They do not consider ‘recognition’ as a valuable resource that can be clearly measured and therefore equally distributed. ‘Social standing’, for example, is not to be measured in individual holdings, but is rather internal to specific relations. The upshot is that a society with equal and respectful relations has intrinsic value. Interestingly Rawls (1971) asserted that ‘the social bases of self -respect ’ (which he explains in institutional terms supplemented by features of the public political culture such as the public recognition and acceptance of the principles of justice) are the most important primary good. Not surprisingly, this claim has been somewhat neglected by distributive egalitarians, because it is difficult to ‘distribute’ non-material goods that lack a clear definition. Moreover, liberal theories of distributive justice can probably not ensure that background cultures, institutional structures and individuals’ motivations are sufficiently free of racism, gendered injustice and other forms of domination and thus need to be complemented with or subsumed under a broader ideal of social egalitarianism. Another and related critique is that it is unclear what it really means to live in a society of social equality. Social egalitarians can describe fairly well what they are against (they strive for the eradication of domination, hierarchy, oppression, racism, servility, sexism, snobbery, subordination and the like), but they lack a positive account of social equality. For distributive egalitarians who are fixated on distributing something, this vagueness is problematic, but for social egalitarians the lack of a clear currency is not.

2.7

Conclusion

For some decades, taking John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) as a landmark, egalitarianism has been the dominant theory (or family of theories) about distributive justice. The axiomatic starting point of all distributive theories is that justice requires that people have (roughly) equal shares of certain goods. This distributive appeal to equality comes in three variations. The first type of valuation is that equality might have an intrinsic value and that inequality as such is morally wrong. Most egalitarians, however, do not think ‘equality’ is an independent or ‘standalone’ value and believe other things can play a role in the formation of

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a just society. A second valuation of equality therefore states that equality is morally important because it contributes to or would even be necessary for some valuable outcomes (e.g. inequality leads to poor health outcomes, erodes solidarity and is detrimental for societal trust). Equality then has no intrinsic, but rather an instrumental value. A third and final type of valuation is that equality might play a significant role in securing the conditions for living in a just society. In that case, to be equalityminded is justified by a reference to other and/or more fundamental values, such as self-respect and political democracy. While distributive egalitarians share the conviction that there are desirable scarce goods or modes of well-being that need to be distributed, they disagree about the currency of equality. In the ‘equality of what ’ debate, three positions have been given prominent attention. Resourcists believe people should have an equal package of goods that can help them to live their life as they please. Welfarists focus on equal satisfaction. Capabilists do not consider what people have or how satisfied they are, but they want to ensure that people’s capabilities (or real freedoms) are equalized. Egalitarians also differ when it comes to the most adequate pattern of distribution. Consider the situation in which some people lack basic resources to live a fulfilling life when at the same time there are others who have more than enough. Right-wing libertarians will examine how this inequality has come to pass. When it’s the outcome of the free market, it is argued that people have an inalienable right to (unlimited) property and accumulation of possession. Left-wing libertarians will agree with the respect for liberty, but they combine self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources. Telic egalitarians, however, will strive for strict equality, believing that inequality is always unjust. Luck egalitarians propose a distributive principle that both supports equality and holds individuals responsible for their choices. Prioritarians argue that what should disturb us is not the difference between the poor and the well off, but the actual condition of the poor. They do not compare people’s situation, but make an absolute judgement about whether a person’s life is worse than it should be. An alternative explanation is defended by sufficientarism whose proponents assert that what is morally problematic is not that the poor do not have the same as the wealthy, but that they do not have enough. Limitarians, instead,

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believe that the attention should be directed to the upper tail of distribution, as they think it cannot be morally justified that some bathe in overwhelming luxury while others starve to death. Social egalitarians provide another focus, believing that the ‘currency debate’ has missed the real point. They acknowledge that the distribution of some currency is morally significant and that one needs to consider which principle is most appropriate, but that is so because redistribution helps to form a society whereby all members can face each other as equals. Egalitarianism refers to a very complex branch of political philosophy, considering the number of arguments made by a wide spectrum of voices. One of the issues that has become more urgent (see also the chapter of Levrau & Clycq in this book) is whether and how this debate should be stretched so that it encompasses global justice and future generations. In the context of—to mention just a few contemporary worries—the increasing scarcity of global resources, overpopulation, climate change, refugee streams, and religious terrorism, all those engaged with the egalitarian ideal need to examine how their thoughts affect the global sphere. The heavy taxation of high incomes, for example, is not evident in a globalized economy with great openness of local economic systems. More mobile productive factors can easily evade taxes. The CEO’s of big companies often practice tax optimization (e.g. they have a large proportion of their allowances paid in countries where they are taxed little) and multinational do the same with their profit. The solutions to this lie in the creation and deepening of cooperation within a large economic area such as the European Union. In the chapter of Gropas in this book, some of these more global worries are considered.

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3 Equality, Rights and Community: A Long Term Perspective Bert De Munck

3.1

Introduction

Debates about inequality are mostly framed as a struggle between capital and labour. After WW II the conflict resulted in a ‘social contract’ in which wages and social security were connected to productivity (see e.g. Kochan, 2015) and in which employers and employees alike committed to increasing productivity in a competitive context. The origins thereof are to be sought for in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, where the social conflict between labour and capital eventually resulted in the idea of redistribution and the welfare state (see the chapter of Van Lancker & Van den Heede in this book). Entire book shelves have been written about the development of the labour movement and the ideas about equality and redistribution preceded by it and resulting from it— with Marxism often serving as the inevitable passage point. This has of course been very enriching, but there are reasons to go further back in B. De Munck (B) Centre for Urban History, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 F. Levrau and N. Clycq (eds.), Equality, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54310-5_3

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time and to look for a ‘politics of equality’ before the French Revolution and even before the so-called Enlightenment. As I will show, developments in the seventeenth and eighteenth century are crucial for a proper understanding of the mechanisms which explain both the tenacity of inequality and misery in periods of industrialization and our present-day inability to transcend the modern framework of labour and productivity. The present framework appears to delimit the debate and to prevent alternative political imaginaries to be taken seriously. One such new imaginary is the basic income, which is mostly tackled in terms of its cost and from the vantage point of its relation to labour. While conservative political actors typically argue that it is unaffordable and will discourage people to work, left-wing and liberal opinion makers too argue from within this framework. They typically point to the potential trade-off between the basic income and existing social rights based on the performance of work—like unemployment benefits and old-age pensions (e.g. Alaluf & Zamora, 2017; Mestrun, 2002). Another such current political imaginary is the one related to the so-called commons, or the collective management of (natural and other) resources by a well-defined group of equal participants (for historical views see Arvidsson, 2019; De Moor, 2008, 2015; De Moor, Shaw-Taylor‚ & Warde, 2002). The practices and ideas related to the governance of commons invite to reflect on the relationship between the contribution of members to a community and the redistribution of resources and surpluses within that community. Such a reflection too might help to transcend a perspective in which redistribution is based on labour and productivity. While a commons perspective might on the surface be closely connected to Marxisant ideas about communal property (e.g. De Angelis, 2017; Linebaugh, 2008, 2014), it invites to re-connect issues of productivity and surpluses to political participation and rights. Marx himself was obviously steeped in classic economic thinking in which economic mechanisms were on the whole detached from the political and governmental context. A more political approach to resources, productivity and surpluses arguably characterized the period preceding the nineteenth century. My chapter is, therefore, an attempt to transcend the present-day framework by moving further back in time and to address the political imaginaries preceding the nineteenth century as

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well as the development of the ‘enlightened’ concepts and ideas which have discredited early modern communal ideologies and have fostered the present-day framework. Specifically, I will address (1) mainstream ideas and political practices of the late medieval and early modern period and (2) the intellectual as well as political developments after the midseventeenth century which provided the key ideas behind the social and political revolutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. While these revolutions all amounted to striving for a more equal society one way or the other, the ideas behind them also produced the utilitarian framework in which entitlements to solidarity and welfare were based on productive labour. In the first section I present a brief historiographic overview, showing that ideas about equality which we consider self-evident today—such as those expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—were virtually absent. To the extent that similar ideas did exist, they were based on religious dogma’s and limited to a certain equity before the law. In the second section, I will point at the paradox that strong ideas about equality did exist, but only at the level of the group and not at the level of society as a whole (exceptions notwithstanding)—with membership rather than universal rights being the key principle. These notions of equality faced pressure of enlightened ideas about natural rights and universal equality—which will be the subject of the third and fourth sections. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century natural right thinking is at the origin of our present-day universal rights, but my historical overview will show that it may have created more problems than it solved from the perspective of economic equality. While the enlightened conception of natural rights served as the basis of later conceptions, especially those with universal pretentions, they were equally at the roots of a utilitarian reduction of people to their labour power. This, in turn, helped to reduce equality to income—especially wages—the flipside of which was the compulsory nature of labour. Empirically, I focus on the urban context, more specifically on the labouring middling groups in cities. These groups often worked in the context of craft guilds, which can be considered key organizations in both an economic and a political way. While they organized productive activities within the cities (including deciding who could be economically

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active within the city walls), they were key civil society organizations which assured political participation for their members as well. Not only did they provide security, solidarity and a sense of belonging to their members, they were often even a key part of the urban political fabric. In the late medieval urban revolts craft guilds had fought for political recognition rather successfully at least in some parts in Europe, like Sweden, the Southern Netherlands and a broad range of German cities (Dumolyn & Haemers, 2005; Schulz, 1992). After the revolts, guilds were often represented in the urban governments, and they acquired their own ‘privileges’, viz. the exclusive right to make certain products in their home city. While these ‘privileges’ were increasingly seen as reprehensible after the mid-seventeenth century, they are often considered to have been emancipatory before. Guild masters held citizenship rights, as becoming member of a guild was made conditional upon becoming an urban citizen, and vice versa (Boone, Cerutti, Descimon‚ & Prak, 1996; Dilcher, 1996; Isenmann, 2002; also Boone, 2010). As such, guild membership brought social and political rights next to obligations towards the local community (a synthesis in Farr, 2000). My ultimate focus will be on the relationship between economic and political rights, on one hand, and the local community on the other. Moreover, I will not limit myself to intellectual and revolutionary ideas, but focus instead on daily economic and political practices. This choice prevents me from addressing the more radical (and perhaps better known) strands like those of the Anabaptists and the Levellers, but it allows me to link the historical picture to such present-day debates as those on the basic income and the commons, as well as to the potential role of new civil society movements.

3.2

Equality Before Redistribution and Universal Rights

The return of (in)equality to the political and scientific agenda is arguably due, in part, to the introduction of a historical perspective. This is at least suggested by the impact of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014), in which it is argued that types of inequality

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reminiscent of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, characterized by a small layer of superrich capital owners, seem to be returning. While Piketty is of course an economist, historians have as well re-vitalized their efforts to measure changing levels of inequality—including for what they call the late medieval and the early modern period (roughly the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries) (e.g. Alfani & Ammannati, 2017; Hoffman, Jacks, Levin‚ & Lindert, 2002; Ryckbosch, 2016). In so doing, they mostly concentrate on income and wealth inequality, while linking up with the olden debate around Simon Kuznets’ theory that income inequality tends to increase during the early industrialization of a country, but decreases over the longer run (resulting in an inverted U-shaped graph) (see e.g. Van Zanden, 1995). Such a direct link with economic developments is now generally refuted, however. While continuing to focus on quantitative methods for measuring income and wealth inequality, a great deal of historians has distanced itself from explanations which invoke simple economic laws like those of Simon Kuznets. In addition to disasters like the medieval Black Death and the twentiethcentury world wars, which would have served as ‘great levellers’ (Scheidel, 2017), explanations for changing levels of inequality are now sought for in the political rather than the economic sphere (e.g. Alfani & Di Tullio, 2019; Ryckbosch, 2016; Van Bavel, 2016). This is also the case for Piketty, the famous mathematical r > g law of which (the return on capital exceeding economic growth) is eventually explained by politics rather than economics (see Boushey, Delong, & Steinbaum 2017; Piketty, 2019). However, a political view on equality sits uneasily with a focus on the late medieval and early modern period. This is a society of orders, pervaded by ranks and hierarchies secured by customs and privileges for the nobility, the clergy and other groups. To a degree, this explains why social historians have often focused on poverty, rather than inequality (e.g., Jütte, 1994; Mollat, 1978)—in a way mirroring the turn to poverty (at the expense of inequality) of NGO’s and international institutions such as the World Bank in the later twentieth century (cf. Mestrum, 2002). With respect to thinking about equality proper, the focus has often been on utopian ideas of religiously inspired groups such as the

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Anabaptists, the Levellers and the Diggers—the ideas of which all originate in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformation. As much as these ideas have been important, they were mostly also oppressed soon, so that their political impact remained limited. The same is true for the late medieval and early modern peasant revolts, in which radical ideas about the communal nature of land and resources often took shape (Dann, 1972; Prevenier, 2010). Radical views on redistribution failed to become mainstream before the nineteenth century, but this is not to say that this period is not relevant—rather the contrary. Historians as well as social scientists often hold on to the idea that the late eighteenth century revolutions and the preceding intellectual shifts summarized under the heading ‘Enlightenment thinking’ serve as a fault line (see the introduction chapter of Levrau & Clycq in this book). From a political point of view, the Enlightenment is seen as a decisive move away from the medieval and early modern society of orders in which social distinctions were considered ‘natural’. In his recent seminal book The Society of Equals, the French historian and sociologist Pierre Rosanvallon notoriously introduces the French Revolution as a fundamental farewell to privileges in a chapter called ‘The invention of equality’ (Rosanvallon, 2013). Yet this was exclusively about political and cultural rights, such as the right to political participation and freedom of religion and speech, which explains why economic inequality did not decline as a result (e.g. Rosanvallon, 2013). In many ways, the nineteenth century was one of sheer misery and poverty for lower social groups—both on the countryside and in cities. The industrializing society spawned new types of inequality, produced by market mechanisms and proletarianization rather than by olden privileges. As Rosanvallon has again nicely captured in a chapter title this process heralded a ‘century of redistribution’, in which ‘(a) long crisis slowly came to an end as welfare states came into being in the early twentieth century’ (Rosanvallon, 2013, p. 165). Consequently, a good place to start thinking about conceptions and practices of inequality before the industrial revolution, may be discussions about the relationship between equality and rights, which are currently high on the political–philosophical agenda. The field of tension between juridical types of equality (equality before the law, universal

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political rights, freedom, etc.) and those favouring equality in terms of outcome (especially wealth and income, or living conditions) seems to become more outspoken as globalization progresses, probably because on a global level rights are easier to invoke or foster than measurable social or economic types of equality (Barrett, 2016; Langford, 2018; Moyn, 2015). The origin of this tension is a matter of debate, however. Rights-approaches are often supposed to originate in Antiquity, in particular in the Greek’s rather formal focus on equal (democratic) justice for citizens (e.g. Clifford, 2008). Greek or Athenian philosophers are often considered to be at the roots of Roman and Renaissance republican thinking, with its emphasis on just rule and political rights, which is in turn seen as the roots of modern political thinking (Rahe, 1992; also Black, 2003; Pocock, 1975; Van Gelderen & Skinner, 2002). However, the first right approaches were mostly far removed from democratic and universal political rights as they emerged during the American and French Revolutions and were heavily fought during the nineteenth and part of the twentieth century—because it excluded women and slaves and left limited space for individual rights and personal freedom. Moreover, Plato and Aristotle ingeniously distinguished a ‘proportional’ or ‘geometrical’ type of equality from an ‘arithmetic’ one. In the former, resources or shares were to be allocated and distributed according to the unequal quality or worth of the citizens of the urban community (Dann, 1972, p. 1001). Nevertheless, a universal principle of equality did emerge in the middle ages, viz. a profoundly religious one. The basic principles of Christianity included the notion that everybody—i.e. every being with a soul—was equal in the eyes of God. This was related to the command to ‘love thy neighbour’, which Thomas Aquinas among others connected to Aristotle’s idea that Man is a social animal, implying that men need other men to meet their own end: ‘Hence the law of God, which directs men to their last end, commands us to love one another ’ (quoted in Clifford, 2008, p. 14). Still, in no way did this imply any form of social or political equality, or even a reflection on relative measures of, or limits to, inequality. Being equal in the eyes of God was perfectly compatible with a society of orders in which every social group had its natural place

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and poverty was ordained by God. A more egalitarian type of sociopolitical equality was conceived only with an eye at corrective justice. In the middle ages Aritotelian conceptions of sociopolitical equality (which differed from the ‘proportional’ ones) merged with Christian notions of the fundamental equality of all human beings and translated in the idea that each was to be treated equally before court—meaning that a punishment should be fair and equitable, and unrelated to one’s standing. In practice, it translated in the obligation to judge the rich as rigorous as the poor, as found in medieval city law (Frenz, 2000a, 2012; Isenmann, 2010, p. 127; also Prevenier, 2010). Political participation was mostly reserved for a rich elite, the privileges of which were justified by their titles and wealth—as being free from daily concerns about subsistence was seen as a precondition of acting disinterestedly (and hence virtuously) in the interest of the common good. Nor was poverty necessarily regarded as something to be avoided in the late middle ages. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the idea of voluntary poverty was often stressed. Grounded in both early Christianity and the Stoic idea of poverty as a way of achieving wisdom, some thinkers even advocated the belief that helping the poor implied sharing their condition. This was for instance the case with the French intellectual and cardinal Jacob de Vitry (c. 1170–1240), who advocated the formation and spread of the mendicant orders, the members of which in the thirteenth century committed to imitate Christ’s poverty and humility—the Franciscans being the most famous example (Mollat, 1978). This too was entirely compatible with the existence of different societal roles allocated to different social groups. The basic principle from a community perspective was that the duty of the rich was to help the poor with alms and the duty of the poor to pray for their benefactors’ salvation. While this was based on the idea that the image of God is discernible in the poor and the rich could have access to God’s mercy through the poor, it helped to secure the societal order and the social status quo. Put succinctly, poverty was not seen as meaningful from the perspective of social inequality but rather from a perspective in which the poor and the non-poor were joined in a system of reciprocity and interdependence (see e.g. Scott, 2012a). Radical religious groups such as the sixteenth-century Anabaptists and the seventeenth-century Diggers,

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who did preach a more absolute equality which included the community of goods, failed to change this. What did exist nevertheless, was the notion that everybody had a right to live a decent life according to one’s standing. The German economist and sociologist in the early twentieth century Werner Sombart (1921) identified the premodern concept of Nahrung (sustenance), in which the capacity of community members to live appropriately takes precedence over economic competition, and in which economic activity should be profitable to the wider community while the entitlements to resources—including the labour of others—was to be in proportion to both need and standing. Based on these principles, urban governments regulated grain trade and bread prices, so as to secure access to food for urban dwellers facing shocks in the price of grain and bread due to harvest failure and speculation. Simultaneously however, there were sumptuary laws, which tried to reserve certain types of dress to certain social groups—in an attempt to either limit luxury consumption or reserve it to the aristocracy so as to uphold distinction (see e.g. Hayward, 2009; Killerby, 2002; Rublack, 2010).

3.3

The Waning of Communal Ideologies in the Early Modern Period

The principles underlying sustenance are a matter of discussion among historians (see e.g. Brandt & Buchner, 2004; Frenz, 2000b; Safley, 2005), but what is clear is that equality was sometimes guarded (to a degree) at the level of the social group, but not at the level of society as a whole. The society of orders notwithstanding equality could be high on the agenda of a ‘commune’ or a ‘corporation’. Craft guilds for instance capped workshop size (setting maxima on the number of employees or workbenches) so as to prevent a small number of masters to grow larger at the expense of others (De Munck, 2018; Kluge, 2009, pp. 303–305; Mackenney, 1987, pp. 16–21). A proper understanding thereof requires to appreciate that a social and political community was not imagined at the time as a concatenation of individuals which elected a limited number of representatives. It was rather imagined as a body, with a head and members, and

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with each member having its specific role. Political participation could only be achieved through membership of a specific group, be it an aristocratic family, the clergy or (at the urban level) a ‘corporation’. Such groups (or members) were themselves in turn conceived as bodies, with corporations like guilds themselves consisting of a head (the board) and members (the masters). Even the individual household was conceived thus, with the pater familias as the head and the wife, children and domestics as members. All this was very much inspired by Christianity (and the body of Christ), which offered a strong communal ideology. The social cohesion of brotherhoods and guilds—the key organizations in premodern civil society—was tributary to the principle of charity (caritas), i.e. the obligation to take care of the poor, in particular those with which one shares a community. This is why guilds provided alms for their own members and invested in alms houses enabling them to lodge old masters or their widows (De Munck, 2018; Lynch, 2003; Rosser, 2015). While grounded in a society of orders, this was in a way far more radically egalitarian than most present-day conceptions—i.e. if looked at it from within a specific community, like a guild. The key idea was not rights or equality, but membership. Membership secured political as well as social rights, including a right to delegate representatives and to a certain standard of living, but it was not obtained easily—to say the least. In principle, it was only obtained by birth, for instance if one was born within an aristocratic family, or the son of a guild master. If the latter was not the case, one could only become member by completing an apprenticeship, which often implied living some years under the roof of your master—who then acted as a surrogate father (De Munck, 2018; Prak, 2004). Becoming member of an aristocratic family was even more difficult, although wealth could gradually help to enter a family through marriage (as the ages progressed, titles turned tradable for money) (e.g. Bologne, 1995, p. 140). Needless to say, this patriarchal system implied a profound gender inequality—as women could mostly not become a full member at all. Of course, the society of orders imagined like a body was an ideal, which did never exist in a pure form and which, moreover, grew more remote from reality as the late medieval and early modern period

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progressed. Virtually from the very beginning guilds were both contested and subject to profound transformations. On the one hand, central governments tried to curtail their power—and they did so ever more successfully from the sixteenth century on (e.g. Boone & Prak, 1995). On the other hand, the guilds were themselves subject to transformations from within, as ever larger groups of masters dis-engaged from the guilds’ collective activities, like masses for their patron saints, urban processions and parades and the burying of a fellow member—which were in principle obligatory for guild members (see e.g. De Munck, 2018). Part of the reasons for this may have been socioeconomic, given that guilds were subject to concentration trends (with some masters’ firms growing larger at the expense of others, for instance through subcontracting systems) and proletarianization (as a result of which a growing number of apprentices would not become master, but would continue to work as a journeyman for other masters for the rest of their lives) (Lis & Soly, 2006, 2008; Riello, 2008; Sonenscher, 1989). Even so, the decreasing interest in the guilds as an organizational form cannot be explained by socioeconomic factors alone. Religious brotherhoods too drastically transformed in the early modern period. During the religious wars of the sixteenth century, a great deal of them was abolished altogether, as the protestants considered them vehicles for lavish consumption (at the occasion of collective meals and feasts) and idolatry (the worshipping of patron saints) (e.g. Duffy, 1992). Where the brotherhoods revived afterwards (from the first half of the seventeenth century on), especially in Catholic regions, they were fundamentally different and had lost most of their corporative and egalitarian characteristics. Henceforth, they were often erected from the top down, for instance by a priest (stimulated by a bishop) and were mostly far more hierarchical. While the board in earlier brotherhoods was often elected in a rather democratic way, with a high turnover of members rotating in it, the board of later brotherhoods was often restricted to a local elite. Membership in the meantime was often more formal and less demanding in a social way, with the activities being limited to one or a few masses or processions a year (see e.g. Terpstra, 1995; Van Dijck, 2012). All this took place in a context of state formation on the one hand, and the emergence of free market mechanisms on the other. Formal rules and

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bureaucracy expanded, labour grew more proletarianized and the apprenticeship system turned into a learning market (e.g. De Munck, 2010a; Lis & Soly, 1979). In the field of poverty reduction, this was a time in which the distinction between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor intensified. Christianity had always distinguished those unable to work from those unwilling to work and therefore unworthy of aid (Scott, 2012b), but the attitude hardened in the early modern period, as is exemplified by the bans on begging in the sixteenth century and the erection of work houses in which able-bodied poor were put to work involuntary in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries (Jütte, 1994; Lis & Soly, 1979; also Crassons, 2010). This is arguably one of the most outspoken signs of a utilitarian conception of work and productivity arising, the English ‘poor laws’ only being the most notorious examples. Within the guilds, the regulations devised to guard a certain equality among masters were in the meantime relaxed, so that a small number of masters was gradually allowed to dominate in a certain trade. The system of solidarity simultaneously transformed such that aid was no longer self-evident, but subject to bureaucratic rules like membership of a poor box, the yearly payment of a separate fee, waiting periods, etc. (e.g. De Munck, 2018). While guilds often erected separate poor boxes from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on, these funds functioned more as insurance systems and should hence be seen as a move away from the more unconditional medieval system of solidarity (based on the caritas-ideal and notion of brotherhood) as for instance practiced in mendicant orders (De Munck, 2009; Van Leeuwen, 2012). In short, the corporative ‘order’ in which concerns with equality were limited to either a restricted type of equal treatment before the law or a more substantive type of intra-community equality was subject to long term transformations. Understanding these transformations is crucial for a proper understanding of the relationship between rights and equality in the centuries to come. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed profound transformations in the form and nature of inequality, which we need to understand adequately in order to understand the persistence of inequality in the present-day. As we will see below, it was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the conditions for measuring inequality by income and welfare standards emerged

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and that the groundwork was laid for scientists and policy makers to have an impact on it. This has obviously helped to conceive and defend policy measures geared towards limiting inequality—whether successfully or not. But, the eighteenth and nineteenth-century transformations may also have produced the possibility to justify inequality and perhaps even the impossibility to transcend, mentally and politically, the framework of redistribution based on income derived from wages, productivity and returns on capital.

3.4

Universal Rights and Its Challenges

While the notion of the equality of human nature has roots in early Christianity as well as Stoic thinking, it has come to full maturity only in the early modern period, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in particular. It resulted from thinking about natural rights, with Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) as among the first to insist on the natural right to life and liberty. With regard to equality, this implies that whatever the difference between people, nobody can claim to be entitled to benefits or privileges at the exclusion of others (e.g. Clifford, 2008). The Reformation may have been an important contributor too, given that it fostered a shift from a communal to a personal relationship with God and revolved around being responsible for one’s own faith, which was advocated as an ideal by Martin Luther (1483–1546). In the seventeenth century, such groups as the Levellers campaigned for popular sovereignty, extended suffrage and equality before the law with equal natural rights in mind. The ideas of the Quakers have inspired later human rights thinking (and the struggle against slavery) because of their conviction that every human being has a unique worth because god is present in all (Dower 2008). The most influential thinker in the long run, arguably, was John Locke (1632–1704), who elaborated a theory of life, liberty and estate (or property) as inalienable rights. The inalienability of rights was later expounded by Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), and should be understood as a response to seventeenth and eighteenth-century absolutism. What most so-called Enlightenment thinkers had in common is that they reflected upon a new relationship between the individual and the state,

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i.e. a new type of civil society. In the preceding centuries and decades, corporative bodies had largely become part and parcel of increasingly hierarchical and top down state systems, while the political participation of middle groups had declined. Not only had the political mechanisms been subject to oligarchization, the traditional civil society organizations such as guilds and brotherhoods had become sterile organisations encapsulated in the bureaucratic state. In part, enlightenment thinking can be seen as a response to this. By the eighteenth-century natural rights thinking was part of a body of criticism and associational activity in opposition of what was increasingly perceived as the privileges of aristocrats and clergy, or else, as the shackles of state and church (Hall, 1995; Khilnani, 2001; Trentmann, 2000). In this vein, Locke referred to a right to natural freedom, i.e. the right not to be subjected to the will or authority of another (see also the classic Macpherson, 1962). However, although this had significant long term consequences for slaves and religious minorities, we should be wary not to reduce the enlightenment to a purely emancipatory freedom movement. Most enlightenment thinking was part of an attempt to bring rights and civil society in correspondence with what was then called ‘commercial society’. Locke’s insistence on property chimes with economic transformations in which small manufacturers gradually lost ground against large entrepreneurs, who integrated the former in their mercantile and productive networks. While large merchants had been the most powerful and wealthy economic actors for centuries, small manufacturers, especially those organized in craft guilds, had often been able to carve out a niche for themselves, i.e. by guarding their collective privileges. These privileges ensured that guild-based masters had the exclusive right to produce and sell a specified range of products within a specific city. This is what guaranteed their citizenship rights, and vice versa. Yet due to the growing power of large merchants and entrepreneurs, these privileges were gradually undermined, as large entrepreneurs increasingly appropriated production themselves, hiring apprentices, journeymen and impoverished masters as employees, rather than buying and selling products from independent manufacturing masters (De Munck, 2010b; Lis & Soly, 2008; Sonenscher, 1989). On the countryside, similar processes of commercialization and alienation took place, as large landowners

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accumulated more land and succeeded in abolishing customary rights to land like those attached to communal fields and common meadows and woodlands. This is exemplified in the so-called enclosure-movement in which communal land was privatized (and literally enclosed with hedges) (Linebaugh, 2014; Neeson, 1993; Shaw-Taylor, 2001a, 2001b). In this context, the guilds’ monopolies were increasingly seen as illegitimate ‘privileges’ in the modern sense of the term. While privileges had been affirmative rights before (i.e. a right to a certain role within a local community), in the eighteenth century they came to be understood as illegitimate, similar to the privileges of aristocrats and clergy (Farr, 2000, ch. 8; Kaplan, 2001; also Horn, 2015). In addition, the emergence of natural or universal rights thinking should be connected to profound transformations in governance and the way in which the body politic was imagined. Gradually, a political community was no longer seen as a body to be ruled by the interventions of a virtuous ruler (or an oligarchy of rulers). While the body politic was gradually imagined in a more abstract way, it was to be governed according to natural laws, based on human nature (see e.g. Poovey, 2002). Rather than allocating resources and granting privileges in accordance with the existing natural order, rulers were gradually supposed to create the conditions for the uninhibited operation of the natural mechanisms from which the natural order would then emerge (Kaplan, 1986). This is the origin of free market thinking, which from the mideighteenth century materialized in the abolition of regulations related to grain trade and bread prices, as well as in the abolition of the guilds’ rules and privileges, thus preparing the ground for new types of representation, based on the choices of individuals (Haupt, 2002; Kaplan, 2001). During the French Revolution corporative organizations were finally abolished and social organizations and strikes banned. The laws with which this was first effectuated in France in 1791 (the D’Allarde and Le Chapelier laws, respectively) informed similar measures in large parts of Europe in the years to come, including the abolition of the guilds in the Southern Netherlands (by the French) in 1795 and the English Combination Acts (which outlawed trade unions and collective bargaining by English workers) in 1799–1800. This is again not to be understood from a top down perspective exclusively. Journeymen who

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faced difficulties to enter the labour market due to the guild rules (e.g. because they were excluded if they had not completed an apprenticeship term) must have been sensitive for ideas about the universal right to work—it at least encouraged them to use the discourse on natural rights too (De Munck, 2018, p. 287). The long term effects of these measures are one of the most hotly debated issues among historians. On the one hand, natural rights thinking inspired the American and French Revolutions as well as later revolutions in the nineteenth century (esp. 1848 and 1870–1871). On the other hand, however, the emergence of a rights-based universal equality (universal natural rights) was also at the very basis of extreme levels of poverty and destitution. These rights had not only helped abolish all labour organizations, it also created a strong ideology of nonintervention in economic and labour processes and even with respect to poverty and destitution—its most radical expression being a crude ‘social Darwinism’. As a consequence, social and labour historians considered the likes of the Le Chapelier Law and Combination Acts as lying at the roots of the social misery of workers during the industrial revolution. The explanation for this ambivalence surrounding natural rights thinking is simple: the concept of equality had not only become more universal in enlightenment thinking, but also more abstract and reductive. Nineteenth-century workers may have understood this better than political philosophers do at present. In their famous political struggles, handworkers often refused to see themselves as proletarianized and mobilized a premodern discourse on traditions about responsibility towards family and community and about the right to live decently and independently from charity and public relief (e.g. Prothero, 1981; Reddy, 1984). In a way, they resisted the reduction of their existence and their activities to labour and productivity, arguing that their labour was important not only in an economic sense but also for the welfare and well-being of a local community (e.g. Sewell, 1980). Nineteenth-century workers and artisans thus harked back to the late medieval and early modern context, where labour was very much connected to the notion of community—with the craft guilds among other ‘communities’ forging this link explicitly. In a way, the emergence of universal rights thus posed a challenge to them, rather than an opportunity.

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119

Towards Redistribution Based on Labour and Merit

The expansion of the idea of equality beyond in-group equality and the restricted notion of ‘equal treatment’ before the law was very much based on the idea that labour is the ground for entitlements to property. Ideologically, the abolition of the guilds and guild-based regulations like the apprenticeship system was entirely justified with the idea that workers had the right to work and employers the right to hire workers at their own convenience, as this was most elaborately explained in the work of the Scottish philosopher and political economist Adam Smith (Maitte, 2002; Sonenscher, 1989). The basis of it was already present in the work of John Locke, who argued that the right to property was grounded in labour—either real labour or an imaginary ‘original labour’ justifying the distinction between wealthy and property-less people (Jones, 2017). As such, these theories can easily be seen as lying at the roots of the industrial revolution and all its social ills. Workers were ultimately reduced to machines and their labour to a commodity. In the words of Smith, the activities of a workman should be seen ‘in the same light as a machine or instrument of trade which facilitates and abridges labor, and which, though it costs a certain expense, repays that expense with a profit ’ (Smith, 1778, p. 217). At the same time, these theories are also at the roots of meritocratic thinking and the promise that effort will bring social mobility (Jones, 2017, p. 51). In the nineteenth century, poverty and social inequality were no longer seen as ordained by God and inherent in the divine order. At the turn to the nineteenth century republican thinkers such as Thomas Paine and Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet believed in human perfectibility and the eradication of poverty with the help of education, mutual insurance and the allocation of tax revenue to poverty reduction—in addition to the advancement of ‘commercial society’ (Stedman Jones, 2004). A straight line could be drawn between this republican optimism and late twentieth-century ideas about ‘equality of opportunity’. Yet equal (formal) rights do not necessarily result in equal opportunity. Not only did market mechanisms permit capital accumulation and downward pressure on wages and working conditions,

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historians studying the nineteenth-century labour market and the laws surrounding the labour contract have shown that the liberty of contract was largely a fiction, because differences in status and unequal bargaining positions continued to play a vital role. Even in a juridical way, the labour contract continued to be coached in status-related and hierarchical notions, as the duty to serve remained an implicit obligation for workers and breach of contract was subject to criminal sanction (Deakin & Wilkinson, 2005; Orren, 1992; Steinfeld, 2001). Moreover, due to the continuing obligation to work under the poor laws, the distinction between free and unfree work remained very vague (e.g. Stanziani, 2009). Nor did the modern school system foster social mobility as a matter of course. Until deep into the nineteenth and even twentieth century, higher education continued to develop largely apart from the economic demands of the labour market, preparing youngsters rather for learned professions, government service and positions within the church. This changed gradually after 1860, but even then practical and technical professions continued to have a low status. Moreover, schools turned out to reproduce existing social relations rather than serve as devises of social mobility. With the famous book Schooling in Capitalist America of Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (1976) serving as a catalyst, empirical research has revealed a high persistence of economic status and a low importance of the development of cognitive skills by schools in intergenerational mobility (see also Bowles & Gintis, 2002, 2003). The key point is, however, that the definition of universal rights and the emergence of a formal universal type of equality has reduced people to their utility function. The most extreme expression thereof can arguably be found in the second half of the nineteenth century, in which work was largely reduced to measurable labour power while the human body, under the influence of physiology (thermodynamics), was reduced to an energy-generating ‘human motor’ fed with calories (Rabinbah, 1990). The early modern conception of these rights took place in a context in which labour activity was increasingly considered the basis for national wealth. While mercantilistic thinking had considered trade as the source of wealth until the seventeenth century, this changed in the eighteenth century, in which productivity emerged as the key notion, first among physiocrats (who

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focused on the productivity of land) but soon labour took centre stage— as was notoriously the case with Smith, the founding father of modern economic thinking. This is something which at least part of the nineteenth-century labour movement had understood. As famously argued by William Sewell (1980), labour was a central element in the revolutionary movements throughout the nineteenth century. Yet it was not reduced to productivity. While work—handwork in particular—would have been central in the collective identity of the famous sans-culottes, revolutionary workers, artisans, and shopkeepers by the mid-nineteenth century claimed that labour (rather than property) was the ultimate ground for (popular) sovereignty. On the surface, this seems self-evident from a labour movement-perspective, but other social historians have relativized the importance of labour in nineteenth-century collective actions, pointing to the importance of family life and the ability to live as a moral human being (e.g. Joyce, 1994, 2012). Moreover, it is important to appreciate also the fact that the revolutionairies’ definition of work fundamentally differed from the utilitarian conceptions articulated by political economists in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Smith famously argued in favour of higher wages (he did so for both moral and economic reasons), but this was nevertheless based on the idea that workers needed an external incentive to work at all. In this respect, his ideas were not too far removed from the ‘utility of poverty’ thesis of such seventeenth-century mercantilists as Thomas Mun, which implied that workers would work only in order to escape poverty (Spencer, 2009, p. 9). In the long run, guild-based artisans stopped being members of a (urban) political community. While their economic productivity had guaranteed them membership of the urban community as well as citizenship rights during the old corporative regime, they gradually turned into an abstract production factor in an economic system that was perceived as largely self-directing—although it was still institutionally and juridically embedded and carefully circumscribed in a political way (Hirsch, 1992; Kaplan & Minard, 2004; Minard, 2000, 2003). The implications thereof became increasingly clear in the nineteenth century, in

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which the logic of the nation state came to prevail. While in the eighteenth century, universal natural rights were largely at variance with the persistent importance of cultural differences and state boundaries, public systems of redistribution eventually developed within the territorial boundaries of the nation state (Brunkhorst, 2002; Stjernø, 2005). This broadened the basis of solidarity, but it also inexorably exposed the impossibility to translate universal rights in universal equality. As the principle of redistribution based on taxes on labour and profit materialized and institutionalized, it became ever more urgent to define who was part of the now national community and who could claim to have social rights. The key principle in the twentieth century was that social rights were conditional on having worked within a certain national territory for a specified period of time. Social rights were based on both nationality and labour (and, hence, having contributed to the national community through taxes). This is what is currently subject to re-articulation because of continued and ever more pressing processes of globalization. Yet the development of possible solutions is hampered because most policy makers and intellectuals fail to escape the eighteenth and nineteenth-century conceptions of equality and solidarity. As Colin Gordon (1991, pp. 14–27) has argued in a book building on Foucault’s famous unpublished lectures on governmentality and territoriality at the collège de France, the elaboration of the concept of natural laws in general and the Smithian notion of the free market governed by an ‘invisible hand’ (i.e. economic laws) in specific ultimately amounts to surrendering to the idea that science and expertise will always fall short as a basis for good and just rule. Hence, the refuge in the comfortable idea that the invisible hand will eventually do the job as long as fundamental rights and equality of opportunity are assured. However, now that Piketty and others have shown that this is an illusion, it is time to seriously consider alternatives to both the traditional welfare state and neo-liberal thinking.

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Conclusion

In the pre-industrial period, labour and productivity were not conceived as the abstract notions they are today. Nor were the economy and the state the abstracted and autonomous entities we envisage them to be at present. Up to the eighteenth century, the body politic was imagined rather literally as a body consisting of different ‘members’—the latter including aristocratic families, the church and religious orders, and craft guilds. Craft guilds were part of a broader palette of ‘communities’ which often strove for political independence while at the same time being implicated in productive activities. With respect to the countryside, reference is often made to village communities of farmers, which would have striven for both economic and political autonomy (Blickle, 2000). Although these communities varied enormously in time and space (Blickle, 1991, 1999), in their ideal-typical form they may have shared a certain sense of equality while at the same time being concerned about the connection between the contribution of members to the collective, on the one hand, and their entitlement to a share of the resources and benefits, on the other. Arguably, this is why historical research on the medieval and early modern period often provides inspiration for those defending the commons or arguing in favour of a universal basic income. Presentday commons are often imagined to be close to a situation in which communal resources were not yet privatized (e.g. Linebaugh, 2008, 2014) and in which resource allocation and entitlements were not yet regulated by either the invisible hand or public authorities and statebased bureaucracies. Present-day advocates of the basic income too revert to a situation in which entitlements to wealth and resources are not allocated on the basis of labour and productivity but with reference to the history of a community, among other things by claiming that the existence of technology and capital goods produced by previous generations provides and justifies entitlements to common resources (Van Parijs & Vanderborght, 2017). This could perhaps be connected to the concept of Nahrung , in which every community member had a right to a decent living. What both attempts have in common is that they go

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beyond a utilitarian conception of human activity and try to re-invent the connection between human productivity and community formation. However, we should of course be cautious with nostalgic views on the distant past. While the right to a decent living was in actuality a right to live decently according to one’s standing (and gender), the commons flourished in the absence of politico-philosophical concepts in which all humans were considered equal in a sociopolitical way. Social and political equality was considered relevant only within the common, and membership of the common was contingent on birth (and again gender) or, at best, on very stringent rules and practices of membership and incorporation—such as years of serving as an apprentice and mandatory participation in religious activities. Rather than nostalgically invoking the distant past as an inspiration, we should therefore strive for a better understanding of the relationship between, on one hand, political philosophy and the conception of the body politic, and, on the other, on-the-ground practices of solidarity, membership and redistribution. While the search for causes in research on long term trends of inequality has all too often limited itself to economic factors, recent research has started to invoke political economy and refer to political attitudes—including from middling groups such as guild members (e.g., Ryckbosch, 2016). The effects of bottom up practices and ideas on levels of inequality and on intellectual ideas about equality and rights are far from well understood however—and so is the connection between such ideas and practices with the broader changes in the political and economic structures. How were the ideas and practices of solidarity and (re)distribution in urban or rural middling groups connected to processes of state formation and commercialization? What role did notions of birth and inheritance play (see Alfani, 2010, pp. 67–68; Cohn, 2012)? What is clear is that a focus on rights is a poor substitute for a focus on equality. What my historical overview shows is that equality became measurable and quantifiable by the same token as it was ascribed to laziness and a lack of willingness to work or learn. In my view, developments during the enlightenment herald present-day conundrums and paradoxes in which more rights do often not result in more equality. While it is often found that equality is positively correlated to nondiscrimination and the protection of personal integrity rights (e.g. Grant,

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2007; Landman & Larizza, 2009; McCrudden, 2004), the return to rights in the 1980s and 1990s—with a great deal of attention to democracy, rule of law and, last but not least, human rights—was related to a neo-liberal reduction of the ambition regarding social and economic collective rights. In comparison with the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s more importance was attached to food, shelter and health care, but civil and political rights prevailed over welfare issues. As it turns out, human rights seem easier to mobilize for the promotion of more accountable and less discriminatory forms of governance than for the reduction of inequality (Merry, 2014, pp. 286–287). While they increasingly appear the only way to tackle inequality on a global scale today (Merry, 2014, p. 288), disappointment about what rights movements have accomplished prevails (McCann, 2014; Merry, 2014; Moyn, 2015, 2018). With regard to inequality proper, attention shifted from ‘inequality of outcomes’ (with income mostly serving as a proxy for well-being) to the reduction of poverty on the one hand and ‘equality of opportunity’ on the other. This was related to a redefinition of welfare, of which Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen’s capability approach was a prime mover. In it, well-being was defined through people’s ‘functionings’ (what they consider important) and ‘capabilities’ (the freedom and capacity to live the life they want) (Nussbaum, 1988; Sen, 1979, 1985, 1989). In a way, this is a new compromise between equality and rights, while it simultaneously gives a more substantive content to equality than John Rawls’s rather formal approach in his influential Theory of Justice (1971) (see the chapter of Levrau in this book). Nevertheless, political–philosophical discussions about equality are far from settled, one of the key issues being the tension between, on one hand, rights considered to be absolute and universal (like human rights and equality before the law) and, on the other, relative or relational conceptions of equality related to redistribution and calibrated by measures of standards of living or capabilities. Equality of opportunity appears to bridge the two types of equality, as it implies that basic rights and entitlements can be built upon to assure a certain outcome in terms of wealth and living conditions. But in practice equality of opportunity has often served to legitimize existing levels of inequality, or at least to shift responsibility from the collective to the

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individual. The flipside of ‘equality of opportunity’ is ‘merit’ which is connected to labour and productivity in most welfare schemes today. All these debates could benefit from an historical approach in which the labour and productivity scheme is transcended.

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4 Multiculturalism Today: Difference, Equality and Interculturalism Tariq Modood and Tamar de Waal

4.1

Introduction

Multiculturalism as an academically theorised egalitarian political theory emerged in the late 1980s and the 1990s. While initially there was broad support for multiculturalism the critique, particularly in Europe, started to outweigh the support at the beginning of the new millennium (Levrau & Loobuyck, 2018). Over the last two decades multiculturalism has been under siege in political discourse and to a certain extent in academia. Some of this chapter is an adaptation of Modood, T. (2010). Difference, ‘multi’ and equality. In Seymour, M. (ed.), The plural states of recognition (pp. 152–171). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

T. Modood (B) University of Bristol, Bristol, UK e-mail: [email protected] T. de Waal Amsterdam Law School, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 F. Levrau and N. Clycq (eds.), Equality, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54310-5_4

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Pervasive narratives emerged that claim that multiculturalism has failed, is in decline or even dead both as a political philosophy and as a public policy strategy to govern diversity issues (Vertovec & Wessendorf, 2010). At a closer look, the highly politicised debates on multiculturalism mostly pertain to issues of post-war immigration to Europe, in particular Muslim immigration. Indeed, debates about whether multiculturalism should be or has been abandoned virtually never concentrate on rights for indigenous peoples or national minorities (Kymlicka, 2012). As a result, although Will Kymlicka’s (2007) multicultural theory is most cited and has had strong political influence internationally, his theoretical focus on indigenous people and national minorities does not fit what is commonly understood as contemporary controversies of multiculturalism, especially not in Europe (Levey, 2019; Modood, 2007/2013). Most often criticisms of multiculturalism state that it involves cultural relativism, rests on essentialist depictions of cultures, furthers segregation, erodes common civic values, violates secularism, is bad for women or harmful for animals. Some have even stated that multiculturalism fuels terrorism. A high point in this anti-multiculturalism trend was perhaps when seven European premiers, including those of Germany, France and the UK, made high-profile criticisms on multiculturalism in late 2010 and early 2011 (Fekete, 2011). In this chapter, we map the current state of the debate on multiculturalism and multicultural equality. We hope that this overview will make clear, although most of the political responses to multiculturalism have not been academically theorised, that the lion’s share of the mentioned public critiques on multiculturalism rests on mischaracterizations of it. In addition, we will discuss an influential academic response to multiculturalism that has been theorised, namely ‘interculturalism’. We argue some of the key ideas behind interculturalism theories are already part of multiculturalism, even foundational to it, and others can be included by it. In other words, in our view, although recent debates on interculturalism may raise interesting theoretical angles, they do not provide persuasive analyses that the tenets of multiculturalism or multicultural equality are flawed or out of date. Finally and most elaborately, we will expound where multicultural equality is now. This last part, will be based

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on the perspective on multiculturalism as an egalitarian politics based on identity recognition as put forward by Tariq Modood. The structure of this chapter will be as follows. First, we will present an overview of the political-philosophical paradigm and connected policy perspective of multiculturalism. Second, we will discuss the ‘multiculturalism-interculturalism debate’. Third, we will present Modood’s vision on multiculturalism and multicultural equality.

4.2

Multicultural Accommodation of Difference

Given the diversity of—at times also strongly contrasting—academic commentatories advocating multiculturalism, it is not easy to present a single ‘multicultural theory’ or a blueprint for ‘the multicultural state’. Instead, many scholars work on different versions of multiculturalism, particularly in the field of political theory and philosophy, but also in sociology, cultural studies, education, etc. However, although multiculturalism has different variations (of which we can discuss only a few), they share a rejection of (earlier) models of the unitary, homogenous nation-state. The first book length study was by Will Kymlicka, which argues that members of minority cultures are not as free to create their individual selves as those of a majority culture. This is because the kind of person we can become depends upon the choices available to us in terms of membership of a culture (Kymlicka, 1995). If minority cultures are not given sufficient resources and institutional space, members of those cultures have to assimilate in the majority culture or are not able to flourish. On that account, Kymlicka argues that multiculturalism is to be considered as a part of a larger human rights revolution involving ethnic and racial diversity that occurred after World War II (Kymlicka, 2007, 2012). Within a liberal framework—that respects liberal-democratic norms and protects equal citizenship—claims for recognition and support for ethnocultural minorities are not only defensible but a requirement of justice. In his theory, Kymlicka prioritises

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indigenous people and national minorities and gives lesser status to cultural claims of immigrants. Since this study an enormous number of books and articles have been published on the rights of groups and minorities. Even those who selfdescribe themselves as multiculturalists differ in which many taxonomies can be made. For example, some multicultural commentators stress a more communitarian version of multiculturalism, such as Bhiku Parekh (2000). He offers a philosophical argument for cherishing cultural diversity that entails that humans are culturally embedded beings and so equality and respect for others must relate to not just what human beings have in common, as for example in the concept of human rights. Rather, to value humanity is to value its diverse manifestations and to learn from as many of them as one can in order to be more fully human and not the prisoner of just one way of thinking such as Hinduism or liberalism. Charles Taylor (1992) agrees that human beings are cultural beings and therefore can be harmed by how their cultures are treated by others. Therefore, he proposes ‘recognising’ those whose distinct cultural identities have been dismissed or held in contempt based on an idea of dialogical ethics and politics (Taylor, 1992). More liberal multicultural commentators argue in favour of group rights not because culture is of value in itself, but as a means to enhance distinctive liberal ideals such as freedom and equality in a shared society. In this group the already mentioned Kymlicka (1995) belongs, but also Joseph Raz (1994). More recently, Alan Patten (2014) has argued that minority rights should be granted based on liberal values including self-determination and pluralism about conceptions of the good life. Another multicultural thinker is Iris Marion Young (1990), who was important in assisting people to understand themselves as oppressed and to discover themselves in collective identities such as black or gay and thus develop a liberatory identity through group politics. James Tully (1995) emphasised that cooperation under conditions of deep diversity or ‘multiplicity’ requires a ‘multilogue’ and has proposed the idea of ‘public philosophy’, the questioning of society’s dominant assumptions in order to expose their contingency—their lack of necessity—and so open the way to identifying other possible ways of thinking and living.

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In his work, Tariq Modood (e.g. 2019b) focuses more strongly on religious minorities than multicultural thinkers such as Taylor and Kymlicka do, who mostly writes about ethnocultural minorities. Be that as it may, Modood writes that the two fundamental normative concepts that multiculturalism brings together are, first, a form of citizenship that is not seen as just rights and duties, but a source of a collective identity and belonging. Currently, this is most effectively connected to the national level. Second, it attributes normative importance to collective identities that matter to people, especially those based on a sense of ‘difference’ (Modood, 2013). On that account, virtually all multiculturalism theories provide a perspective on integration that combines the liberal idea of a set of core equal (liberal-democratic) rights for all citizens with a more communitarian perspective on minorities (and majorities), leading to a pluralised national identity based on overlapping and changing multilevel identities. In other words, multiculturalism works both with universal citizenship values and with inclusion of particular groups, identities and relationships. The exact details of what a multicultural state normatively requires depends on the historical, immigration and demographic contexts of individual countries (e.g. number of national minorities, levels of immigration, histories of exclusion). Yet, generally put, multiculturalism advocates a policy orientation that, first, ensures non-discrimination and equal treatment and, second, extends this equality to recognise and accommodate groups to achieve respect for difference and (status) equality. Indeed, multicultural thinkers state that given that liberal neutrality is impossible (e.g. a state will always promote a national language and a set of national cultural reference points), the state must normatively embrace national and cultural identities as a basis of solidarity. This means, inter alia, that minorities should be included into those national and cultural identities that are currently dominant. This however is not an imposed assimilation but a plural re-constitution of national identity, which is seen as necessary to the success of multicultural citizenship, to achieving a unity in diversity. As such, multiculturalism is a liberal-democratic theory of integration and social cohesion (not segregation), though some multiculturalists approach liberal democracy as a multi-factored contextual

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complex of values rather than derived from a monistic theory of liberalism (Levey, 2019; Parekh, 2000/2005). More practical examples of multicultural policies that may help to achieve this are constitutional affirmations of multiculturalism, the adoption of multicultural curriculums in schools and multicultural accommodation of minorities within public institutions (Banting & Kymlicka, 2006; Modood, 2017). Over the years, several political theory critiques of multiculturalism have emerged. Before we discuss the ongoing multiculturalisminterculturalism debate in the next section at length, we will present a brief overview of other influential criticisms. For example, soon after the increase of academic attention on multiculturalism in the 1990s, Brian Barry (2002) argued that the state had no business promoting or protecting cultures; and in any case, most such endeavours in relation to groups such as say British Pakistanis led to ‘hardening cultural identities’ into political categories and internal oppressions based on gender, age, religious dogma and so on. An egalitarian state should be concerned to ensure that all citizens had the same set of material options and opportunities, and if some wanted to expend some of their resources in maintaining a culture that was up to them but the state had no obligation to assist them. Rather, the state should monitor that cultural preservation did not lead to denial of educational, social and economic opportunities for vulnerable members of a community such as children and women. Put differently, he argues that multicultural policies are not well designed to advance the liberal values of liberty and equality and offers a defence of, in his view, a more classical liberal strategy of privatising and depoliticising difference (see also the chapter of Levrau & Franken in this book). According to Barry, multiculturalism would lead to violations of liberal rights, societal fragmentation and take away attention from socioeconomic inequalities. This one-dimensional individualistic egalitarianism and indifference to the importance of collective identitarian concerns is not just a concern with the excesses of multiculturalist practice but a wholesale dismissal of the idea of cultural domination. Yet an aspect of Barry’s critique—that politics of recognition such as multiculturalism undermine political redistribution—has been more widely put forward and has been called ‘the progressive dilemma’. In short, it states that increased diversity has detrimental effects on social cohesion

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and unity, which is the foundation on which redistribution policies are based. However, recent empirical research shows that there is not necessarily a trade-off between (the recognition of ) diversity and support for redistribution or the welfare state (e.g. Banting, Johnston, Kymlicka, & Soroka, 2011). Indeed, Levrau and Loobuyck (2013a, p. 108) concluded based on the available data that ‘multicultural policy can be combined with policies that invest in a sense of belonging ’. Another well-known critique of multiculturalism is that of Susan Moller Okin (1999), who states that multicultural recognition upholds and preserves traditions that are fundamentally patriarchal. In particular, she argues that protecting minority groups and cultures may come at the price of reinforcing oppression of vulnerable members of these minority groups, which can be women but also religious dissenters and sexual minorities. Okin notes that many oppressive group norms and social mores revolve around issues of gender and sexuality, which leads to a tension between multiculturalism and feminism: protecting certain cultural group rights may contribute to upholding unjust hierarchical relations. Ayelet Shachar has described this tension as ‘the paradox of multicultural vulnerability’ (Shachar, 2001). This feminist critique is troublesome for defenders of multiculturalism, because as liberal-egalitarians they aim to promote both equality between groups and within groups between members. In response, Kymlicka (1995, pp. 35–44; 1999, p. 31) has stressed that multiculturalism is both concerned with ‘external protections’ of groups against the political and cultural power of the larger society and ‘internal restrictions’ which protects members of minority groups to the violation of their fundamental constitutional rights. As such, the question whether multiculturalism and feminism can be reconciled empirically depends on whether group rights that seek group-differentiated rights do not uphold patriarchal norms and practices, or at least are willing to alter these practices if it becomes a condition for the cultural protection of their group (see also Shachar, 2001). Chandran Kukathas has criticised multiculturalism from a more libertarian standpoint and argued that multiculturalism is at odds with the minimal state he stands for that grants maximal negative liberty for citizens (2003). He holds that there should be no group rights,

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only individual rights. On that account, the state should not further ‘cultural integration’ or ‘engineering’ but instead a ‘politics of indifference’ between minority groups (2003, p. 15). Most multiculturalists disagree with this approach because as liberal egalitarians they reject the tenets of libertarianism. For example, whereas the paradox of multicultural vulnerability as described above creates a genuine challenge for theorists of multiculturalism, the laissez-faire approach of Kukathas would permit ‘communities which bring up children unschooled and illiterate; which enforce arranged marriages, which deny conventional medical care to their members (including children); and which inflict cruel and “unusual” punishment ’ (Kukathas, 2003, p. 134). These examples are unacceptable for virtually all multiculturalists. Lastly, more politically, it is increasingly claimed that multiculturalism should be replaced by civic integration policies for immigrants. Particularly in Europe, there has been a significant increase in integration requirements for newly arrived immigrants that are prerequisites for attaining permanent residency and full citizenship (see, e.g., Goodman, 2011). In the academic literature, several scholars have argued that the proliferation of these policies proves that European countries have moved away from multicultural principles and strategies and are now opting for more ‘integrationist’ programmes (see, e.g. Joppke, 2004, 2007). However the main European countries have not withdrawn their multicultural policies—if they had them—but have mainly combined them with civic integration requirements (regarding the Flemish ‘combination model’, see Loobuyck & Jacobs, 2009; and for the British ‘re-balancing’, see Meer & Modood, 2009). Also Canada, known for its multicultural state, has historically always combined its multicultural policies with integration strategies for newcomers in society (Kymlicka, 2012). It must be noted, however, that despite the potential complementarity of multiculturalism and integration policies, the implementation of new civic integration requirements in Europe have been accompanied with exclusionary discourses and defended as an alternative to multiculturalism (de Waal, 2018). For example, political leaders often state that integration policies should replace multicultural policies, because multiculturalism allegedly does not ‘integrate’ new members in society at all. However, as this chapter hopefully demonstrates, multiculturalism is

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best understood as a philosophy of integration—that in principle allows that immigrants are required to learn one of the official languages of their new home country—albeit with a special attention on diversity and protecting the value of equal citizenship and national belonging (Modood, 2007/2013).

4.3

How Does Multiculturalism Relate to Interculturalism?

For over a decade academic publications and policy publications introducing and promoting a pro-diversity strategy of integration called ‘interculturalism’ have proliferated. We give this multiculturalisminterculturalism debate special attention in this chapter, as we see it as one of the ‘frontiers’ in current multicultural debates. Interculturalism focuses on the ‘micro-level’, where face-to-face relations can develop, to break down prejudices, stereotypes and misconceptions of others. As such, the intercultural approach is heavily based on the social contact literature initiated by Gordon Allport (1954). Empirical research has indeed demonstrated that social contact and cooperation between members of different groups, in the right conditions, can be an important element in the process of creating a common identity, which facilities more cooperation. Most often, the authors of these publications join the broader dissatisfaction with multiculturalism, by claiming that interculturalism is an intellectual improvement of multiculturalism. Meer and Modood (2012) have observed that there are two versions of interculturalism: on the one side, there is the more cosmopolitan European interculturalism and, on the other side, there is a more nationalist and majoritarian interculturalist of Quebec (Modood & Meer, 2012). However, in general the central claim of interculturalists is that it is a new paradigm which is superior to multiculturalism and that it is built on an entirely different conceptual and policy framework (e.g. Cantle, 2016; Council of Europe, 2008; Zapata-Barrero, 2016). However, unfortunately most of these analyses ignore the academic theoretical debates on multiculturalism as

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discussed in the previous paragraph and work with dubious characterisations of it (Modood, 2017). For this reason, Christian Joppke (2017, p. 37)—who does not directly support multiculturalism nor interculturalism—observed that ‘the intercultural alternative rests on a polemical view of multiculturalism that few of its advocate would endorse’. However, more recently, the perspective that multiculturalism and interculturalism are not mutually exclusive but in fact mutually reinforcing is gaining momentum (e.g. de Waal, 2018; Kymlicka, 2003; Levrau & Loobuyck, 2013b; Mansouri & Modood, 2020; Meer & Modood, 2012; Modood, 2018). Also interculturalists including ZapataBarrero (2017, p. 9) now conclude that ‘interculturalism begins then when the […] multicultural policies have developed all their potential, not instead of them, against them or before them […] as complementary paradigms’. And indeed, there are many reasons to support this position. To begin with, both multiculturalism and interculturalism aim to establish what the preconditions are for creating a diverse society based on liberal-democratic values such as freedom, equality and sense of shared belonging. Nonetheless, they do not focus on the same entities and social realms to ensure this. Broadly put, multiculturalism mostly focuses on issues related to the role and shape of the ‘multicultural state’ in terms of power sharing and inclusion, while interculturalism focuses more on civil society and the virtues, attitudes, dispositions and knowledge that individuals need to possess to participate as ‘intercultural citizens’. More specifically, multiculturalists consider, among other things, the conditions under which group rights or public accommodation are normatively required, while interculturalists reflect on how contact and micro-level dialogue between citizens with different backgrounds can be stimulated in order to increase social cohesion. As a result, multicultural and intercultural studies lean on different bodies of research. Whereas multicultural theories have mostly contributed to debates in political philosophy, intercultural policy suggestions tend to draw on social psychology studies (Levrau & Loobuyck, 2018, p. 7). This shows that there is no reason to assume that a decision must be made between supporting either multiculturalism or interculturalism. Instead, it seems more stimulating and fruitful to think through how multicultural state policies can support desired intercultural virtues, and

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vice versa. In this context, Modood has acknowledged that multicultural theorists arguably have paid too little attention to how to create institutions to reinforce certain intercultural attitudes on the side of citizens in relation to ‘micro-level interaction’ such as ‘cultural encounters and everyday interaction in localities, schools, clubs, public spaces’ (Modood, 2017, p. 6). That said, it must be noted as well that most multicultural thinkers, in particular Young (1990) and Parekh (2000/2005), do stress the importance of (respectful) dialogue and interaction. In addition, the value of ‘recognising’ others as theorised by Taylor (1992) also implies the importance of dialogue and contact. Indeed, at its core, multicultural citizenship is a form of ‘dialogical citizenship’ (Modood, 2013, pp. 126–128), in which public matters such as the national identity are constantly debated and reshaped. It is therefore misleading to conclude that interculturalism fills a gap that multicultural theorists completely left open. Enabling ongoing public dialogues between diverse citizens is foundational to multiculturalism. So, if dialogical contact is the metier of interculturalism, macro-level dialogues are crucial to multiculturalism. Interculturalism, then, is a useful addition to multiculturalism, not an alternative to it and we should work towards creative syntheses of intercultural contact-based approaches and multicultural state structures. Both theories and connected policy directions are pro-diversity, aim to protect equality and equal membership and reject (cultural) assimilation. That said, prima facie, it seems that interculturalism can address some issues that within most multicultural discussions remain largely invisible, such as how relationships between non-citizens and citizens living side by side in a political community should be shaped. Given the focus of multiculturalism on the quality of citizens—at the core, it is a theory of how to achieve equal citizenship—it does not give much normative guidelines on how liberal-democratic citizens should treat (long-term) residents in their societies, such as EU immigrants or refugees (Triandafyllidou, 2017; Teo, 2019). However, this is an issue that deserves academic attention, because in modern liberal-democratic states not all residents in society have citizenship, or do not exactly know the legal status of others with who they interact on a daily basis. This shows that interculturalism arguably succeeds better than multiculturalism in engaging in what has been coined as ‘superdiversity’ by

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Steven Vertovec (2007), given that multiculturalism tends to zoom in on the accommodation of groups and members of groups. Indeed, no individuals fully and only belong to a particular group. It seems therefore necessary to provide frameworks in which both individual and group rights, hybridic individuals and ethno-religious communities as forms of ‘difference’ are accommodated (Modood, 1998). Yet, the question of what these frameworks must entail—and thus how multiculturalism and interculturalism must supplement each other—is context-dependent and so must be determined per case. At the same time, it must also be noted that there are certain tensions between multiculturalism and certain strands of interculturalism. Some interculturalism stresses (and increasingly so) that predominance has to be given to the majority culture, even while respecting diversity. In particular, it seems that certain forms of interculturalism suggest—specifically those writing on Quebec—that minorities can be denied certain forms of accommodation, merely based on the fact that it runs counter to the majority culture—such as the wearing of the hijab in public employment - even if this accommodation would not breach any liberaldemocratic rights (e.g. Bouchard, 2011). This line of argument echoes new and emerging theories of ‘majority rights’ that stress that although much academic and political attention is given to the rights of minorities and their cultures, the rights of majorities and their cultures are largely neglected or even under threat (e.g. Orgad, 2015; Koopmans, 2018, see also Miller, 2016). If this was to result in forms of ‘majority precedence’, say if the national identity is promoted as (virtually) fully overlapping with the majority culture, or certain religious symbols are forbidden in public life while symbols of other religions are not, then we have a clash with multiculturalism. Multiculturalists insist ‘the predominance that the cultural majority enjoys in shaping the national culture, symbols and institutions should not be exercised in a non-minority accommodating way’ (Modood, 2019a, p. 235). Indeed, according to multiculturalists the national identity should be more than the majority culture or merely (allegedly) ‘difference blind’ but genuinely inclusive. This means that the national identity should be plural, in which the majority can have a clear centrality, but cannot have a precedence tout court over minority cultures.

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Multiculturalism Today

So where does multiculturalism and the concept of ‘multicultural equality’ stand now? In the remainder of this chapter, we will answer this question based on the work of Tariq Modood, who is broadly accepted as one of the most influential defenders of multiculturalism.1 In Modood’s terms, multiculturalism rests on the idea that equality in the context of difference cannot be achieved by distributing (allegedly cultural-free) individual rights, but that it requires the active and positive inclusion of marginalised groups, for example marked by race, but also their own senses of ethnocultural identities (Modood, 2007/2013, 2019b). A politics of multiculturalism, therefore, sociologically, has to begin with, on the one side, the fact of negative forms of ‘difference’: with alienness, inferiorisation, stigmatisation, stereotyping, exclusion, discrimination, racism, etc.; but also, on the other side, the senses of (ethnocultural) identity that groups so perceived have of themselves. The two together and in interaction are the key datum for multiculturalism as the differences at issue make equal membership in the wider society or polity difficult due to creating an unequal ‘us – them’ relationship. To speak of ‘difference’ rather than ‘culture’ as the sociological starting point is to recognise that the difference in question is not just constituted from the ‘inside’, from the side of a minority culture, but also from the outside, from the representations and treatment of the minorities in question. Moreover, it is also to recognise that the nature of the minorities, and their relationship to the rest of society, is not such that ‘culture’ is a stand-alone alternative to race, ethnicity, religion and so on. Multiculturalism is not, therefore, about cultural rights instead of political equality or economic opportunities; it is a politics which recognises post-immigration groups exist in western societies in ways that both they and others, formally and informally, negatively and positively are aware that these group-differentiating dimensions are central to their social constitution. So, rather than derive a concept of multicultural politics from a concept of culture, it is better to build it up from the specific claims, implicit and explicit, of the post-war extra-European/non-white immigration and settlement and their struggles and the policy responses

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around them to achieve some form of acceptance and equal membership. Such migrants have not been simply perceived as individuals or new neighbours, fellow-workers or citizens. They have been seen as ‘different’; seen in terms of race, ethnicity and so on. So, one of the central features of this politics is the understanding that a collectivity is being targeted and so a collective response may be required; that people were being labelled from the outside, for example, as ‘immigrants’, ‘coloureds’ or ‘foreigners’. That these labels had to be contested and rejected through collective protest; the summoning and building up of group pride and the projection of positive labels and images to overcome the stigmatisation of involuntary identities. Multicultural politics consists in seeking to turn the negative into a positive, not the erasure of difference but its transformation into something for which civic respect can be won. When we begin to talk of positive difference, it is common to talk of identities. Identities are relational and, so just like difference, are constituted partly from the outside but the concept of identity (like ethnicity and culture as opposed to race) allows the ‘inside’ more space, more agency, not just in relation to individual self-definition but in relation to the outsider perceptions, treatment and social expectations—indeed the whole social constitution of what is taken to be an Asian, Latino, Black, etc. including the inferiorised, imposed status of that group. That is to say, the subordinate group in question does not just begin to take charge of its positive selfdefinition, of revaluing the group, but also to define the ways it has been inferiorised, its mode of oppression. The group begins to speak for itself, not just in terms of its positivity but also about its pain. Examples are when British Asians begin to redefine the racism that they experience, from a colour-racism, the experience of not being white in a white society, to a racism which targets Asians in the form of distinctive stereotypes and vilifies aspects of their culture (Modood, 1997). Or, when black women begin to recharacterise sexism to take account of their distinctive concerns (Amos & Parmar, 1984; Carby, 1982); or when Muslim women challenge leading forms of feminism which portray the wearing of a headscarf as a form of oppression but regard the sexualisation of public space (in terms of dress, visual images, shopping malls) as emancipatory (Bullock, 2002). All these are examples of an assertive

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identity statement because an oppressed group challenges not just its oppression but the prevailing wisdom about its mode of oppression. It claims to know something, to name an experience because the ‘difference’ is addressed from the ‘inside’, by the victims. This is a knowledge that can of course be communicated to outsiders, it can be shared with nonvictims, including the victimisers, and to allow, enable and welcome such identity communications and learning is to have begun to create a multiculturalist space even before any of the pain itself is treated and further inflictions prohibited. While societal effort, including from dominant groups, will be required to formulate appropriate policies and adjust social relations, this movement from the ‘inside’, these identity discourses are critical in the formation of a multiculturalist society. Another advantage of the term ‘identity’ is that it suggests less assumed behavioural or normative baggage than suggested by ‘culture’ or even by ‘ethnicity’. It means that to speak of the recognition or accommodation of minority identities is not necessarily to advocate the reproduction of the past or customs from far off places. It is possible for someone to have (and for the public space to recognise) a British Pakistani identity without, for example, the Urdu language, observance of the rules of Islam or wanting an arranged marriage. Identities persist even when participation in distinctive cultural practices is in decline or these practices are undergoing considerable adaptation. Not only is there nothing in the idea of multiculturalism that rules out developments of these sorts but they underline a key point. Namely, the primary interest of multiculturalism is not in culture per se but in the political uses of non-European origin ethnic and related identities, especially in turning their negative and stigmatic status into a positive feature of the societies that they are now part of. This means that multiculturalism is characterised by the challenging, the dismantling and the remaking of public identities. We should not, however, expect a single sociological model for a multiethnic or multicultural society. The minority groups that need to be comprehended in such a model are likely to vary not just by culture and identity or by the racism they experience but also by economic and skill profiles, political response and so on but also to the extent that they are even groups. It is not just that some groups will see themselves more in terms of regional origins and others in terms of religion; or that some will

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have the community structures and networks to form economic enclaves and others may not. Rather, some groups will be more mixed in terms of relationships and joint activities with non-group members and may exercise relatively little effort to reproduce the group culturally or politically. For other groups, however, who may not be at all ‘separatist’ or eschew civic participation, the transmission of a community or a diasporic or faith identity at least into the next generation may be very important. It follows, therefore, that a policy matrix that may suit one type of group may not suit another group. While we can all learn from the experiences and achievements of any one group, and may seek to transfer that for the benefit of other groups, no minority can be a model for all others. We may welcome the interactions that produce cultural hybridity in, for example, the music, dance, videos, TV and entertainment enclaves that characterise parts of Los Angeles, New York or London and think they are attractive forms of multiculture, but we have no right to insist that they be the form of multiculturalism that other groups should adapt themselves too. Similarly, if other groups are centred more on family, kin, religious education and social welfare, that should be welcomed too, though neither can that be the form of multiculturalism. So, the ultimate meaning of ‘multi’ is that specific policies, complexes of policies and multicultural institutional arrangements have to be customised to meet diverse (as well as common) vulnerabilities, needs and priorities. Multicultural accommodation works simultaneously on two levels: creating new forms of belonging to citizenship and country, and helping sustain origins and diaspora. The result—without which multiculturalism would not be a form of integration—is the formation of hyphenated identities such as Jewish-American or British-Muslim (even if the hyphenated nature of the latter is still evolving and contested). These hyphenated identities, on this understanding, are a legitimate basis for political mobilisation and lobbying, not attacked as divisive or disloyal. Such minority identities do not necessarily compete with a sense of nationality, e.g. Britishness (Modood, 2007/2013, pp. 146–152, 135– 143 and chapter 7; Modood, 2014). Ethnic minority self-concepts can certainly have an oppositional or political character but it is not usually at the price of integration per se, illustrating that integration can take

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different forms. Indeed, political mobilisation and participation, especially protest and contestation, has been one of the principal means of integration in contemporary Britain. As activists, spokespersons and a plethora of community organisations come to interact with and modify existing perceptions, practices and institutions, there is a two-way process of mutual education and incorporation: public discourse and political arrangements are challenged but adjust to accommodate and integrate the challengers. Multiculturalism or the accommodation of minorities appreciates that groups vary in all kinds of ways and so will become part of the social landscape in different ways. This means that they cannot necessarily be accommodated according to a single plan and will in different ways change the society into which they are integrated. We now need to ask how can there be equality across difference. This leads us—theoretically and politically—to an expanded or double concept of equality.

4.5

Equal Dignity and Equal Respect

It should be clear from the above that the concept of equality has to be applied to groups and not just individuals (e.g. Parekh, 2000/2005). Different theorists have offered different formulations on this question. Charles Taylor (1992), for example, argues that when we talk about equality in the context of race and ethnicity, we are appealing to two different albeit-related concepts, which slightly altering Taylor’s nomenclature we will call, equal dignity, and equal respect. Equal dignity appeals to people’s humanity or to some specific membership like citizenship and applies to all members in a relatively uniform way. A good example is Martin Luther King’s demand for civil rights. He said black Americans wanted to make a claim upon the American dream; they wanted American citizenship in the way that the constitution theoretically is supposed to give to everybody but in practice fails to do so. We appeal to this universalist idea in relation to anti-discrimination policies where we appeal to the principle that everybody should be treated the same. But Taylor, and other theorists in differing ways, also posits the idea of equal respect. If equal dignity focuses on what people have in common

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and so is gender-blind, colour-blind and so on, equal respect is based on an understanding that difference is also important in conceptualising and institutionalising equal relations between individuals. This is because individuals have group identities and these may be the ground of existing and long-standing inequalities such as racism, for example, and the ways in which some people have conceived and treated others as inferior, less rational and culturally backward. While those conceptions persist they will affect the dignity of non-white people, above all where they share imaginative and social life with white people. The negative conceptions will lead to direct and indirect acts of discrimination—they will eat away the possibilities of equal dignity. They will affect the self-understanding of those who breathe in and seek to be equal participants in a culture in which ideas of their inferiority, or even just of their absence, their invisibility, is pervasive. They will stand in need of self-respect and the respect of others, of the dominant group; the latter will be crucial for it is the source of their damaged self-respect and it is where the power for change lies. So, a denigration of a group identity, or its distortion, or its denial— the pretence (often unconscious because it is part of a culture rather than a personal thought) that a group does not exist—the withholding of recognition or misrecognition is a form of oppression (Taylor, 1992). It is a form of inequality in its own right but also threatens the other form of equality, equal dignity, the fulfilment of which can be made impossible by stereotypes or a failure to recognise the self-definitional strivings of marginal groups, or the ways in which groups are excluded; the latter is sometimes referred to as the failure to acknowledge white privilege. The interaction and mutuality between the two kinds of equality runs the other way too. Equal respect presupposes the framework of commonality and rights embodied in equal dignity. Hence it is quite wrong to think of the latter in terms of universalism and the former as a denial of universality. For not only does the concept of equal respect grows out of a concern with equal dignity but it only makes sense because it rests on universalist foundations. It is only because there is a fundamental equality between human beings or between citizens that the claim for respect can be formulated. As Taylor (1992, pp. 38–39) says, there is a demand for an acknowledgement of specificity but it is powered by the

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universal that an advantage that some currently enjoy should not be a privilege but available to all. Hence we must not lose sight of the fact that both equal dignity and equal respect are essential to multiculturalism; while the latter marks out multiculturalism from classical liberalism it does not make multiculturalism normatively particularistic or relativist. Another way of making the same or similar point, following Iris Young (1990), is to distinguish between: (1) the equality that comes from the impartial and consistent application of a single set of rules or norms or conventions; (2) the equality that comes from a set of rules, norms or conventions that do not (dis)advantage the different parties to whom they are applied for the needs and sensitivities of all the parties have been taken into account and so each of these parties can identify with these rules; that there is a sense that the rules, etc. speak to and for all the parties. The first equality might be realised but egalitarians will still want to ask ‘Whose rules?, Who made the rules?, Were they jointly made?, Do they suit all to whom they apply?’ Rawls (1971) thought that consideration of (2) above would lead truly rational persons to choose to live in a state that was culturally neutral, as that way while no one was advantaged, no one was disadvantaged. Young (1990) has rightly pointed out such neutrality is impossible; that any public space, policy or society is structured around certain kinds of understandings and practices which prioritise some cultural values and behaviours over others. They are not fixed but nevertheless always have a specific character. You are inducted into them, though they also change as you participate. It means, for example, that people can argue for extending them. They may appeal for the transferring of one practice, such as elections for political office, to another, in the workplace, say, or in the local community. While some change is always possible and often desirable, no public space is culturally neutral. If the public space and a particular polity or society that we are members of already has a cultural structure built into it and so is not neutral, where does this come from? Historically, it will have come from a dominant group or groups. Dominant groups can be quite tolerant. They may, for example, allow minorities to live by their own religion, speak their own language, wear distinctive dress and so on but insist that should

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be done in ‘private’—not in the shared public space of politics, policies, schools and workplaces but only at home or community functions and at weekends. This way of structuring space and of deciding what is public and what is private can be an enormous source of power and inequality. In so far as subordinate, oppressed or marginal groups claim equality, what they are claiming is that they should not be marginal, subordinate or excluded; that they, too, their values, norms, and voice, should be part of the structuring of the public space. Why, they ask, should we have our identities privatised, while the dominant group has its identity universalised in the public space? So the argument is about the public/private distinction and what is ‘normal’ in that society, and why some groups are thought to be abnormal or different (Young, 1990). For example, many gay people, especially from the 1960s onwards, argue that they do not want to be tolerated by being told homosexuality is no longer illegal and acts between consenting adults done in private are fine. They want people to know that they are gay and to accept them as gay; and for public discussion about gayness to have the same place as discussions about heterosexuality. So when public policy is made, for instance on widows’ benefits or pensions, we should not assume an exclusively heterosexual model of society. The same point applies in relation to ethnic and religious minorities. They may have cultural needs and customs which are disregarded by current arrangements and which can be discriminatory; when they try to get that rectified they may be met by racist devaluing of their needs and norms or told that they do not belong in this country—which takes us straight back to respect and recognition. These needs may be to do with bilingual teaching and other aspects of a school curriculum; or, the provision of single-sex schools, which in Britain have been closing across the country in the same period that the south Asian population has been growing and wanting them. They may be to do with dress, whether it is the convention of wearing headdress indoors, as in the case of young African-American men who seem to have created new American norms about the wearing of items such as baseball caps, or the Sikh male turban, the Jewish male yarmulke or the Muslim female headscarf, the hijab. It may be to do with whose holy days are to be recognised as public holidays, when employers cannot demand

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your presence, when university exams may not be set and which are celebrated in shopping malls, on television and on which public funds are disbursed. As in the example on gay rights, the area of family structure and size is likely to be central. The construction of new social housing across the western world is based on the premise that households are getting smaller and smaller but where does that leave Bangladeshis in east London, whose need is indisputable but who in many cases are too large as a family to be housed in new stock and so are disproportionately allocated old housing. If a social housing provider in Paris has one definition of family (nuclear and two-generational) and French citizens of Berber origins have another definition (extended and multi-generational), does that mean that they have voluntarily put themselves beyond the obligations of the French state? Who is to decide what is marriage and what is divorce? Most western countries forbid more than one wife at a time but put no limit on the number of girlfriends or live-in partners; some Muslims believe there is a place for up to four simultaneous female partners but not outside marriage. Should only one of these views be recognised by the law courts? In all these cases, whatever specific view we may have on any of them, it is clear that a consistent, impartial application of a single set of rules, norms and conventions by itself is not enough to achieve equality. It can, depending on the content of the laws and of the public generally, create two tiers of citizenship, those who are at home in the rules, etc. and those who are all at sea, drowning in a culture of misfit and misrecognition. This is why the ideas of equal respect and recognition are essential to multicultural equality and multicultural integration. As the variety of the above issues show some will involve the law and others will not; some will be public policy issues at a national level while others will remain local; and sometimes initiatives can be taken by a particular institution—a particular school, hospital, housing association or charity, or by a privatesector employer. Yet, while issues of equal respect and recognition do not simply arise at the level of a national state but across society, a legislative framework and governmental leadership may be crucial (CMEB, 2000). Nevertheless, it is best to see recognition of positive difference as a civic

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principle that in general should inform the relations between fellow citizens and ought to be manifest across the varied sites and institutions of civil society (Seglow, 2003, pp. 87–88). Hate speech is a good example of where some legislation is necessary but what one needs to achieve goes beyond the practical scope of law, which can be a blunt instrument endangering freedom of speech. Most countries recognise that legal intervention is necessary when there is a serious risk of incitement to hatred; or when the ‘fighting talk’ is likely to inflame passions and risk public order; or when it is likely to reinforce prejudice and lead to acts of discrimination or victimisation. But this falls short of the goal of respect. For that one relies on the sensitivity and responsibility of individuals and institutions to refrain from what is legal but unacceptable. Where these qualities are missing one relies on public debate and censure to provide standards and restraints. Hence where matters are not or cannot easily be regulated by law one relies on protest and empathy, though it will take time for dominant groups to learn what hurts others. This is how most racist speech and images and other free expressions (e.g. the use of golliwogs as commercial brands or The Black and White Minstrel Show) have been censured (rather than censored) away and it is how the British media responded to the Danish Cartoons Affair, recognising that they had the right to republish the cartoons but that it would be offensive to do so (Modood, 2006). It is sometimes suggested that a concern with issues of respect is in some sense a diversion from the pursuit of integration or equality, that it is a preoccupation with labels, images and discourse, in short, ‘political correctness’. Any serious concern can lead to overzealous, mechanistic application but there is nothing trivial about equal respect. It is certainly not a matter of choosing between difference, integration and equality, for positive difference is necessary to integration that is informed by equal respect as well as equal dignity.

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Multiculturalism, Difference and Inequality

The inequalities of ‘difference’ are of course connected with other forms of inequality, especially those to do with social status and economic opportunities. For example, the groups in question are often disproportionately disadvantaged; the socioeconomic disadvantage is one of the sources of, as well as a consequence of their stereotypical representation as inferior, unintelligent, backward, alien and so forth. Moreover, socioeconomic disadvantage can be a basis for an ethnic group solidarity, for enhancing groupness (though it can have the opposite effect too). So neither sociologically nor politically can these groups be seen as classless or as distinct classes in their own right. Throughout the industrialised world parental class and education are major factors in life-chances, occupational achievements and incomes (Goldthorpe, 2000). Their effects today are usually much greater than the effects of race or ethnicity (or for that matter, gender or sexual orientation), and at least some of these effects are independent of race. Yet, that is not the whole story. For class and education have differential effects on different minority groups as these groups have different compositions of pre-migration class origins and educational profiles. For example, the predominantly peasant backgrounds of Bangladeshi migrants to Britain compared to the commercial and professional backgrounds of African-Asian migrants and refugees goes a long way in explaining why today they are differently located by class in Britain, and at the same time have different educational profiles. Their present position can be largely but not wholly understood in terms of class and education; sometimes the unexplained aspects, for example, the higher levels of unemployment, can be partly accounted for by various forms of racial discrimination and disadvantage. At other times, the unexplained aspects are barely explained by reference to race, to a non-white status (Gayle, Berridge, & Davies, 2002; Platt, 2005) though perhaps they do begin to be explained by different attitudes to, for example, self-employment (Modood & Khattab, 2016), education and family, including gender roles and the intergenerational nurturing and support of ambition (Shah, Dwyer, & Modood, 2010). So, ethnicity and class

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interact. Just as attitudes to schooling, higher education and taking out a loan to pay for higher education are influenced by class location so are they also influenced by ethnicity (Connor, Tyers, Modood, & Hilage, 2004). This can mean that some minority groups can achieve more social mobility than their class peers and others less; that ‘there is evidence of differential processes operating for different ethnic groups that go beyond their class background, but which cannot be attributed to discrimination operating equally against all minority groups’ (Platt, 2005, p. 697). So, ethnicity can sometimes be a resource as well as a liability, and while the disadvantages of class and ethnicity can sometimes reinforce each other, ethnicity can sometimes mitigate aspects of class disadvantage. The sociology of ethnicity or the politics of multiculturalism, then, is only possible because ethnicity and related forms of collectivity are not reducible to or are not just pimples on class (or gender, etc.), but they are not meant to analytically or politically displace these other dimensions of social experience as such. Rather, they highlight the social, cultural, economic and political dynamics that are missed when ethnic and related difference is ignored or seen only as a by-product of other sociological determinants. Multiculturalism, then, is an elaboration of political concerns in relation to certain forms of difference regardless of which other sociological or political analyses it will need to be integrated with. There is no suggestion of monocausal explanations or a one-dimensional politics; on the contrary, an emphasis on ethnicity bespeaks caution about socioeconomic generalisations that do not attend to difference and complexity. Sociological multi-dimensionality or intersectionality (Bradley, 1996) means taking ethnicity as seriously as class or gender. This requires an elaboration of ethnicity that has some categorical autonomy; that way we can enquire into the varied ways in which it might intersect with class and gender. Otherwise we are likely to see ethnicity subordinated to other social categories. Similar points can be made in relation to ethnicity/difference and gender. All groups are gendered; they have distinct as well as related conceptions of gender and gender-roles; indeed, gender is mediated by ethnicity and related cultural norms, no less than by class and generational change. Different ethnic groups are therefore likely to have both

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similar and distinct forms of gender relations and gender inequalities. For example, British Pakistani mothers of young adults may exercise more power over the choice of the marriage partners of their sons and daughters than their white peers but may be more constrained by familial norms about certain types of participation in public activities and paid work outside the home or family business. Even in relation to their treatment by the wider society, it would be too simplistic to assume ‘double disadvantage’ of non-white women as the universal pattern. It may be a common pattern but one needs to take care to not overgeneralise and homogenise a varied phenomena. For example, if one compares the condition of black women in Britain and the US to that of black men, men (if in work) are likely to be earning higher on average; but relative to whites the position of black women is much better than that of black men (Loury, Modood, & Teles, 2005). Moreover, there is considerable data showing that it is black men rather than black women that are perceived as threatening—and so likely to suffer unfavourable treatment—by teachers, employers, shop workers, police officers and even by ordinary people in the street fearful of black muggers. Similarly, while hijab-wearing Muslim women are more likely to get hostile stares in the street, it is bearded young Muslim men that are likely to be stopped and searched by the police and experience arbitrary arrest (Abu-Ras & Suarez, 2009). So Modood’s account of multiculturalism and multicultural equality begins with a concept of negative difference and seeks the goal of positive difference and the means to achieve it, which crucially involve the appreciation of the fact of multiplicity and groupness, the building of group pride among those marked by negative difference, and political engagement with the sources of negativity and racism. This suggests neither separatism nor assimilation but an accommodative form of integration which would allow group-based racialised, ethnic, cultural and religious identities and practices to be recognised and supported in the public space, rather than require them to be privatised. This is justified by an extended concept of equality, not just equal dignity but also equal respect. While the focus is not on anything so narrow as normally understood by ‘culture’, and multicultural equality cannot be achieved without

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other forms of equality, such as those relating to socioeconomic opportunities, its distinctive feature is about the inclusion into and the making of a shared public space in terms of equality of respect as well as equal dignity. This chapter has briefly outlined an understanding of multicultural equality and also that it has been criticised by those who emphasise individual rights, or a purely redistributionist view of equality, the neoliberal state, or gender equality or social mixing. We continue to think that while each of these criticisms may some merit, especially in how sometimes multiculturalism may have been implemented, they do not eliminate the distinctive contribution of multiculturalism to equality. Rather, multicultural equality as the challenging of racisms, respect for ‘difference’, the pluralisation of the cultural and religious dimensions of the public sphere and the remaking of national identities to include minority identities and belonging seems more not less necessary in most countries since the emergence of the contemporary political theory of multiculturalism in the 1980s.

Note 1. We borrow here some of the argument of Modood, T. (2010). Difference, ‘multi’ and equality. In Seymour, M. (ed) The plural states of recognition (pp. 152–171). Palgrave Macmillan, London. See Levey (2019) and Uberoi and Modood (2019) on how Modood’s views fit into a wider ‘Bristol School of Multiculturalism’.

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Part III Institutions & Policies

5 Religion and Equality in the Workplace: A Legal-Philosophical Analysis François Levrau and Leni Franken

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Introduction

When discussing religion in the workplace, the debate is often limited to state neutrality: to which extent is the state neutral when its civil servants are allowed to display philosophical and other symbols (cf. Levrau & Loobuyck, 2020)? However, not only the government, but also private companies are frequently confronted with the question whether (and to which extent) it is possible to combine religion and work. Because private organizations receive less attention in the (public) debate, this contribution addresses this gap and elaborates upon a number of concrete and pressing issues. For example, how should an employer deal with employees who want to go to prayer service on Friday or who want to rest on Saturday? What should he/she do if an employee does not want F. Levrau (B) · L. Franken Centre Pieter Gillis, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] L. Franken e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 F. Levrau and N. Clycq (eds.), Equality, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54310-5_5

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to serve alcohol on a reception? How should he/she respond if a staff member refuses to provide services to LGTBs or refuses to shake hands with someone of the opposite sex? Should he/she go along with the question of employees who want to wear religious symbols or can and may he/she ask them to leave those symbols at home or at least to not openly show them? These and similar issues challenge the idea of reasonable accommodation of religion in the workplace. Until now, several European courts (i.e. the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice) were asked to judge on this kind of questions. Remarkably, the courts did not only have to deal with the manifestation of employees’ religious symbols (positive religious freedom), but the question to which extent employees of religiously affiliated organizations can and should be protected against the religious demands of their employers (negative religious freedom) has also been addressed. For example, is it permitted for a Roman Catholic religion teacher to openly criticize the Catholic Church? Can a Christian school refuse teachers because they are not baptized? And what if the marital status of an employee is not in accordance with the religious ethos of his/her employer and thus of the religiously affiliated organization? In order to shed light on these issues, we rely on the combination of (political) philosophy and legal theory. We start with an explanation of two contrasting political philosophical visions: on the one hand the difference-blind approach which was defended in an influential way by Brian Barry (1936–2009), and on the other hand the differencesensitive approach which we find among others in the work of Bhikhu Parekh (1935–). After an outline of these positions, we scrutinize the principle of reasonable accommodation: what is its origin and what does it exactly entail? In the following three sections, we address several European court cases and thereby make a distinction between ‘neutral’ companies (these can be private, semi-private or public) and ‘nonneutral’ or religiously affiliated organizations. Finally, we illustrate how discussions are hampered by the ambiguity of frequently used concepts (i.e. neutrality, religion, reasonableness, discrimination) and therefore highlight the importance of contextual thinking and proportionality.

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A Difference-Blind Approach

Seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) is one of the first philosophers who explicitly addresses religious tolerance and in relation to it, the separation between church and state. For example, in his A letter concerning toleration (1689) he states that the ecclesiastical and civil authorities should not interfere with each other because they both have different tasks. While religious laws deal with the acquisition of eternal life, ‘[t]he magistrate’s role is only to take care that the commonwealth is not harmed and that no injury is done to any man, either in life or estate’ (Locke, 2013, p. 70). This separation between church and state, however, does not imply that everything can be tolerated within a religious context. Similar to non-religious practices, religious practices are restricted by common law: ‘Whatever is lawful in the commonwealth cannot be prohibited by the magistrate in the church. Whatsoever is permitted to any of his subjects for their ordinary use, neither can nor ought to be forbidden to any sect of people for their religious use’ (ibid.). Accordingly, actions that are permitted in a secular context (e.g. washing babies with water, drinking wine and eating bread) are also permitted in a religious context (e.g. baptism, Eucharist). If there are good arguments for disallowing certain actions in a secular context, these arguments should be equally valid in a religious context. It is important here that these acts are not prohibited because of their religious nature, but because there are general and neutral arguments for such legislation (ibid.). In short, civil law limits what is (not) permitted in a religious context. At first sight, Locke’s position seems very reasonable: by treating believers and non-believers equally and giving them equal rights, nobody is discriminated and the government is neutral. But is formal equal treatment always and everywhere the best way for granting equality among different citizens? Should we not also take into account the fact that people are different and therefore might need ‘different treatment’ in order to guarantee equality? Following the egalitarian liberal position which has among others been defended by John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin, a just government must, by means of a well-developed socioeconomic policy, compensate for the ‘unchosen circumstances’ which can disadvantage people. For example, an egalitarian liberal government must

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implement special provisions for people with a physical disability or provide socioeconomic assistance for people who are worse off due to unchosen circumstances (brute luck). Only in this way can the state guarantee equal opportunities for its citizens (see the chapter of Levrau in this book). In the words of Dworkin (2000, p. 81): ‘Someone who is born with a serious handicap faces his life with what we concede to be fewer resources, just on that account, than others do. This justifies compensation, under a scheme devoted to equality of resources (…). But we cannot say that the person whose tastes are expensive, for whatever reason, therefore has fewer resources at his command. For we cannot state (without falling back on some version of equality of welfare) what equality in the distribution of tastes and preferences would be’. This refers to ‘Dworkin’s cut ’: people are responsible for their preferences and tastes, but not for their resources or endowments. Accordingly, people should bear the negative consequences of their tastes and should not be compensated if they become worse off. If, however, people lack personal resources (e.g. general fitness, physical and mental health, wealth-talent) as well as impersonal resources (e.g. opportunities, property and wealth), they can be entitled to a state-driven redistribution of resources. Dworkin thus argues that opportunities need to be equalized on the basis of two principles. On the one hand, each redistribution should be ambition-sensitive, meaning that inequalities that are the result of ambitions, choices, efforts, tastes and preferences should not be compensated. On the other hand, each distribution should also be endowment-insensitive: if inequalities are the result of personal characteristics such as talents, handicaps, mental diseases, then people should be compensated. One thus has to consider which inequalities are the result of preferences (ambition) and which are the result of resources (endowment). At this point, the question emerges whether special accommodations are legitimate if they are used to adjust or to compensate for cultural and/or religious preferences. According to Brian Barry, this should not be the case. Even though religious and/or cultural preferences (e.g. wearing the veil, eating halal and not driving a car for religious reasons) are often the result of one’s social embeddedness and are thus not necessarily chosen, it is nevertheless possible for human beings to take responsibility

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for these ‘preferences’. Not being able to eat pork because of allergic reactions is substantially different from not being able to eat pork because your religion requires this. In a similar way, ‘the position of somebody who is unable to drive a car as a result of some physical disability is totally different from that of somebody who is unable to drive a car because doing so would be contrary to the tenets of his or her religion’ (Barry, 2001a, p. 37). In the case of the disabled person, (s)he cannot but act in that particular way and accordingly, special treatment is required in order to guarantee equal opportunities. In the religious/cultural cases, by contrast, people can in principle choose whether or not to act in that particular way and therefore special treatment is not required. Following Dworkin’s cut, Barry thus makes an important distinction between the restriction of choice on the one hand, and the restriction of opportunities on the other: people are responsible for their choices, not for their opportunities.1 Following this line of argument, fair laws and rules must be drafted in such a way that they guarantee as many equal opportunities as possible for everyone. If this is not the case, the law in question should not be supplemented with all kinds of possible exceptions (the rule and exemption approach), because that would lead to more inequality. Alternatively, general legislation should be adjusted in order to guarantee equal opportunities. ‘With almost no exceptions, either there is a good enough case for having a law to foreclose exemptions or alternatively the case for having a law is not strong enough to justify its existence at all ’ (Barry, 2001a, p. 321).2 This also applies to religious practices: either the legislation is sufficiently founded to prohibit certain practices and exception rules are unnecessary, or the request for an exception is sufficiently founded to amend the general law (Barry, 2001a, p. 39ff.). Only in exceptional cases and for pragmatic reasons can exemption rules be temporary allowed ‘for as long as the inequality persists’ (Barry, 2001a, p. 13). An example can clarify this. According to Flemish legislation, it was not permitted until 2004 to bury or cremate people without a coffin. For Muslims, however, this was a problem since Islam requires the deceased to be wrapped in a cloth (and not in a coffin) before they are buried. In order to facilitate this practice, the Flemish government has amended its policy: since the Decree on cemeteries and the funeral services in 2004,

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it is allowed to bury a person without a coffin (Article 11). The only (neutral) condition is that the deceased must be buried in a manner that is still in line with public health. By adapting this law, it is now possible for Muslims to bury their deceased in accordance with their own cultural/religious tradition, without the need for (multicultural) exemption rights. But also non-Muslims are able to bury their relatives without a coffin.

5.3

A Difference-Sensitive Approach

According to Barry, an egalitarian-liberal government should guarantee equal opportunities. The fact that people, as a result of their different religious and cultural preferences, use these opportunities in different ways, is not unfair: ‘Treating people in the same way is in general treating them equally, on condition that the rule in question has an adequate justification. I am not denying, let me emphasize, that a rule can be unfair or discriminatory and that this is always a valid ground for criticizing it. What I do want to say is that disparate impact on people according to their culture or religion (or anything else) is not in itself a basis for a complaint of unequal treatment ’ (Barry, 2001b, p. 2). A common critique to this approach is that religion and culture are not ‘chosen’, but are often the result of unchosen ‘embeddedness’ in a particular religious or cultural context. While disabled people do not choose to be blind or paralyzed, religious people do, in a similar way, not choose to adhere to a particular religion. According to the difference-sensitive approach, the state should therefore accommodate religious practices as much as possible, so that all citizens (whatever their religious or cultural affiliation may be) can truly live according to their religious and cultural views (see also the chapter of Modood & De Waal in this book). Bhikhu Parekh (2000) is one of the authors who emphasizes the importance of this so-called ‘unshakeable part of the personality’. Like Barry, he believes that equal opportunities are a fundamental part of justice, but he defines this concept in a different way. ‘Opportunity is a subject-dependent concept in the sense that a facility, a resource, or a course of action is a mute and passive possibility and not an opportunity for an

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individual if she lacks (…) the cultural disposition (…) to take advantage of it. And similarly a course of action is not an option for her if it does not form part of her view of the world or is morally or culturally too costly (…). The incapacity involved here is cultural in nature and since in some cases it is bound up with the individual’s sense of identity, it sometimes has the same force as a physical disability’ (Parekh, 2000, p. 241). Because people are deeply moulded by and connected to their religious-cultural background, a just state should provide respect for the ‘thick identities’ of its citizens. Since these identities make people who they are, it would be unfair to expect people to remove them. The upshot is that Parekh would never agree with the following claim of Barry (2001a, p. 32): ‘Here are the rules which tell people what they are allowed to do. What they choose to do within those rules is up to them. But it has nothing to do with public policy’. In Parekh’s account, by contrast, equality does not imply uniformity, as he places equality in the interplay of uniformity and difference. ‘Equal rights do not mean identical rights, for individuals with different cultural backgrounds and needs might require different rights to enjoy equality in respect of whatever happens to be the content of their rights. Equality involves not just rejection of irrelevant differences as is commonly argued, but also full recognition of legitimate and relevant ones’ (Parekh, 2000, p. 240). Multiculturalists like Parekh therefore plead for a ‘politics of difference’ or a ‘politics of recognition’, characterized by reasonable accommodation and exemption laws. If general laws are inappropriate to guarantee religious and cultural freedom for minorities, governments should allow exemptions or culturally/religiously related accommodations. Only in that case will equal opportunities be guaranteed for all. One well-known example of an exemption law is the amended American Indian Religious Freedom Act (Public Law No. 103-344 on October 6, 1994), which allows sacramental use of peyote in traditional religious ceremonies. Another example is the 1972 Wisconsin v. Yoder case (406 U.S. 205), wherein the American Supreme Court decided that Amish children could be exempted from compulsory education above 8th grade (14 year old) because mandatory high school might constitute an infringement of their parents’ right to religious freedom. In a comparable way, turban-wearing Sikhs in Great Britain, Malaysia and in several Canadian provinces are exempted from motorcycle helmet laws, so as to provide their freedom of religion.

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Obviously, this kind of ‘multicultural’ exemptions will also be facilitated by Barry. If we leave the nuances for what they are, Barry and Parekh would for instance largely agree that (1) Native Americans may, in spite of national anti-drug policies, use peyote in the context of religious sacraments; (2) Sikhs are allowed to wear turbans in schools where the regulations stipulate that every student must wear a uniform; (3) Sikhs may use a turban instead of a helmet on construction sites; (4) education should offer a multicultural curriculum; (5) clitoridectomy of young girls cannot be allowed (see Parekh, 2002, pp. 147–149). Hence Barry and Parekh ‘are not so far apart as might be supposed on political issues in Britain’ (Barry, cited in Parekh, 2002, p. 150) and Barry declares himself to be surprised if ‘out of a hundred controverted questions, we would disagree on more than one or two’ (ibid.). Where both thinkers clearly differ is ‘the way we get there’ (ibid.): while for Parekh and other multiculturalists, the reasonable multicultural exemptions and accommodations are a matter of justice, they stem from pragmatic considerations in Barry’s view (see also Mendus, 2002). Hence the exceptions Barry allows are not considered to be rights, but they are rather the expression of a ‘prudent and enlightened public policy’ (Barry, 2001a, p. 175). Nevertheless, the fact that Barry agrees with multicultural exemptions seems awkward since he considers his own theoretical doctrine to be a fierce critique of multiculturalism. ‘Only by adopting the tenets of the politics of difference, it is said, can we hope to achieve real liberty and equality. Against this, I shall argue that multiculturalist policies are not in general well designed to advance the values of liberty and equality, (…) and the implementation of such policies tends to mark a retreat from both’ (Barry, 2001a, p. 12).

5.4

Reasonable Accommodation

Thus far, we have considered the ideas of equality and religious accommodation from a philosophical perspective. We have seen that according to Barry, there is a false analogy between religions and physical disabilities. Parekh, however, is more inclined to embrace what could be called the ‘religion-as-a-handicap’ point of view. Also in the legal sphere,

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debates have emerged concerning the treatment of religious people and the (un)desirability of ‘reasonable accommodation for religion’. Below, we will consider the extent to which this concept has been legally defended in the US, in Canada, and in Europe. The concept of ‘reasonable accommodation’ emerged in the US, where in 1964 employees by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act were obliged to adapt the rules and practices of the workplace in function of the religious beliefs and practices of employees. The duty of reasonable accommodation means that private and public employers (with more than 15 employees) are not allowed to treat anyone more (un)favourably for the sake of religion and that they must therefore provide their employees with adjustments such as exceptions to dress codes, changes to the timetable, and admissions for a day off on religious holidays. An employer can only withdraw from this duty if he/she can convincingly prove that these adjustments would lead to ‘undue hardship’ and thus that the purposes of the job would be jeopardized. In other words, exceptions on the policy of reasonable accommodation are allowed when this policy involves disproportionate costs or has unfair or unreasonable consequences. If, for example, all Muslim employees were to ask for Friday off in a company where 90% of the employees are Muslims, it would be impossible for the company to continue operating properly on Fridays. However, things would be different if only one or two employees were Muslim. In that case, it would be reasonable to swap days with other workers (of a different faith), allowing the business to continue as normal on Fridays. As long as the costs have not been shifted to colleagues—imagine a company whose activities on Fridays are exceptionally intense compared to the activities on other days of the week—the accommodation would not constitute a burden and would be considered reasonable. In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was implemented and the underlying idea of reasonable accommodation was also considered to be applicable for disability (Henrard, 2012). The accommodation obligation in the US was therefore recognized in relation to two grounds—religion and disability—but there was no development towards a more comprehensive accommodation policy. This development, however, did happen in Canada (see Canadian Human Rights

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Commission), where the Canadian Supreme Court developed a strong doctrine for religious accommodation. In a later stage, this policy of reasonable accommodation was also applied to other grounds of discrimination as described in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The right to reasonable accommodation in Canada is thus transversal, or linked to the characteristics covered by the anti-discrimination law (e.g. religion, disability, gender, pregnancy, national origin and family status). Another difference has to do with the concept of undue hardship: while the US invokes a restriction, a de minimis standard of undue hardship, this is rejected by the Canadian Supreme Court. ‘[T]here is good reason not to adopt the ‘de minimis’ test in Canada. (…) The case law of this Court has approached the issue of accommodation in a more purposive manner, attempting to provide equal access to the workforce to people who would otherwise encounter serious barriers to entry. The approach of Canadian courts is thus quite different from the approach taken in U.S. cases’ (cited in Bader, Alidadi & Vermeulen, 2013, p. 65). In the Andrews case (Andrews v Law Society of British Columbia, [1989] 1 SCR 143), for example, the Canadian Supreme Court stated that ‘the accommodation of differences (…) is the essence of true equality’ (cited in Waddington, 2011, p. 188). Because equal treatment can lead to inequality, ‘substantive equality’ can—and sometimes needs to—involve different treatment. As a consequence, substantive equality presupposes a ‘duty to accommodate differences’ (Law v. Canada—Minister of Employment and Immigration— [1999] 1 S.C.R. 497). Although reasonable accommodation was invoked in the context of religion, it is only through the inclusion of this notion in the ADA that it was also picked up and legally implemented elsewhere in the world. In contrast to the US and Canada, however, a particular right to reasonable accommodation is in Europe only reserved by law for people with disabilities—and thus not for people with religious claims. The obligation to accommodate disabled people in a reasonable manner was established in the European Commission Employment Equality Directive 2000/78/EC of 24 November 2000 (Bribosia, Rorive, & Waddington, 2013), wherein it is stated in Article 5: ‘In order to guarantee compliance with the principle of equal treatment in relation to persons with disabilities, reasonable accommodation shall be provided. This means

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that employers shall take appropriate measures, where needed in a particular case, to enable a person with a disability to have access to, participate in, or advance in employment, or to undergo training, unless such measures would impose a disproportionate burden on the employer ’.

5.5

Reasonable Accommodation and Religion: European Case Law

In recent decades, many cases of religious accommodation in the workplace have been ruled by national courts (for an overview, see Alidadi, 2012; Bribosia et al., 2013). An analysis of these cases shows that the respective courts in Europe (ECHR and ECJ)3 sometimes come to different judgements in what are at first sight similar cases (cf. Mushaben, 2013). Since the ECHR gives the various European member states a large extent of autonomy in implementing religion-related policy (which is often historically grown and culturally determined) this should not surprise us. Following the margin of appreciation, the ECHR does not prescribe how its member states should deal with religion in the workplace, but it does mark the (extreme) limits within which the specific policies of the member states concerned must adhere. A closer look at national case law then reveals that the principle of reasonable accommodation on the basis of religion is strongly anchored in the Anglo-Saxon countries, while the ‘difference-blind’ approach is often (but not exclusively) applied in Europe. In Dahlab v. Switzerland (ECHR 42393/98, 15/02/2001) for instance, the ECHR ruled that schools may require teachers not to wear headscarves. Similarly, there is not necessarily an illegal restriction of religious freedom for students when they are not allowed to wear their headscarves (Leyla Sahin v. Turkey, ECHR 44774/98, 10-11-2005; Dogru and Kervançi v. France, ECHR 27058/05 and 31645/04, 04-12-2008). This, however, does not mean that the principle of reasonable accommodation could not be applied at a European level. For example, on the basis of Article 9 (freedom of opinion, conscience and religion) and Article 14 (non-discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights, religious accommodation could be permitted in certain contexts.

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In addition, the Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation (Employment Equality Framework Directive) plays a crucial role in European labour law, in particular with regard to the application and scope of the abovementioned articles. According to this directive (Article 2, b), there is ‘indirect discrimination’ if a seemingly neutral provision, regulation or practice would disadvantage persons with a certain gender, philosophy or belief, disability or age. However, if the provision, regulation or practice is based on objective grounds and has a legitimate purpose, this form of discrimination may be permitted in certain contexts. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, the prohibition of indirect discrimination can therefore be interpreted in a way that makes reasonable accommodation for religious practices legitimate, but this does not necessarily have to be the case. Below, we illustrate this by a number of European case studies. We make a distinction between ECJ jurisdiction on the one hand and ECHR jurisdiction on the other. Within the ECHR case law, we make a further division between ‘neutral’ companies (these can be private, semi-private or public) and ‘non-neutral’ or religiously affiliated organizations.

5.6

ECJ-EU Case Law

On 14 March 2017, the ECJ ruled on two related cases concerning private companies. In both cases (Bougnaoui & ADDH v. Micropole SA and Achbita & Center for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism v. G4S Secure Solutions NV ), the main issue was whether religious symbols are allowed in the workplace. Noticeably, when the ECJ was asked for prejudicial advise, the Advocate Generals (Eleanor Sharpston and Juliane Kokott, respectively) came to different conclusions.

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Bougnaoui & ADDH v. Micropole SA (ECLI: EU: C: 2017: 204) On 15 July 2008, Ms Asma Bougnaoui started as a project engineer at the French IT company Micropole SA. After a complaint from a customer who felt ‘uncomfortable’ when seeing Ms Bougnaoui’s headscarf, the employer asked Ms Bougnaoui to remove her headscarf in subsequent contacts with this particular customer. When she refused to do so, Ms Bougnaoui was fired. The case reached the French Court of Cassation, which subsequently asked the ECJ whether or not the requirement to remove the headscarf falls under the European Directive 2000/78/EC. According to Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston, personal freedom to express your own religion falls within the scope of this directive and hence Ms Bougnaoui has been disadvantaged by her employer. According to Sharpston, there was thus direct discrimination on the basis of religion or belief.

Achbita & Center for Equality of Opportunity and Opposition to Racism v. G4S Secure Solutions NV (ECLI: EU: C: 2017: 203) Ms Samira Achbita had been employed as a receptionist for the G4S security company in Belgium since 12 February 2003. In April 2006, she informed her superiors that she had decided to wear the headscarf at work, but they told her this would not be in line with the idea of neutrality to which the company adhered to (ECLI: EU: C: 2017: 203, §13). Two months later (on 13 June 2006) the employment regulations were changed and it was clearly stated that ‘it is not allowed for employees in the workplace to wear visible signs displaying their political, philosophical or religious convictions, or to manifest related rituals’. Because Ms Achbita still refused to remove her headscarf, she was fired. Accompanied by the Center for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism, she went to the Labor Court, which ruled that there was no discrimination. Subsequently, the case ended up with the Belgian Court of Cassation, which asked the ECJ for prejudicial advise. This time

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Advocate General Juliane Kokott argued there was no violation of the EU directive on discrimination in the workplace. According to Kokott, a company may, under a number of conditions, impose certain restrictions on its employees, even if this infringes on the freedom to express their religion. The first condition is that the regulations are clearly and neutrally formulated, which means that no private religion or philosophy of life may be endorsed. In addition, the ‘neutral’ profiling of a company is a legitimate aim, even if this neutrality can lead to a restriction of religious freedom. Finally, Kokott emphasized that freedom of enterprise allows certain clothing regulations, in particular in cases of direct customer contact. Kokott therefore argued that in the case of Achbita there was no discrimination based on religion or belief. What to do with these diverging conclusions? On 14 March 2017, the Gordian’s knot was solved by the ECJ, which concluded that private employers in the EU may dismiss employees on the basis of noncompliance with certain dress codes, but only under the following conditions: (1) the dress codes are part of a coherent and systematic policy; (2) the regulations only apply to employees who have direct contact with customers; and (3) the employer must first check whether the employee in question cannot be transferred to another position before he/she is dismissed. The difference-blind approach therefore takes the upper hand. Unlike, for example, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or skin colour, a person’s religion or worldview is not seen as absolute and it is therefore not unjust to restrict or prohibit the externalization of religion in the workplace. This decision may have far-reaching consequences: in order to conform to the often negative image that is being created about religion and in particular about Islam, employers can profile themselves as ‘neutral’ and, accordingly, exclude religion from the work space (provided that a number of conditions are met). Whereas religious signs could previously be banned on the basis of practical considerations such as hygiene and safety (see Chaplin’s case below), employers can now also invoke the rather ‘ideological’ argument of (religious, political and philosophical) neutrality.

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ECHR Case Law

Not only the ECJ, but also the ECHR has ruled in a number of cases about the wearing of religious and other symbols in the workplace. We successively discuss the cases Eweida vs. UK (ECHR 48420/10) and Chaplin vs. UK (ECHR 59842/10) on which the ECHR ruled on 12 April 2011. Subsequently, we discuss Obst v. Germany (ECHR 425/03) and Schüth v. Germany (ECHR 1620/03), which were also dealt with (in duo) by the ECHR (on 23 September 2010), but which are significantly different from the cases Eweida and Chaplin: while these two cases relate to a ‘neutral’ work context, the cases Obst and Schüth refer to a ‘non-neutral’ context of religiously affiliated organizations.

Neutral Organizations: Eweida and Chaplin Ms Eweida was employed by the public limited company British Airways. In 2004, the dress code was adjusted and religious clothing and/or accessories were no longer allowed. Exceptions were made for Sikhs who were allowed to wear their turban and kara (an iron bracelet). Muslim women were also allowed to wear a headscarf in the colours of the British Airways uniform. However, for Ms Eweida, who wore a visible necklace with crucifix, no exception was made. The case ended up with the ECHR, which ruled that British Airways had not made a fair balance between the new clothing regulations on the one hand and the consequences for Ms Eweida (her restriction of religious freedom) on the other hand. Although employers may have well-founded reasons for using uniforms (e.g. recognizability and safety), the Court considered Eweida’s crucifix as a ‘discreet’ symbol that had no impact on Eweida’s professionalism or on the image of British Airways. The ECHR therefore concluded ‘(…) That, in these circumstances where there is no evidence of any real encroachment on the interests of others, the domestic authorities failed sufficiently to protect the first applicant’s right to manifest her religion, in breach of the positive obligation under Article 9 ’ (§95). A comparable case is the case of Ms Chaplin, who worked as a nurse in a public hospital (the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust).

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As a result of a new dress code, wherein wearing jewellery was restricted to the absolute minimum in order to reduce the risk of infection, she was no longer allowed to wear her necklace with crucifix.4 Like the Eweida case, the Chaplin case ended up with the ECHR, but the Court came to a different conclusion, arguing that ‘the protection of health and safety on a hospital ward was inherently greater than that which was applied in respect of Ms Eweida’ (§99) and that ‘the interference with her freedom to manifest her religion was necessary in a democratic society and that there was no violation of Article 9 in respect of the second applicant ’ (§100). Both cases not only show that certain rights and freedoms can— and do—clash, but also that at first sight comparable cases can lead to different outcomes. Depending on the context, accommodation of religious (clothing) regulations appears to be reasonable, and sometimes the same measures are considered to be unreasonable.5

Religiously Affiliated Organizations: Obst and Schüth The cases above take place in a philosophically neutral context, wherein the companies are not directly related to a particular worldview or religion. However, there are also many non-profit organizations and, to a lesser extent, profit organizations, with a religious foundation. One wellknown example of the latter category is Hobby Lobby: an American hobby and craft store with a Christian background and mission. In line with this mission, the company refused to provide contraceptives for its employees, as required by the Obamacare-legislation. The case reached the American Supreme Court, which argued in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (573 U.S. 682, 30 June 2014) that profit-corporations can be exempted from a regulation its owners religiously object to, if there is a less restrictive means of furthering the law’s interest, according to the provisions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). According to the Council of Europe, it is also possible for religiously affiliated organizations to impose religion-related conditions on its staff, as can be read in the aforementioned Directive 2000/78/EC.6 The question is, however, how far employers can go in their ‘religious’ requirements, without infringing on several fundamental rights and freedoms

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of their employees, such as freedom of opinion, expression and religion as well as the right to privacy and non-discrimination. Can Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Islamic schools dismiss teachers because of their sexual orientation or marital status? Is it legitimate for a Christian school to give priority to baptized teachers? Is it legitimate to dismiss staff in Catholic hospitals because they openly criticize official Catholic viewpoints about the end of life? Unlike the previous cases, the question here is not to what extent employees are allowed to manifest their religion in a secular or neutral context (positive freedom of religion), but rather whether and how employees in a religiously affiliated company or organization can and should be protected against the philosophical requirements of the employer (negative religious freedom). Once again a number of rights and freedoms clash and a fair balance between the rights and duties of employers on the one hand, and of employees on the other is needed. By means of illustration, we briefly discuss two similar ECHR cases: Obst v. Germany and Schüth v. Germany. Both cases deal with employees of a religiously affiliated organization, who were dismissed because of their marital status. Mr Obst (an organist/choir leader in a Catholic parish) and Mr Schüth (PR manager of the Mormon church) were divorced at the time of employment and entered into a relationship with a new partner. According to the employers, this private issue was a valid reason for their dismissal. In Schüth’s case, his new partner also expected a child from him and as a result, he was not only accused of adultery, but also of bigamy. Both cases reached the German Constitutional Court, which argued that the credibility of the respective religious organizations would no longer be guaranteed if Mr Obst and Mr Schüth would continue working there. In 2003, the cases reached the ECHR, which partly came to a different opinion: while the dismissal of Mr Schüth was considered reasonable and proportional, this was not the case for Mr Obst. In its evaluation, the ECHR has taken into account a number of factors which also played a role in similar cases (e.g. Rommelfanger v. Germany, EHRM 12242/86, 06-09-1989; Siebenhaar v. Germany, EHRM 18136/02, 03-02-2011; and Fernandez Martinez v. Spain, EHRM 56030/07, 12-06-2014). First, there is the function of the employee: as a PR manager in the Mormon church, Mr Schüth had a

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greater responsibility than Mr Obst, who was organist and choir leader in a Catholic parish. Secondly, there is the nature of the action: to which extent are adultery and bigamy ‘offensive’ and to which extent do these actions infringe on one’s loyalty towards the employer? The respective ‘offensive activities’ were in both cases not explicitly linked to their job function, but this is not always the case. For example, in another German case (Rommelfanger v. Germany), in which a medical doctor in a Catholic hospital openly criticized the Catholic doctrine of abortion, the ECHR ruled that this offensive activity could, given Mr Rommelfanger’s professional position, not be allowed. Finally, the consequences of a possible dismissal are also taken into account: while Mr Schüth could easily find a new job as PR manager, this was considered less obvious for Mr Obst. This was also one of the reasons why the ECHR considered the restriction of Article 8 of the ECHR (right to privacy) reasonable and proportionate in the case of Mr Schüth, but not in the case of Mr Obst. Both cases show that the religious identity of an organization or enterprise can be a determining factor in the personnel policy. In order to safeguard the freedom of enterprise, association and religion, religiously affiliated organizations may (like non-religious organizations) demand from its staff certain forms of loyalty which are not admitted in a ‘secular’ context. Nonetheless, these requirements are not absolute, but contextdependent. As we will illustrate below, this contextuality is related to the fact that quite a few concepts in the discussion about accommodating religion in the workplace are open to interpretation.

5.8

Conceptual Vagueness: Context Matters

Characteristic of the discussions about religion and work is the common use of concepts such as ‘neutrality’, ‘religion’, ‘reasonableness’, ‘discrimination’ and ‘undue hardship’. This invites to interpretation and, therefore, also to a variety of jurisdiction and policy choices. Below we scrutinize a number of these concepts and show the extent to which contextual thinking and the reliance on proportionality can be helpful.

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Neutrality The concept of ‘neutrality’, which is used by both proponents and opponents of reasonable accommodation of religion, is vague and unclear in terms of the kind of policy one should implement. Defenders of the difference-sensitive approach, for example, believe that in practice equality can only be guaranteed if differences are taken into account. But this focus on difference can in turn lead to people being treated differently on the basis of culture/religion, which is not always considered ‘neutral’ by proponents of the difference-blind approach. According to this approach, unequal treatment based on religion must be avoided because this leads to inequality and can therefore turn into the opposite of the intended ‘neutrality’. Much thus depends on how to understand culture and religion ontologically: as an inseparable and therefore essential element of someone’s identity, or as a ‘constitutive binding’ (cf. infra) for which people remain responsible.

Religion The abovementioned concept of ‘constitutive binding’ brings us to the concept of ‘religion’ and its related difficulties. If one decides to take religious claims into account as the basis for a difference-sensitive approach, the question raises what counts as ‘religion’. As evidenced by, among other things, the recent study of so-called ‘pseudo-religions’, ‘parody religions’, ‘hyper-religions’ and ‘invented religions’ (Cusack, 2010; Possamai, 2012), ‘religion’ is an ambiguous concept. Moreover, obtaining a universal and timeless definition of ‘religion’ is also hampered by the individualization, de-institutionalization and dynamics of religion. Hence it is not always clear what is meant by ‘freedom of religion’ and ‘reasonable accommodation of religion’. In order to make clear what is meant by ‘religion’, without affecting the principle of state neutrality and the separation of church and state, the legislator could take into account what citizens describe as ‘religious’. In that case, however, there is a danger that many beliefs and practises fall under the scope of ‘religion’. One of the best known examples is the Church of Flying Spaghetti

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Monster (also known as ‘pastafarianism’). Although this ‘church’ is primarily a persiflage on ‘religion’, its marriages are recognized in New Zealand and its members may be photographed with a pasta strainer as headgear on official documents such as a driver’s licence in Austria, the Czech Republic, Russia, Utah and Texas. Nonetheless, the attempt of the relevant ‘church’ to be recognized as a religion in the American state of Nebraska was rejected in 2016. Here, the judge ruled that pastafarianism is not a religion, but rather, ‘a parody, intended to advance an argument about science, the evolution of life, and the place of religion in public education’ (Cavanaugh v. Bartelt, 4: 14-CV-3183, D. Neb., 28-042016). In a similar way, the Dutch Council of State ruled on 15 August 2018 that pastafarianism is not a religion (ECLI: NL: RVS: 2018: 2715). To avoid ‘fictitious’ religions, one could ask the government or the court to determine what religion stands for. In that case, however, there is a risk that traditional and institutionalized religions will be favoured, while less traditional and more individualized religions will be ignored (cf. Sullivan, 2004; Hurd, 2017). This, in turn, raises questions about state neutrality and the related separation of church and state. After all, according to the principle of interpretative restraint, it is not up to the government nor to the judge to univocally determine which views and/or actions are by definition ‘religious’, because that would inevitably lead to a violation of state neutrality. Given the conceptual vagueness regarding ‘religion’ and the (legal) difficulties to which this leads, some people argue for an abolishment of the right to religious freedom. This plea is usually accompanied by a plea for a more ‘inclusive’ approach, where ‘religion’ is no longer seen as a separate, ‘special’ category, but where religious and secular beliefs are treated on an equal footing (Eisgruber & Sager, 2007; Greenawalt, 2009; Hurd, 2017; Laborde, 2016; Levrau, 2018, 2019; Maclure, 2018, Perry, 2018; Sullivan, 2004; Swan, 2018). Swan (2018, p. 58) for example states that ‘religion is not special; rather, it should be viewed as legally on an equal basis with other sectarian commitments, including secular ones’. Rather than working with religion as a separate legal category, all kinds of ‘constitutive bindings’ should be taken into consideration: beliefs and convictions that are linked to someone’s moral and psychological integrity and touch on someone’s existential core: ‘(…) [B]eliefs that

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engage my conscience and the values with which I most identify, and those that allow me to find my way in a plural moral space, must be distinguished from my desires, taste, and other personal preferences, that is, from all things liable to contribute to my well-being but which I could forgo without feeling as if I were betraying myself or straying from the path I have chosen. The nonfulfillment of a desire may upset me, but it generally does not impinge on the bedrock values and beliefs that define me in the most fundamental way; it does not inflict “moral harm” ’ (Maclure & Taylor 2011, p. 77). This broad approach, however, leads to new problems. Like the concept of ‘religion’ for instance, the concept of ‘constitutional binding’ is equally vague. Besides, the question of how someone can ‘prove’ that the desired claim is related to his or her integrity is anything but obvious. In line with this, there may also be problems with the right to privacy when people are required to ‘prove’ that their claim for recognition is authentic. The possibility of accommodating constitutive bindings also leads to the question of what exactly ‘reasonable’ accommodations are (see below). Has one not opened the box of Pandora when everyone can formulate claims based on ‘constitutive bindings’? Indeed, are not all people (and therefore not only ‘religious people’) bound to ‘something’—think of lifestyles, subcultures and all kinds of beliefs such as vegetarianism (a bond that is now often recognized), but also naturism, gothic, deep love for a football club and ‘pink as a lifestyle’—which gives in fact every citizen the right to claim particular accommodations? There is indeed a real chance that the concept of ‘constitutive bindings’ will be abused, but there may also be abuse if ‘religion’ is to be retained as a separate legal basis. A striking example is The Only and Universal Smokers Church of God. In order to allow customers to smoke in Belgian cafés (and thus escape national smoking policy), some cafés were ‘baptized’ into ‘churches’. By doing this, its owners hoped that its smoking practices would be protected under the right to religious freedom. In the Netherlands, there was a comparable case of the ‘Monastic Order of the Sisters of Sint Walburg’, which saw the provision of sex shows as a part of religious practice. By making the sex club a church it could prevent the police to enter at unexpected moments. The Santo Daime Church (also in the Netherlands), whose members use the hallucinating ayauasca tea in worship, is also notorious. These and other ‘religions’ seem to benefit

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from the fact that religion is difficult to define, so that they eventually could take advantage of the right to freedom of religion.

Reasonableness If religions and/or constitutive bindings may be accommodated, the question is what the limits of this accommodation would be. After all, accommodating religion should be ‘reasonable’, but what exactly does that mean? Is it ‘reasonable’ to accommodate the ritual use of hallucinogens prohibited by law, or is such a policy rather unreasonable? And what about religious and philosophical practices and externalizations in the workplace? Is it reasonable to forbid civil servants to wear visible religious gear because they would otherwise give the appearance of bias? Or is it rather reasonable to pursue an inclusive and representative policy in this context? Is it reasonable to give Sikhs an exception for not wearing a helmet on a construction site in order not to limit their socioeconomic opportunities, or is this rather an example of ‘an intransigent minority group’ that is being privileged? And if it is ‘reasonable’ to allow a headscarf in the workplace, should a cap also be admitted as a vestigial attribute of an urban subculture? Where exactly should we draw the line? How far does reasonableness reach? Who should judge about this issue and based on which criteria? This question is related to the question of ‘unreasonable’ costs for employers when confronted with staff with a physical limitation requiring accommodations of the working place’s infrastructure (e.g. elevator, sanitary adjustments, braille laptops, etc.). Once again, it is difficult to give an unequivocal answer, because much depends on what exactly is being asked and in which context this happens. The question of ‘reasonableness’ is therefore closely related to the question of what is ‘feasible’ and ‘proportional’ given the circumstances. For example, the ECHR allowed the chain with a crucifix in the Eweida case, but not in the Chaplin case. In an analogous way, accommodating religious prayer moments during working hours may be refused in a position where staff members must be standby, while the accommodation of the headscarf in that same position could be possible.

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And while openly criticizing the Catholic abortion policy was considered offensive in the Rommelfanger case, it is not certain that having an extramarital relationship in the same context would be regarded as (equally) offensive. Furthermore, the impact of the accommodation (or lack thereof ) for the various parties involved (e.g. colleagues, employer, employee, customers or patients, etc.) is also a determining factor when fundamental rights of employee and employer conflict. According to the ‘accommodation proviso’, an accommodation can be reasonable, for example, if the accommodation of an employee is not accompanied by a disadvantage for colleagues (Levrau 2018). In addition, the disadvantage for the employer must also be taken into consideration. When it comes to religiously affiliated organizations, the credibility of these organizations is an important factor as well: according to the ECHR, the credibility of the Catholic Church could for instance no longer be guaranteed if Fernando Martinez, who was publicly known as a member of an association for optional celibacy, would retain his job as a teacher of Roman Catholicism. Moreover, the religious freedom of parents could also be violated if he continued to be employed because parents opt for ‘credible’ religious education, which according to the Court would no longer be guaranteed. In addition, the consequences for the employees involved must also be taken into consideration, as among others demonstrated by the Schüth and Obst cases. Finally, the impact on the ‘user’ (customer, patient, etc.) must also be taken into account. For example, according to the ECHR, Chaplin’s choice to wear a chain with a crucifix had greater consequences on the ‘customers’ than Eweida’s choice to wear a similar type of chain.

Discrimination A consideration closely related to the previous point has to do with ‘discrimination’. As a general rule, applicants and employees with the same qualifications must not be discriminated on the basis of religion, physical limitations, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc. In certain cases, however, specific requirements may be imposed on employees, which

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might perceive these requirements as discriminatory. For example, it is evident that actors for certain film roles are screened on the basis of, among other things, gender, age and skin colour, and it is legitimate when a minister recruits only cabinet staff members with a certain political preference. Similarly, football clubs will only recruit trainers who have knowledge of football and the green services may only recruit people who have knowledge of plants (Vickers, 2016). These are reasonable and necessary job requirements which make specific people (un)suitable for a job. In a comparable way, employers of companies/organizations with a religious foundation can impose requirements on their employees (e.g. being baptized, not being divorced), without illegally restricting the right to non-discrimination. ‘Religion-based hiring by a religious organization is rationally related to its nature and purpose. Discrimination only becomes negative when it makes arbitrary, irrational distinctions based on prejudice, as when an entire category of persons (women, African-Americans, Hispanics, those with a handicap) is rejected and held to be unqualified ’ (Monsma, 2012, p. 80). As long as the policy in question can be justified in the light of the nature and objectives of the company, the ‘right to exclude’ (Monsma, 2012, p. 74) can be legitimate in both secular and religiously affiliated organizations. At first glance, this seems plausible and evident, but a deeper analysis shows that there might be ‘conceptual vagueness’ once again. After all, it is not always clear when a particular practice constitutes an essential, legitimate and justified professional requirement and therefore is legally covered by Directive 2000/78/EC. For example, may hairdressers refuse to recruit women with headscarves because this goes against the ‘nature’ and ‘objectives’ of the job? In the case of Noah v. Desrosiers (Employment Tribunal Case No. 2201867/07, 29-05-2008), a British court ruled for instance that in such cases religious expressions must be tolerated, even if this would run counter to the hairdresser’s commercial ideas.7 As stated above, however, the ECJ might have opened the door on 14 March 2017 since employers can refer to ‘neutrality’ and hence expect their employees to leave their religious and other visible signs at home. A possible consequence is that employers could discriminate under the guise of neutrality (and the corresponding ideal of equal

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treatment) and therefore use neutrality in a rather pejorative way to distance themselves from religion. The answer to the question whether reasonable accommodation for religious claims should be allowed, depends to a large extent on the context. For example, in its assessment of the Achbita case, the ECJ made a distinction between jobs with and without direct customer contact. In the cases of Obst and Schüth, the ECHR pointed out that Schüth, as PR responsible, had a greater responsibility for the church than Obst, which means that the dismissal of Schüth was better justified than that of Obst. Catholic schools, in a comparable way, can demand more loyalty from their religious education teachers than from teachers of secular subjects, while at the same time more loyalty can be demanded from teaching staff than from administrative and technical staff, who have significantly less contact with students. In a similar way, a church as an employer can impose religious restrictions on a priest, but not (or less) on the gardener who arranges the green areas around the church: ‘(…) [T]here is no problem in a church’s discriminating on religious grounds in its appointment of a priest or in a mosque’s doing so in its appointment of an imam, although there may well be a problem if either takes account of an applicant’s faith when it appoints a gardener or a cleaner or an accountant ’ (Jones, 2012, pp. 12–13).

5.9

Conclusion

A hard question is whether accommodations for religion (in the workplace) can be reconciled with the principles of equality and neutrality. According to multiculturalists such as Bhikhu Parekh, the answer is clear: accommodations are a matter of justice. In a similar vein, Monsma and Carlson-Thies (2015, p. 123) state that ‘granting exemptions to believers from otherwise valid laws when they clash with their beliefs […is ] among the best of our traditions’ because such a policy actually takes into account the freedom of religion. Moreover, there is not only a need to accommodate religion in the secular work environment, but organizations with a religious foundation must also have the right to hire employees who actually support the religious mission, or to refuse or dismiss employees who do

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not (Laylock, quoted in Monsma & Carlson-Thies, 2015, p. 20). Brian Barry, however, defends another view since he believes granting religious accommodation by means of exemptions leads to inequality. Only for pragmatic reasons can exception rules (temporarily and as long as the inequality persists) be legitimized. Depending on the philosophical position, accommodations can thus be considered as necessary elements to create more justice or as rather pragmatic considerations. However, the question remains as to when and on the basis of which criteria these types of exception rights can be admitted, in particular when these rights clash with other rights and freedoms and can influence external parties. Legal conflicts about the accommodation of religion in the labour context are therefore numerous in Europe and they will probably not be settled in the near future. Due to the different interpretations of the concept of ‘equality’ (and the associated tension between the ‘difference-blind’ and the ‘difference-sensitive’ approach) and because of the lack of clarity of a number of important concepts, it seems that finding an unequivocal way out is virtually impossible. The case studies discussed in this chapter show that there is indeed no uniform answer to the question of when religious claims should be accommodated. The only accurate answer seems to be that the context largely determines the chosen policy. As stated by Andrew Koppelman (2013, p. 164), ‘the decision whether to treat religion specially in any particular case requires the decision maker (…) to balance the good of religion against whatever good the generally applicable law seeks to pursue. That balancing is a matter of context-specific judgment. It is not reducible to any legal formula’. Such a contextual approach, which is also reflected in case law, takes into account various factors (e.g. function, employment opportunities, nature of the ‘offensive’ act, impact on others, national/local context,…) in a proportional way. One of the consequences of this ‘reasonable’ approach is that at first sight similar cases might nevertheless lead to different outcomes.

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Notes 1. We leave aside the many nuances in the broad debate about luck egalitarianism (see, e.g., Lippert-Rasmussen, 2016). 2. Even though Barry defends the Lockean idea that civil law limits religious practices, his argumentation is different from Locke. While Locke relied on epistemological, practical/pragmatic and theological arguments, Barry only refers to the principles of freedom and equality. Locke’s epistemological argument states that believing is not an act of will and that, accordingly, it is impossible to impose faith. From a pragmatic point of view, Locke also argues that tolerance is better for society than war and hostility. Finally, theological arguments for tolerance can be found in the Bible. Locke’s conception of tolerance is also different from Barry’s because he does not grant any tolerance to atheists and Catholics: while the former group would have no reasons to be morally virtuous, the latter could, given its allegiance to the Pope, not be loyal to the state. Accordingly, neither group should be tolerated since they are considered a danger to the state. Barry (and in fact contemporary liberal theory in general), in contrast, only relies on the principles of freedom and equality and therefore interprets tolerance in a much broader way: people are free to believe and to act in accordance with their faith, as long as this does not interfere with the rights and freedoms of their co-citizens. 3. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ensures that European member states comply with the rights and obligations as laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). If this is not the case, individuals, groups, organizations and countries can complain against a Member State, which is then dealt with by the ECHR. Unlike the Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ), the ECHR is not an institution of the European Union, but of the Council of Europe, to which nearly 50 countries are affiliated. The judgments of the ECHR are final and binding on the states involved. The ECJ, on the other hand, ensures that EU legislation is interpreted and applied in the same way in all EU member states and settles legal disputes between national governments and EU institutions. In certain circumstances, individuals, companies and organizations may also bring proceedings before this Court, in particular if they believe that their rights have been violated by an EU institution. A significant difference between the two Courts is that the ECJ rulings are binding in all its facets

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on the EU member states, while the ECHR grants a wide margin of appreciation to the member states. This allows the ECHR to explicitly take into account the sociocultural, historical (and also religious) differences between the member states. 4. The hospital is not a private institution, but a public institution that is, unlike the religiously affiliated companies that we discuss in the next section, neutral. 5. Remarkably, in the Chaplin case (a nurse with crucifix), the unreasonableness of the accommodation was not supported by the reference to a lack of neutrality, but by the criteria of ‘hygiene’ and ‘patient safety’. This means that, according to the ECHR, religious symbols do not by definition jeopardize the neutrality of public institutions. 6. Article 4. Occupational requirements. [1] Notwithstanding Article 2(1) and (2), Member States may provide that a difference of treatment which is based on a characteristic related to any of the grounds referred to in Article 1 shall not constitute discrimination where, by reason of the nature of the particular occupational activities concerned or of the context in which they are carried out, such a characteristic constitutes a genuine and determining occupational requirement, provided that the objective is legitimate and the requirement is proportionate. [2] Member States may maintain national legislation in force at the date of adoption of this Directive or provide for future legislation incorporating national practices existing at the date of adoption of this Directive pursuant to which, in the case of occupational activities within churches and other public or private organisations the ethos of which is based on religion or belief, a difference of treatment based on a person’s religion or belief shall not constitute discrimination where, by reason of the nature of these activities or of the context in which they are carried out, a person’s religion or belief constitute a genuine, legitimate and justified occupational requirement, having regard to the organisation’s ethos. This difference of treatment shall be implemented taking account of Member States’ constitutional provisions and principles, as well as the general principles of Community law, and should not justify discrimination on another ground. Provided that its provisions are otherwise complied with, this Directive shall thus not prejudice the right of churches and other public or private organisations, the ethos of which is based on religion or belief, acting in conformity with national constitutions and laws, to require individuals working for them to act in good faith and with loyalty to the organisation’s ethos.

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7. Sarah Desrosiers, owner of an ‘urban funky’ London barber shop, was prosecuted for ‘religious discrimination’ because she did not want to give Ms Bushra Noah, a Muslim with a headscarf, a job in her hair salon. The Court had to consider whether what Desrosiers advocated was proportional in the light of a legitimate goal. It was decided that this was not the case. Desosiers assumed too strongly that the headscarf would be detrimental for the success of the hair salon. Given that she would continue to show her hair herself, customers would also quickly understand that the headscarf is a personal choice of Noah and therefore had nothing to do with the hair salon. On the other hand, showing the hair is not necessary to properly perform the job. There was therefore indirect discrimination.

References Alidadi, K. (2012). Reasonable accommodations for religion and belief: Adding value to article 9 ECHR and the European Union’s anti-discrimination approach to Employment? European Law Review, 37 (6), 693–715. Bader, V., Alidadi, K., & Vermeulen, F. (2013). Religious diversity and reasonable accommodation in the workplace in six European countries: An introduction. International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 13(2–3), 54–82. Barry, B. (2001a). Culture and equality: An egalitarian critique of multiculturalism. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Barry, B. (2001b). Equal treatment and same treatment. S eminarlecture at The New York University Department of Politics. http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/ dept/politics/seminars/barry.pdf. Accessed 28 May 2018. Bribosia, E., Rorive, I., & Waddington, I. (2013). Reasonable accommodation beyond disability in Europe? European Commission. Cusack, C. (2010). Invented religions: Imaginations, fiction and faith. Farnam, Burlington: Ashgate. Dworkin, R. (2000). Sovereign virtue: The theory and practice of equality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Eisgruber, C., & Sager, L. C. (2007). Religious freedom and the constitution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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Greenawalt, K. (2009). Religion and the constitution (Vols. 1–2). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Henrard, K. (2012). Religion and the European court of human rights: A closer look at the prohibition of discrimination, the freedom of religion and related duties of state neutrality. Erasmus Law Review, 5 (1), 59–77. Hurd, E. S. (2017). Beyond religious Freedom: The new global politics of religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jones, P. (2012). Toleration, religion and accommodation. European Journal of Philosophy. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.14680378.2012.00549.x/pdf. Accessed 11 April 2014. Koppelman, A. (2013). Defending American religious neutrality. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Laborde, C. (2016). Conclusion: Is religion special? In J. L. Cohen & C. Laborde (Eds.), Religion, secularism & constitutional democracy (pp. 423– 433). New York: Columbia University Press. Levrau, F. (2018). Pluriform accommodation: Justice beyond multiculturalism and freedom of religion. Res Philosophica, 95 (1), 85–112. Levrau, F. (2019). Expanding the multicultural recognition scope? A critical analysis of Will Kymlicka’s polyethnic rights. The Pluralist, 14 (3), 78–107. Levrau, F., & Loobuyck, P. (2020). With or without religious symbols? Why political liberalism is inconclusive in the case of civil servants. Res Publica: A Journal of Legal and Social Philosophy‚ 26 (3)‚ 319–335. Lippert-Rasmussen, K. (2016). Luck egalitarianism. London: Bloomsbury. Locke, J. (2013/1689). A letter concerning toleration. London: Broadview Press. Maclure, J. (2018). Conscience, religion, and exemptions: An egalitarian view. In K. Vallier & M. Weber (Eds.), Religious exemptions (pp. 9–20). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maclure, J., & Taylor, C. (2011). Secularism and freedom of conscience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Mendus, S. (2002). Choice, chance and multiculturalism. In P. Kelly (Ed.), Multiculturalism reconsidered (pp. 31–44). Cambridge: Polity Press. Monsma, S. V. (2012). Pluralism and freedom: Faith-based organizations in a democratic society. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Monsma, S., & Carlson-Thies, S. (2015). Free to serve: Protecting the religious freedom of faith-based organizations. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press. Mushaben, J. M. (2013). Separate and unequal: Judicial culture, employment qualifications and Muslim headscarf debates. Laws, 2(3), 314–336. Parekh, B. (2000). Rethinking multiculturalism: Cultural diversity and political theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Parekh, B. (2002). Barry and the dangers of liberalism. In P. Kelly (Ed.), Multiculturalism reconsidered (pp. 133–150). Cambridge: Polity Press. Perry, M. J. (2018). On the constitutionality and political morality of granting conscience-protecting exemptions only to religious believers. In K. Vallier & M. Weber (Eds.), Religious exemptions (pp. 21–36). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Possamai, A. (2012). Handbook of hyper-real religions. Leiden, NY: Brill. Sullivan, W. F. S. (2004). The impossibility of religious freedom. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Swan, K. (2018). How should we treat religion? On exemptions and exclusion. In K. Vallier & M. Weber (Eds.), Religious exemptions (pp. 37–58). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vickers, L. (2016). Religious freedom, religious discrimination and the workplace. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Waddington, L. (2011). Reasonable accommodation: Time to extend the duty to accommodation beyond disability? NTM/NJCM-Bulletin, 36 (2), 186– 198.

6 Economic Equality and the Welfare State Wim Van Lancker and Aaron Van den Heede

6.1

Introduction

The modern welfare state is an unrivalled, advanced form of society based on freedom and solidarity, it is the ‘spiritual ideal of Europe’ (Deleeck, 2001). These words of the late Belgian scholar Herman Deleeck perhaps ring hollow to many of us, since over the past few years we have been barraged with doomsday messages on the pervasive effects of rising inequalities across the globe. Even predictions of the ‘end of the welfare state’ surfaced multiple times over the past decades (Gornick, 2001; Svallfors & Taylor-Gooby, 1999). Still, a chapter on the welfare state in a book on equality is well-deserved. Welfare states are amongst the best performing countries in terms of economic and social progress. Citizenship in welfare states is premised on a ‘kind of basic human equality’ that guarantees each and every one a decent minimum standard of living, according to the sociologist W. Van Lancker (B) · A. Van den Heede Centre for Sociological Research, University of Leuven, Louvain, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 F. Levrau and N. Clycq (eds.), Equality, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54310-5_6

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T. H. Marshall in 1949. Not that such ideal of basic human equality has been fully achieved, as we shall see later in this chapter. Yet, the welfare state is heralded as an economic and social system that is superior to other forms of social organization in ensuring economic equality amongst its citizens while maintaining an ever-increasing living standard. The term welfare state allegedly originated in Britain in the 1940s and since then it has been used to characterize a set of countries that share similar characteristics. Although the precise definition of the welfare state is still a matter of debate, which we will not revisit here (Greve, 2015), it is commonly acknowledged that ‘established’ welfare states are rich, capitalist democracies in which at least some of the responsibilities for providing welfare to citizens is transferred to the state. In providing welfare for all, welfare states redistribute incomes directly, usually by means of progressive taxation, government transfers and the provision of services. As a consequence, established welfare states are also countries in which taxes and levels of public spending are usually quite high: a certain financial capacity is necessary to meet the needs of the people (Wilensky, 1975). Because the living standard and welfare of citizens in these countries are high, a higher tax burden is usually well supported (Benabou, 2000; Persson, 1995). At the same time, welfare states don’t contradict capitalist market principles to deliver goods and services but rather modify and correct these market forces. By establishing labour market legislation and setting minimum wages, for instance welfare states affect the distribution of incomes even before redistribution takes place. In the scientific literature, this is often referred to as ‘welfare capitalism’ (Esping-Andersen, 1990). Despite clear commonalities, welfare states also differ from one another in many important respects, depending on the relationship between the roles of the government, the market and the family in providing welfare to its citizens. In some welfare states, the role of the market is primordial while in others the role of the family or the government is emphasized more. These differences are the results of path dependent trajectories of welfare state development, grafted in class mobilization, party development, growing mass democracies and

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universal suffrage, religious and cultural norms, and processes of modernization and the emergence of ‘social risks’ (see Castles, Leibfried, Lewis, Obinger, & Pierson, 2012; Greve, 2012 for overviews and debates). At the onset of this chapter we should clarify what we mean by economic equality. There are many forms of economic equality, and a large body of philosophical and economics literature is devoted to the question ‘equality of what?’ (Sen, 1980; see the chapter of Levrau in this book). In this chapter we refer to the extent to which incomes are distributed amongst citizens living in a particular country, captured by measures of income inequality and poverty. Obviously, economic resources stretch beyond ‘income’ alone. Inequalities in the accumulation of wealth, for instance are as much as relevant to consider. Yet, income is a good predictor of one’s living standard and reliable income data are readily available for many countries in surveys (see Kuypers & Marx, 2018 for a discussion of joint income-wealth analyses). In this chapter we discuss how and to what extent welfare states achieve economic equality. In doing so, we will focus on similarities and differences, and review what type of welfare states achieve equality more than others. Finally, we will discuss how the future of the welfare state can be jeopardized by profound political and social changes over the last decades and in the future. The analytical focus is limited to rich, democracies with welfare state histories dating back to the post-War period (and often much farther beyond), in particular countries belonging to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Yet, countries all over the world are moving into the direction of becoming welfare states, implementing similar welfare state characteristics based on similar principles and techniques of social insurance, but with their own path-dependent twist (e.g. Aspalter, 2017). Recent examples of emerging welfare states include Brazil, China, Indonesia and India, countries in which systems of cash transfers, health insurance and pension systems are developing. For that reason, we believe our findings and analyses presented here bear global relevance.

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A Brief History of Welfare State Evolution

Most people associate the welfare state with the period following the end of the Second World War, a time in which many countries plagued by the remnants of the war institutionalized or expanded systems of social security. Yet, arrangements for the provision of social welfare were in place long before that. With the spread of industrialization in the nineteenth century, a number of countries for instance had rudimentary systems of public health, employment regulations and education in place (Pierson, 2006). Yet, the transformation from a ‘laissez-fair’ nineteenth century state to a welfare state is related to the increased use of social insurance mechanisms to protect (at least a number of ) citizens from the risks associated with industrialized labour market and the capitalist mode of production (Flora & Heidenheimer, 1981). Such risks included life events that prevented one to gain a wage in the labour market, such as unemployment, ill-health or old-age, and events that incurred additional costs on families, such as having children. In the scientific literature today, these risks are commonly referred to as ‘old social risks’, related to industrialized labour markets. Under Chancellor Bismarck, Germany became the first country to adopt systems of insurance, for industrial accidents (in 1871), health (in 1883) and pensions (in 1889) (all numbers in this paragraph are taken from Pierson, 2006, pp. 104–107). In 1905, France was the first country to introduce an unemployment insurance scheme, Norway (in 1906) and Denmark (in 1907) followed suit shortly. By the outbreak of the first World War in 1914, many countries including Belgium, Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand had introduced social insurance schemes to cover for at least part of the old social risks. These schemes were often grafted upon earlier, more scattered or industry-specific schemes that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century all across the industrial countries of the time. After the war, social insurance systems were implemented in the USA and Canada too, while family allowances were introduced in the other early welfare states. One should bear in mind that these schemes were not

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universal yet, and only covered small portions of the working population (usually the unionized ones). It is important to note that the early expansion of social insurance schemes corresponds well with the expansion of citizenship by means of universal suffrage and the rise of Left-party political participation, the consolidation of union power, as well as a general increases in living standards and economic growth (Baldwin, 1990; Korpi, 1989). This is not to say that the early social security schemes caused these developments; rather they emerged under conditions that were more favourable than the conditions in the first half of the nineteenth century. The interwar period, for instance was characterized by important demographic changes such as a strong increase in life expectancy and a decline in mortality. This coincided with a further expansion and growth of social programmes: when life expectancy rises and more people survive beyond the pension age, spending on pensions automatically increases. This also set in motion a series of reforms to increase the coverage and generosity of said programmes. For instance, most old-age pension systems were initially restricted to the mining industry only, but were gradually introduced across different sectors as well. The more persons working in different sectors surviving into pension age, the higher the pressure to expand pension schemes. Additionally, non-elderly persons outside of the labour market began to be covered by social insurance schemes, survivor benefits for widows being a prime example (Flora & Heidenheimer, 1981). This all culminated in the trentes glorieuses of the welfare state after the second World War (Taylor-Gooby, 2002). In the UK, the 1942 ‘Beveridge report’, written by William Beveridge, provided a blueprint for the foundations of the modern welfare state. In his report, Beveridge wrote that ‘A revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching ’ (Beveridge, 1942, p. 7). Building on the existing systems of social insurance, he proposed to create a generalized system of social security covering the population beyond specific sections of the workforce. In doing so, he believed that the welfare state could help abolish what he called the ‘five giants’ to defeat on the road to postwar reconstruction: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. In

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the report, Beveridge advocated a universal and comprehensive healthcare system (to tackle Disease), education (to tackle Ignorance) and social housing (to tackle Squalor). In particular, he argued for family allowances and a system of social insurance to cover for social risks, designed to support the Keynesian idea of full employment. The welfare state has never been about money for nothing, but was founded on the principle of reciprocity: ‘something for something’. For Beveridge, the giant Idleness was attacked by providing a sufficient number of jobs and by the obligation of able-bodied men (!) to actively seek for a job, while Want was attacked by the provision of benefits that were above the poverty line for those who were temporarily out of a job or were not able to engage in paid employment. Accordingly, Beveridge proposed that ‘unemployment benefit after a certain period [should be] conditional upon attendance at a work or training centre’ (Beveridge, 1942, par. 424). Judged by today’s standards, this sounds awfully familiar. In any case, despite never been carried out in full, the Beveridge report directly led to the adoption of the 1946 National Insurance Act which implemented a system of compulsory social insurance against unemployment and sickness. At around the same time, many other Western countries implemented legislation that expanded social security systems and made it compulsory as well. In 1944, for instance, Belgium adopted a Law on Social Security for Workers instituting compulsory insurance for unemployment and sickness. Similar systems were adopted in inter alia France (1945), Sweden (1946) and the Netherlands (1949). In all of these countries, the three decades after the war witnessed a massive extension of social security schemes, covering an increasing number of citizens, and an increase in generosity of the benefits. Figure 6.1 shows the result of all these developments. Since the 1930s, spending on social programmes (expressed in percentage of Gross Domestic Product) continuously rose, and surged after the second World War. In countries like Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Demark, France and the UK, welfare state spending tripled between 1945 and 1965, growing even faster than national income. These developments are testimony to a general commitment to distribute the fruits of economic prosperity over the population

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during that time. One could conclude, in a Rawlsian sense, that the division of income and wealth as a primary good was to the benefit of the worse off. From the mid-1970s onward, welfare states experienced declining rates of economic growth, rising unemployment levels, high inflation and increasing public debt. The post-war institutions of the welfare states seemed unable to cope with the consequences of these profound changes in the social fabric and the surge in mass unemployment. Beveridge, for instance explicitly wrote that unemployment benefits were impracticable ‘if it has to be applied to men by the million or the hundred thousand ’ (Beveridge, 1942, par. 440). As a result, the welfare state increasingly came to be seen part of the problem rather than the solution: too expensive, keeping people trapped in unemployment and being an impediment to economic growth. Figure 6.1 shows that the country trajectories in terms of social spending started to diverge from the mid-1970s onwards. Notwithstanding a continuous increase in spending in the majority of countries, almost all welfare states came under budgetary pressures. Welfare states now had to act under the conditions of ‘permanent austerity’ (Pierson, 2001).

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Simultaneously, the welfare state was confronted with new challenges above and beyond mass unemployment such as economic globalization and international competition, demographic changes, the decline of the number of jobs in manufacturing and the surge in service sector jobs and the concomitant rise of the knowledge economy, changing family relations, the massive entry of women into the labour market and new migration flows (Bonoli, 2005; Taylor-Gooby, 2004). Designed to cope with the old social risks, welfare states had to set out in search for an adequate response to a set of unfamiliar new challenges, nowadays referred to ‘new social risks’, such as being low-skilled (often resulting in a high unemployment risk), single parenthood, the problem of combining care duties with paid work, the necessity to care for frail relatives and insufficient social security coverage. Hence emerged an at first glance paradoxical situation: the welfare state expanded once again to cover for these new social risks while at the same facing economic and fiscal constraints. As a result, in many welfare states in the 1990s the policy focus shifted from ‘passively’ protecting citizens when unemployment struck to ‘actively’ integrating them back into the labour market. In the ‘active welfare state’, avoiding the mass unemployment of the 1970s was instrumental to broaden the contribution base (more people working means more people contributing to the welfare state) and lowering the budgetary cost associated with unemployment. In many welfare states, the focus on activation coincided with welfare state retrenchment, increased conditionality of social rights (‘workfare’) and the curtailment of benefit generosity to increase work incentives for the unemployed (Clasen & Clegg, 2011). Increasingly, unemployment benefit eligibility became not only tied to the occurrence of a social risk but also to behavioural requirements. From the 2000s, then, the social investment paradigm emerged from the ashes of social-democratic Third Way politics in the United Kingdom and Germany, and became the dominant principle guiding social policy reform throughout the European Union and beyond (Morel, Palier, & Palme, 2012). The social investment state aims to deepen the focus on employment not only by activating the unemployed, but also by promoting self-reliance in order to avoid unemployment in the first

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place. The prime channel to achieve this ideal of social inclusion through labour market participation is long-term investment in human capital, beginning in early life (Esping-Andersen, Gallie, Hemerijck, & Myles, 2002; Hemerijck, 2013). This ought to ensure productivity improvements for future generations and bestow upon individuals the necessary skills for them to be able to grab the opportunities that present themselves in modern labour markets. This tilts the policy balance once again in favour of childcare, education and training services instead of income protection for people at active age (Cantillon & Van Lancker, 2013). At the same time due to population ageing, spending on pensions and healthcare continues to increase in most welfare states. So, although it seems that welfare states prove to be remarkably robust in the past four decades (Pierson, 2011), in qualitative terms there has been an important shift away from the traditional welfare settlement, both at the level of policies and at the level of ideas. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now distinguish between a Keynesian period of welfare state growth during the trente glorieuses, a neoliberal period of welfare state restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s and a period of social investment from the 2000s onwards (Bonoli & Natali, 2012; Morel et al., 2012).

6.3

Risk Smoothing Over the Life Course

In 1901, British industrialist and social reformer Seebohm Rowntree published a text that became one of sociology’s classics: Poverty: A Study of Town Life. Based on two-year observations of the ‘wage earning classes’ in York at the end of the nineteenth century, he found out that destitute social conditions and poverty were related to age and family formation. He identified alternating periods of ‘want and plenty’ (Rowntree, 1922, pp. 169–170). When families have young children, there are many mouths to feed and one source of income (usually the husband’s) no longer suffices. Thus in childhood, the poverty risk is high. That risk attenuates when children start earning their own wages and contribute to the household income, until they leave the house. In old-age the poverty risk starts rising again because there is no longer income from work while

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there are (in Rowntree’s time) no pension systems to adequately cover for this loss of income. Figure 6.2 shows this cyclical pattern of poverty over the life course as observed by Rowntree. Aptly summarized, at the turn of the nineteenth century, a family was less likely to be poor if there was income from work and not too much expenses to cover for the higher needs of having children. Although the world Rowntree lived and worked in changed profoundly, the cyclical pattern is still relevant to understand how today’s welfare states achieve economic equality (Kangas & Palme, 2000). Basically, welfare states smooth ‘income shocks’ for individuals and families facing social risks that are related to short-term income losses such as becoming unemployed or being unable to work due to sickness or disability, and longer-term income losses such as having children or retirement. The three panels of Fig. 6.3 show for the United Kingdom (panel A), Denmark (panel B), and Belgium (panel C) that families receive financial transfers in childhood and in retirement, while this is much less the case when families receive income from work. The figure also shows that welfare states accommodate for peaks and troughs during the period that individuals are usually active in the labour market. Women are more likely than men to temporarily leave the labour market,

Fig. 6.2 Cycles of want and plenty over the life course (Source Rowntree [1901], taken from Hills [2015])

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Fig. 6.3 Income sources in contemporary welfare states over the life course (Source EU-SILC 2016, author’s computations)

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Fig. 6.3 (continued)

and as a result they are more likely than men to receive some financial transfer. This pattern is similar in different welfare states although important differences in terms of coverage over the life course can be observed (infra). The welfare state basically smooths out variations in plenty of want over the life cycle. The technique mainly used to achieve such risk smoothing is that of social insurance, akin to private insurance. In return to a regular contribution when people are working (and have plenty), the insured are entitled to a benefit or service that prevents a fall in living standards when a specific risk occurs (a period of want), usually the aforementioned ‘old social risks’. Family allowances or child benefits raise the incomes of families with children in the period the children are young. At the same time, contributions to social insurance when working builds up pension rights to raise income in old age, when it’s no longer possible to earn a wage in the labour market. As such, the welfare state uses social insurance to transfer resources over the life cycle (Hills, 2015). Social insurance techniques are also used to cover direct losses due to (temporary) exits out of the labour market which are not easily predicted, such as unemployment, occupational injury or sickness. Contributions

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to social insurance cover for these risks by means of unemployment or sickness benefits, or—more recently—maternity and other leave benefits. As such, the welfare state achieves what is called horizontal redistribution, from low risk individuals to high risk individuals. Usually (although there are important differences across welfare states in this respect, as we shall see in the next section), high skilled individuals who are less likely to lose their job or to be unemployed for a long time pay the same proportional contributions as someone who is low skilled and has a much higher likelihood to be out of a job at some point in time. For that reason, social insurance systems also incorporate vertical redistribution, from the rich to the poor. Because unemployed persons are much more likely to be poor, an unemployment benefit basically smooths out the risk of want paid for by those who have plenty. As a consequence, although poverty reduction is not the original objective of most social insurance systems, because of their sheer budgetary size and coverage they do the heavy lifting in the reduction of poverty and inequality (Korpi & Palme, 1998). To avoid that rich people opt out of such system of risk sharing in which they apparently have less to gain, social insurance is usually made compulsory (see Barr, 2012, for an economic analysis of why compulsory social insurance is the most efficient way to organize risk-sharing). Modern welfare states have additional ways to achieve equality. They provide taxpayer funded public services, such as health care or education. And for those individuals who haven’t been able to contribute to social insurance schemes yet (e.g. newly arrived migrants) or cannot contribute for health or other reasons, most welfare states implemented systems of social assistance. These are income-tested benefits (or services such as social housing) targeted at people with the lowest incomes, usually paid out of general tax revenue. Although there are no contributions, other conditions (such as the obligation to seek employment) might apply. In sum, welfare states achieve horizontal, vertical and lifecycle redistribution by setting up a social security system in which social insurance is combined with social assistance and social services. The balance between these three elements differ across welfare regimes (which will be discussed in the next section). Over the course of time, this balance shifted as well: under the social investment paradigm, for instance policymakers

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put more emphasis on the provision of services such as education, childcare and activation policies to prevent social risks rather than to protect people after a social risk has occurred.

6.4

Classification of Welfare States

Although many welfare states reached maturity in the post-War period, in particular since the mid-1970s, important differences across welfare states remain in place. Scholars have developed and debated several ways of classifying welfare states in order to understand how they function and to what extent they achieve economic equality amongst their citizens. One of the earliest approaches was to simply look at welfare state spending (Wilensky, 1975). By focusing on how much countries spend on social protection it was found that higher levels of spending were associated with better outcomes in terms of economic equality. That is true even today. Figure 6.4 shows the relationship between social expenditures, akin to what we showed in Fig. 6.1 supra, and two indicators of economic equality: income inequality and poverty. Although there are many metrics possible, here we measure income inequality by means of the widely used Gini coefficient. The Gini coefficient ranges between 0 and 1, with 0 being perfect equality (all income is shared equally) and 1 being perfect inequality (one person has all income). With ‘income’ we mean disposable household income, the sum of all incomes that can be spend for consumption at the level of the household. This includes earnings, welfare state transfers and other sources of private income such as income from rent or dividends after deducting taxes and social contributions. Poverty then is operationalized as the share of individuals living in a household with a disposable household income below the poverty line. The poverty line is defined as 60% of the national median disposable household income. This is the poverty indicator that sits central to the European Union’s statistical apparatus to gauge living standards of European citizens, and is one of the most widely used poverty measures (Atkinson, Cantillon, Marlier, & Nolan, 2002). Basically, inequality is about the distribution of income across all citizens in a given country,

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Fig. 6.4 Social spending and poverty (panel A) and income inequality (panel B) (Source OECD SOCX database and OECD Income Distribution database. Note Poverty rate is the share of individuals living in a household with an equivalized disposable income below 60% of median equivalized disposable household income in the country of residence. Disposable household income is equivalized using the modified OECD-scale to render incomes of households of different size comparable. Income inequality is measured by means of the Gini coefficient. Social expenditures comprise spending on social protection, labour market policies and health care, and tax breaks with social purposes)

while poverty is about the share of people having to get by on low incomes. Figure 6.4 shows that a simple measure of spending has much explanatory power. Both inequality (r = −0.55) and poverty (r = −0.51) are strongly and negatively related to social spending. The more countries spend on social programmes, the lower the levels of inequality and poverty. The reason for this strong association is quite simple. Higher levels of spending usually coincide with higher coverage levels and more generous benefits. High-spending welfare states such as Denmark, Finland, France and Austria report poverty rates between 10 and 15%, and a Gini-coefficient between 0.25 and 0.30. Low spending countries such as the United States, Latvia, the United States, Chile, Mexico and Turkey report poverty rates around 25% and a Gini-coefficient between 0.35 and 0.45. Still, by focusing solely on the ‘how much’ question, the question ‘how’ welfare states achieve equality in term of incomes is neglected

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(Bonoli, 1997). Indeed Fig. 6.4 also demonstrates that not all countries adhere to the pattern of high spending and equal outcomes. Some countries achieve high levels of economic equality with lower levels of spending, such as Iceland, Slovak Republic and Slovenia, while other countries spend much but achieve less equitable outcomes, such as Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal. Useful insights into the ‘how’ question are provided by welfare regime theories that go beyond the single quantitative measures and instead focus on qualitative differences across groups of welfare states. In the beginning of the 1970s, Richard Titmuss argued that welfare states came in three distinct forms: a residual type, an industrial achievement-performance type and an institutional -redistributive type (Abrahamson, 1999). The residual type is a welfare state that only intervenes when the private (labour) market and the family fail to sustain a sufficient living standard. In such welfare state, benefits are provided only when it is absolutely necessary and the policy balance tilts in favour of social assistance and vertical redistribution instead of social insurance. The industrial-achievement-performance type is founded on the principle of merit and achievement which means that coverage of social risks is tied to one’s performance in the labour market. Here, social insurance and horizontal redistribution are dominant. Finally, in the institutionalredistributive type every citizen is equally entitled to social protection and social services, whether or not one has contributed first. The public provision of social services and both horizontal and vertical redistribution of resources is emphasized in this model. In his hugely influential work, Esping-Andersen (1990) equally argued that by the end of the 1970s, European welfare states had developed into three ‘welfare regimes’. His threefold typology is closely related to the one earlier devised by Titmuss. He makes a distinction between a liberal regime (including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, related to the residual type), a conservative/corporatist regime (including France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, related to the industrialachievement-performance type) and a social democratic regime (including Denmark, Sweden, Norway, related to the institutional-redistributive type). However, Esping-Andersen used empirical data with reference to the qualitative features of welfare states instead of relying on the quantity

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of spending. His typology is inter alia based on the degree of decommodification, which is the degree to which individuals can uphold a acceptable standard of living independent of employment. I.e. if one does not work, how well is one protected by the welfare state? The highest degree of decommodification is observed in the social democratic cluster, the least in the liberal regime. Figure 6.3 in the previous section indeed shows that life course coverage of benefits is most comprehensive in Denmark (social democratic regime) and least in the United Kingdom (liberal regime) while Belgium (conservative/corporatist regime) sits in between. Underlying these models are also different approaches towards the provision of social security, dating back to Bismarck and Beveridge. Bismarck devised social insurance schemes tied to specific occupations while Beveridge envisaged coverage for the whole population. These historically different perspectives on social insurance are still relevant today and have implications for how the welfare state is financed (Bonoli, 1997). In welfare states based on the Bismarckian social model, the focus is on income maintenance for employees paid for by social contributions. In contrast, the Beveridgean model is concerned with income protection for all financed out of general taxation. Most welfare states today employ combinations of both approaches. Given all this, one can better understand differences in welfare state outcomes. Beveridge is dominant in the liberal and social democratic regimes, while Bismarck is more dominant in conservative/corporatist regimes. Still, in social democratic regimes benefits are more generous and meant to provide insurance against income loss, while in liberal welfare states benefits are more aimed to prevent destitution for those who fall through the cracks of the labour market. Later on, other clusters or regime types were added in order to include less established welfare states such as the Mediterranean or Southern countries, the Central and Eastern European countries with their own specific history of communist rule and South-East Asian countries (Arts & Gelissen, 2002). The Mediterranean countries, for instance are characterized by highly fragmented systems of welfare provision favouring specific occupational groups (as in the conservative/corporatist model), a

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lower degree of welfare spending (which is pension-biased) and a distinctive welfare mix which relies heavily on the family to provide welfare in case social risks occur (Ferrera, 1996). Due to the fall of Communism, the Central and Eastern European countries underwent an overhaul of their social and economic systems (Fenger, 2007). Departing from a state-led Socialist welfare state, CEE countries now differ considerably in the institutional make-up of the welfare state (Cerami & Vanhuysse, 2009). Some countries (such as the Baltics) have moved into the ‘liberal’ direction, while others (such Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) took a more corporatist/conservative turn. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan form a distinct type of welfare regime. This type is characterized by low levels of state intervention and is focused on economic development via investment in education, healthcare, housing and training. The few benefits that exist, however, are high compared to countries of the liberal welfare regime and are in general based on an occupational and earnings-related system. As such, these welfare states are a mix of liberal and conservative welfare state regimes (Aspalter, 2006). Finally, emerging welfare states such as Brazil, Chile or Mexico also (will) strike a balance between social insurance, social assistance and social services and between Bismarckian and Beveridgean modes of operation. Whether these welfare states will fit into one of the regime types is still an open question at this point.

6.5

Economic Equality in the Welfare State

Let us now turn to the outcomes of the welfare state in terms of economic equality once again. Figure 6.5 shows the association between national income per capita and poverty (panel A) and income inequality (panel B). National income is an often-used measure of how rich a country is in general terms. Here it is expressed as a percentage of the average national income across OECD countries. The figure shows that the established welfare states are usually richer countries while more recently developed welfare states such as the Central and Eastern European countries, the Mediterranean countries and countries such as Mexico and Chile are usually poorer countries. The association between national income

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and poverty (r = −0.33) and inequality (r = −0.34) is negative. As mentioned before, a certain fiscal capacity is necessary to sustain an established welfare state, and this also explains why policymakers in welfare state are continually focused on sustaining economic growth. At the same time, higher levels of redistribution are not an impediment for growth (see also Cingano, 2014). The welfare state and a capitalist mode of production are closely aligned. Yet, a lot of variation between countries can be observed. Both panel A and B show that the Scandinavian countries of the social democratic welfare regime are amongst the richest countries in the world and amongst the top performers in terms of poverty and income inequality. In contrast, countries belonging to the liberal regime such as Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom are rich countries as well but perform worse in terms of economic equality. The countries belonging to the conservative/corporatists cluster such as the Netherlands, Austria, France and Germany sit somewhere in between. Amongst the newer welfare states, differences in outcome can be discerned as well. The Mediterranean countries Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece report below-average outcomes both in terms of national income and economic

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equality, while the central and Eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary and Slovenia are poorer but more equal. Countries like Mexico and Chile are the Scandinavian countries’ antipode: poor and highly unequal. It thus seems that the welfare regimes or clusters identified by scholars based on the historical development of these countries and the institutional context are still valuable today to understand welfare state differences. The clustering approach is however limited in understanding how specific policy measures achieve equality, or how interactions of policies in a specific context influence people’s behaviour. Moreover, many welfare states converged in terms of outcomes, spending and benefit coverage which makes it more difficult and perhaps artificial to fit countries into these regime types. Sweden is a case in point. Historically belonging to the social democratic regime, it now reports outcomes that are similar to many of the conservative/corporatist countries. Poverty and income inequality are outcomes of the interplay between markets, families and the state. Welfare states not only redistribute incomes by means of taxes and transfers but also influence the predistribution of incomes (Hacker, 2011). Minimum wages are a good example of such influence: in a labour market without minimum wages or centralized coordination of wage bargaining, only supply and demand will determine one’s earnings and wages. In a knowledge economy in which the availability of manufacturing jobs is declining strongly (supra), people with limited educational qualification will usually face low wages and hence a greater risk of being poor. In many countries, real wages for low skilled workers have indeed been stagnating over the past few decades (Nolan, Roser, & Thewissen, 2017). For those at the bottom end of the labour market, earnings are simply insufficient to sustain a decent living standard. In that case, the welfare state will need to redistribute more to achieve economic equality. However, when minimum wages are set, workers with low qualifications earn more and welfare states need to redistribute less to achieve similar outcomes. Many other policy instruments and institutions are able to influence pre-distribution such as trade unions, systems of collective wage bargaining, fiscal policies and services such as education. But here too, in many welfare states unionization rates declined strongly over the past few decades, allowing for the inequality

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in pre-distribution or market incomes to rise, and forcing welfare states to redistribute more to keep income inequality in disposable income at bay (Cantillon & Vandenbroucke, 2014). Still, in the majority of welfare states inequality and poverty rose significantly over the past few decades (Morelli, Smeeding, & Thompson, 2015; OECD, 2015). In the last decade governments worldwide were confronted with slowing economic growth since the onset of the Great Recession in 2008 (Jenkins, Brandolini, Micklewright, & Nolan, 2012). This has limited once again the fiscal space for more redistribution. Welfare states serve as ‘cushions’ during financial crises, automatically smoothing income shocks by providing benefits for people losing employment which prevents (at least temporarily) a fall in consumption. Yet, the additional costs associated with redistributing more usually prompt governments to resort to a policy of fiscal consolidation. Indeed, after a short period of Keynesian investment policies between 2008 and 2010, many welfare states resorted to austerity measures and fiscal consolidation. Although the crisis did not cause the trend towards rising inequalities, it did aggravate it (Baldacci, de Mello, & Inchauste, 2002; Morelli & Atkinson, 2015). Let us now in a final step turn to the level of redistribution achieved by different welfare states. To measure the impact of the welfare state in the redistribution of income one can compare the Gini coefficients for market incomes (before taxes and transfers) and disposable income (after taxes and transfers), and the poverty rates based on market income and based on disposable income. The redistributive effect is then the difference between the Gini coefficient and the poverty rate of the market income and the disposable income. One should bear in mind that this is largely a theoretical exercise since people would presumably behave differently in absence of a welfare state. Thus, if there were no social protection schemes, market incomes would look differently. Still, it is a comparable way to gauge the ‘effort’ welfare state do in achieving economic equality and to what extent the heavy lifting is done by pre-distribution measures or redistribution measures. Figure 6.6 shows the redistributive effort in terms of poverty (panel A) and income inequality (panel B). One immediately observes that the impact of social spending (taxes and transfers) on reducing inequality

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DNK

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0%

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0.8 0.7

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0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 ISL

SVK FIN

BEL AUT NLD POL FRA CHE LUX JPN

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ITA AUS ESP LVA GBR RUS TUR MEX IND ZAF

Inequality before redistribuon

Fig. 6.6 Poverty (panel A) and income inequality (panel B) based on market and disposable income (Source OECD Income distribution database. Note: Redistribution is measured as the difference in percentage points between market income and disposable income. For definition of poverty and inequality, see note under Fig. 6.4. The dashed bar shows the amount of redistribution achieved)

and poverty is substantial in the vast majority of welfare states. The impact of the welfare state on income inequality (panel B) is particularly large in Finland, Belgium, Ireland and Slovenia where the Gini coefficient between market and disposable income is reduced with more than 45%. Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Denmark and Greece record a drop of 40% in income inequality after redistribution. In the middle of the pack we find Slovakia, Iceland, Portugal, Norway,

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Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Luxembourg, Spain, Japan and the UK with reductions of 30% up to 40%. A number of countries achieve less than 30% reduction in equality between market and disposable income. These include Australia, Estonia, Lithuania, Canada, Latvia, New-Zealand, Switzerland, the United States, Russia, Israel, Brazil, Korea, South Africa, Chile, China, Turkey, Mexico and India. A similar picture can be observed in panel A. The welfare state reduces poverty with more than 60% in the Czech Republic, Finland, France and Hungary, with more than 50% in Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, Slovenia, the Slovak Republic, Luxembourg, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Greece and Norway. In contrast, countries such as the United States, Switzerland, Israel, Korea, Mexico, Chile, India, Turkey and China reduce poverty with 20% or less. It should be noted that some countries achieve better outcomes in terms of income inequality than in terms of poverty, such as Belgium, while others achieve better outcomes in terms of poverty compared with income inequality, such as the United Kingdom. This reflects the different logic of taxes and transfers in these countries (social insurance versus social assistance, supra). Some countries focus on the bottom of the income distribution (poverty alleviation) while others focus on the income distribution as a whole (reducing income inequality), or both. Both panels not only show the amount of redistribution achieved but also the measures of inequality and poverty based on market incomes. This is the starting point or the pre-distribution. This helps understand better how welfare states achieve economic equality. Compare Belgium and the United States in panel A, for instance. Both countries start from a similar level of market income inequality (pre-distribution) but the Belgian welfare state achieves much more equal outcomes in terms of income inequality. So, economic equality in Belgium is achieved by means of redistribution. Countries like Korea, in contrast, redistribute little but still achieve a below average level of inequality and a poverty rate similar to that of Belgium. Market inequality and poverty is particularly low in Korea; hence economic equality is achieved by predistribution policies. Countries like China and South Africa, then, also redistribute little but start from extremely high pre-distribution levels

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of poverty and inequality. In these countries, both pre-distribution and redistribution policies fail to achieve economic equality.

6.6

The Future of the Welfare State

Welfare states are constantly changing and adapting to new social developments. The change from passive social protection systems over the ‘activation turn’ towards social investment states is a clear example of such adaptation. Yet, it remains an open question to what extent welfare states, in any form, will be able to withstand new pressures and changing circumstances. How will welfare states fare in a future in which robots will replace many workers? How does migration and population ageing impact the foundations of the welfare states? And is the surge in income inequality observed over the past few decades testimony to a systemic failure? In what follows we will briefly touch upon six challenges to the welfare state: income inequality, artificial intelligence, population ageing, Matthew effects, immigration and climate change. How the future of different welfare states belonging to different regimes will be affected by these challenges remains an open question. First of all, rising inequalities in disposable income since the 1970s can be attributed to many factors, including globalization, technological change and demographic changes, but the weakening of welfare state institutions and its concomitant rise in market incomes (predistribution) is certainly one of the main culprits (OECD, 2011). Importantly, a rising share of the top 1% in total national income and a shift from labour to capital in the national income, as documented by Piketty (2014), means that welfare states that are financed by contributions on earnings will face additional budgetary pressures: there simply is less labour income to pay for the welfare state. Yet, not all welfare states have been affected by rising income inequalities, in particular those welfare states combining pre-distribution policies (e.g. in which unions are strong and collective labour market agreements determine minimum wages and wage increases for all workers) with redistribution policies (e.g. taxes and transfers) were able to withstand the pressure (Atkinson, 2015).

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Second, and related, there is much anxiety about robots and artificial intelligence destroying jobs. Estimates on the impact of robots on the workforce range from doomsday scenarios in which half of the workforce will be out of job to more modest scenarios in which about 10% of the workforce will be affected (Arntz, Gregory, & Zierahn, 2016; Frey & Osborne, 2013). Most recent studies argue that not jobs per se will be at risk, but specific routine-based tasks within jobs. Moreover, technological advances will also create new jobs and employment opportunities. However, not everyone will be able to reap the benefits of these new jobs. Likely, high skilled workers and professionals will benefit while low skilled will be affected most by the risk of unemployment. Hence an important challenge will be how to deal with higher unemployment levels, in particular amongst the low skilled. How welfare states deal with this challenge is likely to affect welfare state legitimacy as well. In general, popular support for the welfare state has always been high, but it is much lower for specific groups in societies who are perceived as less deserving (van Oorschot, 2006; see also the chapter of Reeskens & van Oorschot in this book). For instance, social expenses for generous pensions are usually popular because pensioners are perceived to be deserving of a pension after a lifetime of contributions, while expenses for the long-term unemployed are much less popular. They are easily seen as or unwilling to seek employment. As such, strong redistributive policies not only need sufficient fiscal capacity but also popular support to be sustainable. If the risk of becoming unemployed will be concentrated amongst the low skilled due to robotization, preserving popular support for policies to safeguard their living standards will be a major challenge. Both challenges risk turning into a negative feedback loop. Rising inequalities require more redistribution to particular groups at risk of being out of a job which might negatively affect popular support for redistribution, in turn leading to less effective redistribution policies (Alt & Iversen, 2017). On top of that, rising inequalities are associated with slower economic growth, curtailing the fiscal capacity to carry out stronger redistributive policies (OECD, 2015). Third, adding to that, the vast majority of established welfare states are dealing with population ageing (OECD, 2017). As a consequence, pension and health care expenditures are rising, and will continue to rise

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in the decades to come. This not only puts pressure on the sustainability of pension system but also on other parts of the welfare state such as spending on unemployment benefits. Given its weak popular support, unemployment systems then face further cuts and curtailment, affecting the living standards of the unemployed and the capacity of welfare states to achieve economic equality for all. Fourth, the emphasis on strengthening human capital policies (childcare, education) that influence the pre-distribution of incomes under the social investment paradigm comes with a particular challenge as well. These policies mainly benefit middle and higher income families. Such phenomenon has been termed a Matthew effect in a reference to a verse in the Gospel of Matthew (Merton, 1968): ‘For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath’ (Matthew 25:29, King James translation). Poor children and adults usually stand to gain the most from investment in services such as childcare and higher education. Yet, it is widely observed that these services are mainly used by those higher up in the income distribution (Bonoli, Cantillon, & Van Lancker, 2017). If social spending on human capital policies benefits first and foremost the middle and the higher income groups at the expense of lower income groups, a social investment strategy will not deliver on its promises to bestow upon disadvantaged people the skills to succeed in the labour market. As a result, disadvantaged people will increasingly need unemployment benefits which in turn might fuel the challenges discussed before. Fifth, increasing patterns of immigration might jeopardize public support for and generosity of the welfare state even more (Alesina & Glaeser, 2004; Banting & Kymlicka, 2006). In most welfare state, eligibility for social insurance benefits is tied to paid employment or citizenship. Migration is at odds with such demarcation of social rights, since newly arrived migrants are not citizens and by definition haven’t had a chance yet to contribute to the labour market. Growing ethnic and racial diversity is also associated with a growing public rhetoric on ‘welfare shopping’ and moral hazard (Borjas, 1999). Once again, this might put pressure on popular support for redistribution in general and for redistribution towards groups that are perceived to not contribute to

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the welfare state in particular. Although empirical research on the effect of migration on welfare state spending and legitimacy is divided (Brady & Finnigan, 2014; Soroka, Johnston, Kevins, Banting, & Kymlicka, 2016), the recent influx of refugees and a growing number of immigrants in European welfare states stirred the public debate on the sustainability of the welfare state. Finally, as we have seen, welfare state expansion and economic growth go hand in hand. Cheap welfare states are not effective in achieving economic equality. Yet, the continuous pursuit of economic growth goes against efforts to curtail the effects of climate change (Gough, 2017). If economic growth continues to be based on a traditional productionconsumption model, there likely will be a trade-off between the fight against climate change and the pursuit of economic equality (Büchs & Koch, 2017). Reconciling economic equality with a different mode of production and consumption will perhaps be the biggest challenge ahead.

6.7

Conclusion

Welfare states emerged in times of industrialization and globalization, since then withstood several economic downturns and financial crises, and adapted to profound changes in the labour market and in society. Over the course of more than a century, social expenditures continued to rise in the majority of welfare states. Today, these established welfare states are amongst the richest countries in the world while at the same time achieving high living standards and a fair amount of economic equality. Moreover, the ‘welfare state model’ is adopted by other countries in the world aiming to distribute the benefits of economic growth over their citizens. Yet, poverty figures demonstrate that substantial number of people are left behind and do not fully reap the benefits from the welfare state while income inequality is rising within most welfare states. Some exceptions notwithstanding, this demonstrates that welfare states are increasingly unable to stem the tide of market forces. And so it is very likely that welfare states will continue to adapt to new circumstances.

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New ways of financing will need to be found, for instance broadening the contribution base from labour to capital and from income to wealth. New ways of dealing with citizenship and who is entitled to what will need to be sought in light of increasing migration flows all across the globe. And countries witnessing increasing inequalities will need to consider strengthening the social safety net once again to protect the most vulnerable from falling through the cracks. Looking back at more than a century of welfare state growth in industrialized societies, however, the inescapable conclusion seems to be that the welfare state is here to stay. Paraphrasing Mark Twain, the rumours of its death have been greatly exaggerated. Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank Dimitri Gugushvili and François Levrau for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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7 Gender, Anti-discrimination and Diversity: The EU’s Role in Promoting Equality Ruby Gropas

7.1

Introduction

The European Union has developed a substantial framework to promote equality, address discrimination, and manage diversity. Over the course of six decades of EU integration, the Union has integrated equality across the Union’s policies through multiple pillars combining ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ law; funding for positive action programmes; a set of policy instruments that contribute to social cohesion, anti-discrimination and equal opportunities; and by creating spaces for mobilisation, exchange of good practices, mutual learning and cooperation. What has driven the EU equality framework and its approach to gender mainstreaming? What The author writes here in her personal capacity and none of the views expressed here represent the views of the European Commission.

R. Gropas (B) Brugge Campus, College of Europe, Brugge, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] Law Faculty, Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece © The Author(s) 2021 F. Levrau and N. Clycq (eds.), Equality, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54310-5_7

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are its limitations? How have the concepts of discrimination, diversity and equity framed the EU’s framework? This chapter first traces the development of the Union’s legal framework. It has evolved from the original common market driven basis to the current context, which aims to combat social exclusion and discrimination, and promote well-being, sustainable development, social progress and cohesion. It then presents an overview of the EU toolbox that has been developed to: (a) promote gender equality in the labour market and beyond, (b) address various forms of discriminations; (c) identify and tackle inter-related forms of inequality and social exclusion. Beyond attempting to simply steer Member States towards a common approach to equality, the EU institutions have taken a prescriptive approach aimed at promoting fair treatment and non-discrimination, and have purposefully steered policies, funding and investment towards strengthening equality of opportunities.

7.2

The Legal Basis of Equality, Non-discrimination and Diversity

The concepts of equality and non-discrimination draw on the constitutional traditions of Member States, the fundamental international law principle of the equality of sovereign states, and human rights law,1 in particular the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Over the past six decades, a range of equality and anti-discrimination legislation have put equality of treatment in economic and social contexts into practice. As the competences and scope of the European Economic Community/European Union widened and deepened, particularly since the Treaties of Amsterdam and Lisbon, the EU developed progressive equality and fundamental rights standards, and initiated new mechanisms for the protection of these standards. Equality and the principle of non-discrimination are expressly mentioned in several EC Treaty provisions.2 Articles 2 and 3(3) of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) promote equality between men and women,3 and prohibit discrimination based on any ground such as

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sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation. This is also duly enshrined in Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.4 The principle of equality before the law (Article 20 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights) is included in all European constitutions and has been recognised by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, formerly ECJ) as a basic principle of Community law.5 A considerable body of secondary legislation has further supplemented these provisions. Non-discrimination, or equal treatment, on grounds of nationality have served as a ‘market unifier’ for the single market, underpinning many aspects of the free movement of goods, services, persons and capital (Moore, 1999). It has been applied to address discrimination between producers and consumers in the context of the Common Agricultural Policy; between workers or self-employed who are nationals of the host state and those who are nationals of another Member State; and to ensure equal treatment for providers of services between nationals and non-nationals. While initially, equality and non-discrimination were primarily a means of securing market integration, they gradually became a method to deliver social policies (McCrudden & Prechal, 2009), particularly in the field of gender equality. As regards the concept of diversity, it too sits at the very foundation of the EU, though it is defined largely as a counterpoint to uniformity, rather than as a complement to equality (Shaw, 2005). Expressed most widely in the motto ‘United in Diversity’ that was devised in 2000 to symbolise the value of diversity in terms of ‘richness’ of cultures, traditions and languages, it aims to ‘celebrate’, respect and promote the constituent diversity of the Union. In practical terms, the creation of the single market is essentially about managing the diversity across the Member States in relation to regulation, customs and habits of production and consumption, and establishing common standards for the operation of markets. Diversity is explicitly recognised in the TFEU, specifically with a view to its protection and preservation. Tellingly, Article 165 (ex Article 149 TEC) states that the Union shall contribute to the development of quality education, while fully respecting the responsibility of the Member States for the content of teaching and

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the organisation of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity. And, Article 167 (ex Article 151 TEC) calls on the Union to contribute to the ‘flowering of the cultures of the Member States, while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore’. Over the course of the past six decades of European integration, the EU equality legal framework has broadened widely, though it has developed unevenly, differentiating among axes of inequality as to the scope and the level of protection. Gender equality has been promoted in the EU mainly through the strategy of equal opportunities and through positive or affirmative actions and gender mainstreaming, as well as on the basis of prohibition of discrimination. Other fields of inequality, such as religion, belief, sexual orientation, race, disability and age, have been mostly addressed from an anti-discrimination approach. The recognition and identification of occurrences of multiple discriminations as well as the need to combat them as such has been underlined since 2007 (European Commission, 2007), though it has not resulted in an institutionalisation of an intersectional approach to inequalities (Kantola & Nousiainen, 2009; Lombardo & Verloo, 2009). These EU legislative actions, policies and judicial decisions have created new political opportunity structures in the field of equality and non-discrimination. Social movement scholars have long argued that policy changes or new legislation can lead to the creation of new policy access points and mobilising opportunities for individuals or groups, including for those who are often disadvantaged in their own legal systems. They also provide an institutionalised public sphere, the necessary ‘social space’ to facilitate policy discussions that were not previously possible or available to a particular interest or group.6 They provide a common language and common narrative that contributes to shifting the needle on ambitions, expectations and mindsets. This has indeed been the case for organisations active in the promotion of women’s rights, as well as migrant or minority rights, who mobilised around the EU policy process and within the EU institutions since the 1970s to advance more progressive and socially inclusive agendas, both domestically and at EU level. As the next sections argue, a dynamic process of litigation, legislation, mobilisation and social learning between the EU and national levels

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and among Member States has shaped this reality. The landscape of EU legal and political opportunities, such as ECJ case law, legislation, Commission- and European Parliament-sponsored networks, equality and fundamental rights agencies, as well as networks of experts have increased formal access, and created new social spaces for groups and individuals mobilising around equality rights and anti-discrimination at the European level. This landscape has influenced the rules and procedures governing equality and non-discrimination, including in areas where national governments were hesitant.

7.3

A Strong Focus on Gender Equality

The EU’s gender equality policy has evolved along three dimensions: anti-discrimination law, positive action and gender mainstreaming. Antidiscrimination law aims to ensure equal treatment of women in relation to the male norm. Positive action measures aim to encourage state, public or private actors to correct the initial disadvantage of women and may mean the application of a compensatory measure to favour, in cases of equal merit, a woman over a man. As for gender mainstreaming, it goes further in that it focuses on systems and structures that give rise to group disadvantage. Though not very vigorously monitored, it looks to consider gender in all policy fields and legislation (Krizsan, Skjeie, & Squire, 2012). Through these approaches, the EU has played a major role in putting gender equality on the policy-making agendas across Europe, and in normalising the inclusion of gender equality principles in policy discussions both within the EU and in relations with third countries. It has provided a catalyst to reform for countries applying for EU membership. Indeed, for the southern European countries and the Member States that joined from 2004 onwards, the EU’s gender equality framework has been part of the acquis communautaire they have had to meet (Fagan & Rubery, 2018). And, it has provided a space for transnational organisations in the social field to coalesce and coordinate so as to raise

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awareness and fuel legal mobilisations aimed at furthering the equality and anti-discrimination agenda (Cichowski, 2013). The 1957 Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (EEC), included only one provision to combat gender discrimination, namely the principle of equal pay between men and women for equal work (Article 119 EEC Treaty). The motivation behind this provision was economic as certain Member States (France in particular) had provisions on equal pay between men and women in their national legislation, and wanted to ensure that there would not be distortions in competition based on cheaper female labour from those Member States that had not yet put in place similar provisions. Gradually, however, gender equality took the form of a more wideranging equal treatment principle applying to all aspects of employment and training, and most aspects of welfare (Shaw, 2005). In the mid1970s, two directives on equal pay (Directive 75/117/EEC) and on equal treatment for men and women in employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions (Directive 76/207/EEC) provided the cornerstone of the subsequent EU gender equality policy. In 1976, the Court of Justice ruled that Article 119 EEC did not only have an economic purpose, but also a social aim and contributed to social progress and the improvement of living and working conditions. Based on the landmark Defrenne decisions, women throughout Europe were able to bring discrimination claims before national courts (Cichowski, 2013). Since then, through a number of important decisions delivered by the CJEU which recognise gender equality as a ‘fundamental principle’ of the Union legal order, and a set of legislative provisions addressing gender inequality, a legal framework for women’s equality in employment and working conditions more generally, has been put in place. This includes pay, employment conditions such as hiring, promotions and dismissals, as well as rights of pregnant women and parental leave, sexual harassment and women’s representation. Through ECJ precedent and EU legislative action, the rules and procedures that served as opportunities for sex discrimination claims increased in both formality and magnitude.

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Gender equality policy is probably the most developed dimension to the EU’s social dimension largely because relevant legislation—social security (Directive 79/7/EEC); pregnancy and motherhood (Directive 92/85/EEC); parental leave (Directive 96/34/EC)—was passed under mechanisms that permitted qualified majority voting or through the social chapter of the Maastricht treaty, to which the UK had an opt out.7 In addition, specific policy units dealing with women’s rights were gradually established within the European Commission, which in turn also began to provide greater inclusion of gender equality claims throughout the EU policy-making process. During the 1980s, even though social issues did not occupy the front stage in the EEC/EU as attention was focused on the completion of the single market, the political landscape around the EU institutions changed with the establishment of grassroots women’s organisations whose objectives and claims moved far beyond formal equality. They began forging the path for substantive equality measures by focusing their claims on positive action programmes, such as vocational training and education opportunities for women (Cichowski, 2013). The Treaty of Amsterdam (1999), gave an integrated constitutional basis to gender equality perspectives in EU policy-making through Article 3(2) EC (Shaw, 2005). It is expressed in Article 8 of the TFEU (ex Article 3(2) TEC), which states that in all its activities, the Union shall aim to eliminate inequalities, and to promote equality, between men and women. It introduced a legal basis for the adoption of measures combating discrimination on grounds of sex, racial or ethnic origin, age, disability, religion and sexual orientation. Important directives have since been enacted on the basis of this provision to prohibit discrimination on grounds of racial and ethnic origin, age, disability, religion and sexual orientation, as well as gender in fields outside employment (Article 13 EC) (Shaw, 2005). The Charter of Fundamental Rights, agreed on a declaratory basis in 2000, also contains a range of equality principles, from a formal principle of (individual) equality before the law, to more pro-active principles seeking to promote substantive equality in areas such as gender and disability.

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With the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the promotion of equality between men and women throughout the European Community became one of the essential tasks of the Community (Burri, 2018). The Lisbon Treaty reinforced the status of the gender equality principle as a common value of the EU. Article 2 TEU states that ‘the Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail ’. According to Article 3(3) TEU, one of the aims of the EU is to ‘combat social exclusion and discrimination, and (…) promote social justice and protection, equality between women and men, solidarity between generations and protection of the rights of the child ’. In addition, Article 8 TFEU stipulates that ‘in all its activities, the Union shall aim to eliminate inequalities, and to promote equality, between men and women’. Thus, ‘positive action’ measures are allowed. As stated in Article 157(4) TFEU: ‘With a view to ensuring full equality in practice between men and women in working life, the principle of equal treatment shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or adopting measures providing for specific advantages in order to make it easier for the underrepresented sex to pursue a vocational activity or to prevent or compensate for disadvantages in professional careers’. These positive action provisions, allow measures designed to eliminate or counteract the prejudicial effects on women in employment or seeking employment, which arise from existing attitudes, behaviours and structures based on the idea of a traditional division of roles in society between men and women. The measures (such as targets or quotas) have aimed to encourage the participation of women in various occupations in those sectors of working life where they have been under-represented, for instance in company boardrooms or in science. In the mid-1990s, two developments served as a tool for promoting gender equality; both driven by the positive contribution of Sweden and Finland that had strong equality traditions and which acceded to the EU in 1995. The first was the Commission’s commitment to gender mainstreaming in 1996; the second was the launch of the European Employment Strategy (EES) in 1997, which introduced the open

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method of coordination (OMC).8 By including equal opportunities as one of four pillars of the EES rather than as a separate strategy, it received the necessary political support from the heads of state and government, and by 1998, a gender mainstreaming requirement was included for all EES policies (Rubery, 2002). Mainstreaming is based on the principle that equality ought to be an integral part of all public policy-making and implementation, rather a separate policy or ‘institutional ghetto’ (McCrudden, 2001; Shaw, 2005).9 The EU was both an active advocate of gender mainstreaming in the UN Platform for Action agreed at Beijing in 1995, and also an early adopter (Fagan & Rubery, 2018). Mainstreaming was adopted by the EU to ‘promote equality between men and women in all activities and policies at all levels’ (COM 96, 67 final) aiming to (re)organise, improve, develop and evaluate policy processes, so that a gender equality perspective is incorporated into all policies at all levels and all stages, by the actors normally involved in policy-making. A gender equality focus was thus included in the evaluation criteria for the European social funds, thereby creating financial incentives to engage in promoting gender equality for those countries in receipt of these significant resources. Similarly, it is embedded in the assessment criteria for the competitive allocation of the EU research framework funding, in the design of research programmes and in the associated programme to promote gender balance in science. These legal and policy innovations expanded EU gender equality laws, thereby creating new opportunities for mobilization and litigation for women’s rights issues. This space was widened further through the strengthened role of the European Parliament (EP) in the policy processes (Cichowski, 2013). A gender perspective has thus been applied to all Community policies irrespective of EU competence in a matter—whether exclusive, shared or complementary, whether in ‘hard’ legislation or ‘soft’ governance, or whether it is an internal or external policy, i.e. in trade agreements and international development cooperation (Shaw, 2005; SWD, 2015, p. 182). It has also led to a systematic collection, analysis and monitoring of gender disaggregated data which informs the policy process

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and debates in wider policy forums. The availability of gender disaggregated harmonised European datasets has fostered significant comparative research and opportunities to share good practices through observatories, mutual learning events and the processes of regular scrutiny and benchmarking of the OMC. In 2006, this was strengthened with the establishment of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) whose role has been to raise EU citizens’ awareness of gender equality by providing technical assistance to the Community institutions, in particular the Commission, and the authorities of the Member States.10 The application of gender mainstreaming in the EES, has rendered the increase of women’s integration in the labour market into a standard employment policy objective, recognised to bring economic benefits to all economies, even more so to economies with an ageing population. Female unemployment rates are thus monitored and reported on by Eurostat, as are targets for women’s employment and representation. In addition, employment policy has widened to include care services, and there has been a drive towards more public provision of childcare across the EU member states (Fagan & Rubery, 2018). Just as importantly, it provided a new European social space to discuss the diversity of women’s rights and the very different sets of challenges that women face (from gender stereotypes, to domestic violence, or trafficking), as well as a space for women’s issues in EU politics (Cichowski, 2013). There are concerns, nonetheless, that gender mainstreaming practices at the EU level, and their results at Member State level, have been incomplete, and have come at the expense of taking specific measures which focus on long-term, systemic and structural inequalities faced by women, particularly as regards their participation in the labour market (Chiva, 2009; Smith & Villa, 2010). Concerns have also been expressed as regards the meaning of ‘reconciliation of working and family life’ which has gradually shifted from an objective with feminist potential, i.e. ‘sharing family responsibilities between women and men’, to a market-oriented objective legitimising the promotion of flexible forms of employment, in line with the EU’s prevailing political and economic priorities (Stratigaki, 2004). Similarly, Directives on the prevention and fight against human trafficking and the protection of

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victims (2011/36/EU), and on minimum rights, support and protection for victims of crime, including victims of human trafficking and networks of forced prostitution (2012/29/EU) are treated from the perspective of transnational organised crime and irregular immigration, without taking into consideration the angle of gender and male domination (Jacquot, 2017). Gender equality scholars have lamented that gender visibility had already waned before the financial crisis, and that it was absent in the austerity programmes that were drawn up in response to the crsisis (Fagan & Rubery, 2018; Rubery, 2015). Indeed, over the past two decades, although gender equality is considered a major axis in all EU programmes and policies, the fact that budget lines specifically dedicated to gender equality have disappeared has led to a reduction of the gender equality-specific budget and of the visibility of public problems linked to gender inequalities. During the crisis, the budgetary instruments for gender equality were undermined further, the coordination instruments and gender mainstreaming were significantly weakened, and legislating was difficult due to the tensions resulting from austerity (Jacquot, 2017). In short, gender mainstreaming is considered to have had only limited impact on the transformation of gender relations and the nature and degree of inequalities between men and women, and was unable to counter-balance the diverse legislative and budgetary cutbacks that occurred since the mid-2000s. However, the pursuit of the gender equality agenda has not been limited to mainstreaming (and its own limitations). Gender specific research has been pursued by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) on pay transparency in Europe, women in management, funding of female entrepreneurship, and gender equality at work. And, EIGE’s work has led to a renewed focus on gender equality, notably through it database on women in decision-making,11 which has supported the push for more female representation on corporate boards. During the Presidency of Jean-Claude Juncker (2015–2019), gender equality was restated as a fundamental principle of the European Pillar of Social Rights that was proclaimed by the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission at the Social Summit for Fair

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Jobs and Growth in Gothenburg in November 2017 aimed at creating more inclusive labour markets and reducing precarious work. Articulated in Principle 2 of the Pillar’s Chapter I on Equal opportunities and access to the labour market: ‘Equality of treatment and opportunities between women and men must be ensured and fostered in all areas, including regarding participation in the labour market, terms and conditions of employment and career progression. Women and men have the right to equal pay for work of equal value.’12 The Juncker Commission’s renewed emphasis on gender equality against a background of rapidly changing labour markets due to digitization and the EU’s intensifying demographic challenges provided the impetus to launch an initiative to support work–life balance. In June 2019, the Council adopted a new Directive on work–life balance for parents and carers aiming to increase women’s participation in the labour market and outlining a number of new or improved minimum standards for parental, paternity and carer’s leave, as well as flexible working arrangements, so as to also increase men’s take-up of these (Directive (EU) 2019/1158).13 The renewed attention to gender was taken up in the political guidelines of Ursula von der Leyen. In her agenda for a ‘Union that Strives for More’, she declared a ‘Union of Equality’ to be one of her political priorities as President of the European Commission as a ‘prosperous and social Europe depends on us all. We need equality for all and equality in all of its senses’ (von der Leyen, 2019), and appointed a Commissioner for Equality. In March 2020, the Commission launched a new Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2025 guided by the vision of ‘a Europe where women and men are free to pursue their chosen path in life, where they have equal opportunities to thrive, and where they can equally participate in and lead our European society’. The main areas it addresses include pay transparency and the gender pay gap; gender balance on company boards; work–life balance; gender issues related to climate change and artificial intelligence; and violence against women (COM/2020/152). A Task-Force on Equality has also been set up within the Commission to renew gender mainstreaming in all EU initiatives, particularly in view of the climate and digital transformations, and with the aim to ensure that the Gender Equality Strategy objectives are also reflected in EU’s

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actions around the world, promoting women empowerment and tackling gender-based violence.

7.4

Combatting Discrimination and Racism

EU anti-discrimination law is ‘status based’, in other words, it focuses on groups that are considered in need of specific protection. Discrimination is defined as detrimental treatment on a certain prohibited ground, compared with another person or group in a similar situation. The EU’s equality and non-discrimination frameworks have developed organically through the mutual interaction between the national courts and the CJEU (and even the European Court of Human Rights, though it is not a court of the European Union), the European Parliament, the European Commission and the governments of the Member States. This mutual influence has contributed to the development of the legal concepts of direct and indirect discrimination and has pushed for a substantive interpretation of the core values of equality and fundamental rights to promote equality and justice in plural societies (de Schutter, 2006; Koppelman, 1996; Sabbagh, 2007). Legislative acts, mainly in the form of directives requiring transposition into the national laws of the member states, and funding programmes in support of initiatives and projects promoting equality, have affected and shaped national antidiscrimination policies—particularly in the case of southern and more recent EU Member States. This legal apparatus has also shaped the way more vulnerable populations, represented by associations, interest groups or individuals, have been able to protest against discrimination; gain protection and recognition; and in some cases, obtain compensation because they have been the victims of unequal treatment based on their race, ethnic origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Discrimination has been considered as one of the major policy paradigms that emerged throughout the Europeanisation process (Geddes & Guiraudon, 2004, 2007). Since the 1970s in particular, official policies in Europe have shifted towards a pluralist approach, in which the goal of integration is represented by the promotion of equal opportunity coupled with the recognition of cultural

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diversity in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance between the majority societies and the minority communities (Dunnzlaff et al., 2010; Amiraux & Guiraudon, 2010). As migration to all EU Member States by people from other parts of the world intensified after the end of the Cold War era, policy responses were required to meet the needs of immigrant minorities within their borders and clarify which economic, social, cultural or political rights were to be conferred upon them (Triandafylliou & Gropas, 2009). Together with the integration of the single market and the free movement of people, debates on measures needed to address racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism as well as religious discrimination, moved to the EU level and intensified throughout the 1980s, particularly on the part of the European Parliament. In the following decade, advocacy efforts against discrimination on grounds such as disability, sexual orientation and age burgeoned. As a result, the 1990s were a period of prominent anti-racism policies and a shift ‘from gender to diversity’ in EU equality policies (Krizsan et al., 2012). The wider background of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry in the UK14 and the entry of Jorg Haider’s far-right Freedom party into the Austrian governing coalition in 2000, provided the impetus for legislation to go beyond discrimination based on nationality or gender in the field of employment, which had been the main grounds covered hitherto (Farkas, 2017). The fight against racism and xenophobia featured consistently in the Presidency Conclusions issued at the end of each European Council meeting; and, the human rights and anti-discrimination legal provisions were strengthened. Article 13 EC of the Treaty of Amsterdam (1996) applied to six different grounds of discrimination—sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age and sexual orientation. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (2000), Article 21 (1) contained a list of seventeen grounds (sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation) of prohibited discrimination, while Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, though open-ended, also included a wide list of grounds where discrimination is prohibited. In addition, 1997 was designated as European Year Against Racism

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followed by the adoption of the 1998 Action Plan against Racism and a wider effort to mainstream anti-racism policy. The EU’s anti-discrimination framework has addressed both direct and indirect forms of discrimination (see Table 7.1). For instance, a range of provisions have been put in place to protect against specific forms of discrimination such as age discrimination in employment and occupation, sexual orientation and gender identity, and measures aimed at fighting all forms of discrimination and stereotypes, racism and xenophobia, particularly against historic ethnic communities like the Roma population.15 In parallel, the concept of indirect discrimination has been developed by the CJEU as a step towards a more substantive approach to equality, because it focuses on the effect of a rule or a practice and takes into account everyday social realities. Indirect discrimination recognises that apparently neutral laws and practices disadvantage persons from specific groups, and introduces notions such as harassment and victimisation. Substantive equality requires that further steps are taken in order to realise genuine equality in social conditions. This involves procedural guarantees to be set up to make those rights effective (e.g., shifting the burden of proof in procedures), and the creation of national equality bodies to promote anti-discrimination initiatives and monitor implementation. Substantive conceptions of equality incorporate the need to (a) redress disadvantage; (b) address stigma, stereotyping, prejudice and violence; (c) facilitate voice and participation; and (d) accommodate difference and change structures of discrimination (Fredman, 2016), thereby opening the space for positive action measures. Today, the main legal instruments dealing with discrimination at the EU level are the Racial Equality Directive, the Employment Equality Directive and the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights. As regards combating discrimination and giving effect to the principle of equal treatment, and on the basis of the former Article 13(1) EC, now Article 19 TFEU, the Racial Equality Directive (RED) (2000/43/EC),16 adopted in 2000, represents a key measure in prohibiting racial and ethnic origin discrimination in access to employment, vocational training, employment and working conditions, membership of and involvement in unions, and employer organisations, social protection,

Dir. 2000/78 Dir. 2000/78 Dir. 2000/78 Dir. 2000/78

Dir. 2000/78

Dir. 2000/78 Dir. 2000/78

Dir. 2006/54

Dir. 2006/54 Dir. 2010/41 (selfemployment)

Dir. 2000/78

Dir. 2000/43

Workers’ and employers’ organizations

Dir. 2000/43

Source Fredman (2016)

Sexual orientation Religion or belief Disability Age

Racial or ethnic origin Gender

Employment and vocational training

Dir. 79/7 (statutory social security only) Dir. 2006/54 (occupational social security only)

Dir. 2000/43

Social protection including social security Dir. 2000/43

Social protection including healthcare

Table 7.1 A comparative look at the scope of EU Anti-discrimination Directives

Dir. 2000/43

Social advantages

Education Dir. 2000/43

Dir. 2004/113

Dir. 2000/43

Public goods and services, including housing

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including social security and healthcare, education, as well as goods and services, including housing. Together with the Employment Equality Directive (2000/78/EC)17 —which prohibits discrimination primarily in the employment context (access to employment, self-employment and occupations; vocational guidance and training; employment and working conditions, including dismissals and pay; membership of organisations) these two Directives were particularly shaped by Anglo-Dutch intellectual thought and created a robust anti-discrimination framework. Together with the CJEU interpretation of all the directives and equal pay provision (now Article 157 TFEU), these directives have influenced the law of all EU Member States by improving and strengthening existing equality regimes. Similarly to the role of EIGE in gender, the collection of ‘objective and comparable information and data’ on all bases of discrimination, and in particular race and ethnicity, was tasked to the EU Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, which was replaced by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) in 2007. As one of the EU’s decentralised agencies set up to provide expert advice to the institutions of the EU and the Member States, the FRA collects and analyses information and data; provides assistance and expertise; communicates and raises rights awareness through multi-disciplinary research and comparative analyses to improve human rights protection across the EU. An important area that EU actions and funding have focused on involves combatting xenophobia, racism and all forms of intolerance and extremism on the one hand, while promoting respect for tolerance and understanding of cultural and ethnic diversity on the other. Funding has long been dedicated to research on managing different forms of diversity, to cultural projects aimed at promoting intercultural exchanges, and on Holocaust remembrance projects. At the same time, public perceptions towards migrants, minority groups or anti-Semitism, are monitored through regular data collection and EU wide surveys by Eurobarometer or the FRA. More recent initiatives (2015) involved the appointment of an EU Coordinator on Combating Anti-Semitism Hatred and a Coordinator on Anti-Muslim Hatred, to help coordinate efforts across services in the context of the Commission’s overarching policy on racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance. In response to the rise in online

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hate speech, the wave of terrorist attacks across the EU particularly after 2015, and growing insights into the role of social media and the internet in disseminating violent extremism and radicalization, a number of measures have been initiated and coordinated at EU level. Cooperation has thus been stepped up to better prevent and combat hate crime and hate speech, and in 2016, a Code of Conduct was agreed with main IT-companies (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Microsoft) whereby all relevant illegal hate speech flagged to them is revised and removed where necessary within 24 hours. As additional social media platforms joined the Code of Conduct, this led to a removal rate of 70% of illegal content by 2019.18 In 2018, the Commission also proposed rules to remove terrorist content from the web within one hour of order by a competent authority, and an action plan was devised to protect public spaces, with a particular focus on religious premises. As regards legislation aimed at promoting the fair treatment of third country nationals, the EU laid out common conditions of entry and residence and also minimum rights that third country nationals should enjoy, in particular equal treatment with nationals, and applicable across the Union. The Long-term Residence Directive created a single status for non-EU long-term residents. A Directive on family reunification establishes the rules and conditions under which non-EU nationals who are residing lawfully on EU territory may exercise the right to family reunification. The EU also harmonised national legislation concerning the entry of students and non-remunerated trainees and researchers. A Directive on seasonal work set important labour standards for third country nationals engaging in seasonal work in the EU (2014/36). These Directives provide the principle of equal treatment between third country nationals and Union nationals, particularly as regards the freedom of association and the right to strike, concerning terms of employment, working conditions and social security benefits. The EU level has focused its work on addressing discrimination in its various or multiple dimensions in the labour market as this is the sector where they occur most frequently, and EU policies of nondiscrimination have been largely positioned as measures contributing to economic growth notably through a rise in the labour market participation of women or marginalised groups. There have been mixed results in

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the field of policy on combating different forms of discrimination, and mixed assessments. The expansion of the EU equality and anti-discrimination framework has had top-down spill-over effects from the EU to the national levels in terms of reforming their equality bodies and law, and bringing anti-discrimination issues into public policy—particularly southern and more recent Member States (Gropas & Triandafyllidou, 2008). It has encouraged Member States that previously had equality legislation that addressed only particular forms of inequality, to address multiple forms of discrimination and consider the interaction between these strands, i.e. that gender discrimination and inequality are shaped by race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, disability and other dimensions (Krizsan et al., 2012). The recognition of the importance of intersectionality is also reflected in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD— which was ratified by the EU in 2010). Feminist scholars, however, have criticised that the focus on the employment sector and labour market, has led to an overly narrow debate about equality and discrimination in the EU (see Kantola & Nousiainen, 2009). Furthermore, while the integration of equality laws, bodies and policies that the EU has encouraged in the Member States has enabled multiple or intersecting discriminations to be tackled more effectively than previously, opinions are split between equality activists and practitioners on what is gained or lost by uniting the equality bodies or keeping them separate (Kantola & Nousiainen, 2009). On the one hand, the EU legal framework has been criticised for merely juxtaposing considerations of different inequalities rather than incorporating an intersectional approach and giving equal importance to the treatment of different inequalities (Lombardo & Verloo, 2009). Enforcement of the EU anti-discrimination legislation has limited the ability to pursue claims of intersectional discrimination because the relevant directives have differing scopes and justification defences and exceptions are framed differently (Fredman, 2016). Moreover, the multiple approach results in an additive model of politics ‘leading to competition rather than coordination among marginal groups for fringe levels of resources rather than systemic reform that could transform the entire logic of distribution’ (Hancock, 2007, p. 70). On the other hand, there have been concerns that treating gender

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as one among other inequalities has contributed to a backtracking of its salience (Stratigaki, 2008). While addressing multiple discriminations may still be more a discourse than a legal or institutional reality at the European level (Krizsan et al., 2012; Lombardo & Verloo, 2009), its emergence has shifted the debate and mindsets in domestic, EU and international debates. Scholars, civil society organisations and practitioners have increasingly considered intersectional dimensions to discrimination, and notably the place of gender within these dimensions. Just as importantly, it has helped moved the needle in attempting to bridge the EU’s equality and anti-discrimination framework with social policies aimed at addressing poverty and widening socio-economic inequalities. Since the latter half of the 1990s, a significant shift in the European discourse of equality has occurred around the concept of social exclusion which developed into a foundational part of EU social policy. This was the result of growing unemployment in most Member States and a renewed attention to poverty (notably by the inspirational work of Tony Atkinson). The concept of equity also developed strongly in this period, associated with a pragmatic approach to the fact that individuals do not begin life with equal opportunities, thereby requiring public policies to redress the effects of inequality. The hidden costs of inequity began to be emphasised by EU analyses, along with the importance of education and lifelong learning in overcoming social exclusion so that individuals can take advantage of education and training, in terms of opportunities, access, treatment and outcomes (European Commission, 2006; Maiztegui-Oñate & Santibáñez-Gruber, 2008; Tuparevska et al., 2019).

7.5

A Multi-pronged Policy Framework: Key Tools and Their Challenges

As the legal framework of equality and non-discrimination have evolved, EU funding and initiatives have also been directed to fighting discrimination, promoting diversity and steering policies and investment towards ensuring equality of opportunities. EU institutions have enacted a

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comprehensive, multi-pronged approach that combines hard and soft law (legally binding and non-binding instruments) and a range of tools to ensure compliance with EU objectives as regards social inclusion and cohesion. Funding has been a core tool. A number of the EU funds, such as the European Social Fund (created in 1958) and the European Regional Development Fund (1975) reflected motivations among Member States to correct regional and social imbalances resulting from economic and industrial change and structural under-employment. The accession of Greece, Portugal and Spain in the 1980s brought a shift of focus in favour of reducing disparities and addressing divergences between richer and poorer areas, while the legal basis introduced by the Single European Act (1986) opened up the possibility of creating an integrated cohesion policy (through the Structural and Cohesion Funds) (EPRS, 2019). Overall, the ESF has invested in widening equality of opportunities particularly for people who find it difficult to get work either because they belong to disadvantaged groups, or because they live in extremely sparsely populated regions, or regions that have high levels of unemployment and low growth. It has served as a redistributive instrument, aiming to buffer social inequalities and ensure fairer job opportunities for all through training and re-skilling and supporting jobs. For example, the EQUAL Community Initiative was a flagship initiative financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) and co-funded by the EU Member States within the 2000–2006 programming period to support innovative, transnational projects aimed at tackling discrimination and disadvantage in the labour market by increasing employability, encouraging inclusive entrepreneurship, facilitating adaptability, promoting gender equality and integrating asylum seekers.19 Similarly, the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme, through a e439.5 million budget over the period 2014–2020, offered funding opportunities for projects aimed at promoting non-discrimination, combating racism, xenophobia, homophobia and other forms of intolerance, promoting gender equality and gender mainstreaming, preventing violence against children, young people, women and other groups at risk, promoting the rights of the child, ensuring the protection of

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personal data in the EU, promoting EU citizenship rights, and enforcing consumer rights. In spite of these efforts, during the past two decades, the overarching concern to increase the efficiency and limit the fragmentation of the EU budget have resulted in a decrease of funding for gender equality‚ and an overall decrease of the visibility of public problems linked to gender inequalities (Jacquot, 2017). Even though it is significantly smaller in size compared to national budgets, the EU budget has the potential to contribute significantly to equality in the EU. A budgetary analysis of EU policies and budgetary items has shown varying commitment to the principle of gender equality, a reality which is disconnected with the EU’s high level political and legal commitment to the principles of gender equality and gender mainstreaming. It has also meant that even policies that include a strong commitment to gender equality would be unlikely to achieve their objectives, given the complex nature of many genderrelated issues, such as poverty, gender-based violence or immigration, thereby requiring greater synergies and collective actions taken in various policies. These concerns have been voiced in the preparation of the EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework for the period 2021–2027. The EU’s political commitment to gender mainstreaming should be reflected in the drafting and the implementation of the EU budget and all EU policies receiving funding from the EU budget should be subject to gender-sensitive budgeting (European Parliament, 2019). Incorporating a gender equality perspective to all decisions on revenue and expenditure could significantly influence gender equality at the local and national levels. Networks with interest groups and civil society organisations as well as with and epistemic communities have been another fundamental dimension of the EU toolbox in addressing challenges to equality. The European Commission has supported a number of networks of experts in this field; some include experts or representatives from the public sector, others from independent bodies, and others still from academia and civil society thereby engaging stakeholders from different perspectives. A government expert group in the field of non-discrimination was set up in the period 2008–2013 to address common concerns and advance shared objectives between the EU Member States and the

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European Commission and share good practice exchanges on public policies. In 2015, this led to the establishment of a high level group on non-discrimination, equality and diversity to ensure cooperation and coordination between EU countries, including representatives of each of the European Economic Area countries, and aimed at improving the development and implementation of policies and programmes and share experiences and good practices on diversity.20 At the same time, the European Network of Equality Bodies (Equinet),21 brings together national equality bodies, which are empowered to provide an independent assistance to victims of discrimination, conduct independent surveys concerning discrimination, publish independent reports and make recommendations on any issue relating to discrimination in their country, and overall act as catalysts for more equal societies. Just as importantly, the European network of legal experts in gender equality and non-discrimination22 has been established to ensure that the European Commission is kept informed in relation to important legal developments in these fields at national level, and, bi-annual meetings are held with the Social Platform, the largest network of European rightsand value-based civil society organisations working in the social sector to discuss current policy issues with non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Capacity building within civil society as well as information and awareness raising about fundamental rights has been another important tool. As mentioned above, the EU has created new political opportunity structures. Through financially supporting or engaging with NGOs, social partners and equality bodies to tackle discrimination in the workplace mainly, the EU has encouraged equality policies at national level, supported anti-discrimination training activities and pushed for diversity management in companies. This has in turn had a multiplier effect. It has contributed to actions, litigations or campaigns at national level focused on tackling common challenges, measuring disadvantage and discrimination in different forms, and advocating for further actions. At the same time, concerns have been highlighted that the professionalisation of the actors involved in the EU gender equality policy since the 2000s led to the marginalisation of activist and feminist involvement. This trend, together with the fact that expert networks were increasingly seen by

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the EU institutions more as ‘service providers’ instead of ‘trailblazers, partners, support or contacts at the national level, as had been the case in the past’, is considered to have withered the dynamism and eroded the activism of equality networks that had played a core role in pushing the bar further in previous decades (Jacquot, 2017). Expectations have, however, grown again more recently. The sustainability agenda has reinvigorated these networks, and the political priority accorded to equality and anti-discrimination by the von der Leyen Commission have opened new opportunities in these areas. A further significant instrument that the EU has contributed to involves data. The EU has invested substantial resources in developing statistical evidence, along with regular, comparative and inclusive monitoring and evaluation of inequalities, differences and discrimination. It has relied on expertise provided by dedicated agencies, notably EIGE and FRA as mentioned above. These institutions have been able to provide robust data and technical knowledge contributing to policy-making and implementation of policies, including in economic and budgetary policies, at national and EU levels aimed at furthering equality. Feminist scholars, however, have highlighted the downside of this move towards a more technocratic than activist role. From their perspective, the general trend towards depoliticisation and professionalisation of feminist or anti-discrimination organisations has channelled their outputs to the production of technical knowledge rather than the development of policy alternatives or political visions (Jacquot, 2017). The global financial crisis and its scarring effects on the EU led to the issue of inequality rising in importance, and wide-ranging research to shed light on different dimensions of discrimination and exclusion, to measure (in)equalities in society, and to identify the relevant variables that explain them. With years of convergence in living standards reversed and considerable strain on social protection systems, inequality has risen in a majority of Member States, triggering concerns both for the sustainability of the EU’s growth and for social cohesion (European Commission, 2017). While much of the focus has been on economic inequality, usually measured through income, the EU has encouraged a broadening of the debate and efforts to measure—and address—inequality from the perspective of freedoms, opportunities, capabilities; to look at individual

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but also inter-household and intra-household inequality; to understand the drivers of social mobility; as well as the spatial and territorial dimensions (see inter alia the work of DG REGIO, DG EMPL, DG RTD and the JRC). It has also encouraged the development of comparative indicators of discrimination among vulnerable groups and benchmarking exercises in order to assess how well the latter are doing over time, across sectors and across member states (Amiraux & Guiraudon, 2010). Lastly, as an employer, the Commission has identified diversity and inclusion as the cornerstones of its corporate culture. By aiming to ‘practice what it preaches’, in 2017, the Commission launched a diversity and inclusion strategy for Commission staff and a set of concrete and targetted actions (COM (2017) 5300). It set a target to reach 40% women in senior and middle management teams by 2019; it laid out guidelines and a Code of good practice for the employment of people with disabilities; it aimed to put measures in place for employees to be open about their LGBTI identity and fully participate in the social dimension in the workplace; it underlined the importance of offering older staff as interesting opportunities at work as younger staff. The ambition to be more representative of European society has meant seeking to foster diversity in selection and recruitment procedures, concrete efforts to create a more inclusive workplace, and a talent management programme. These are all of course dynamic objectives.

7.6

The Importance of Fairness in the Current Context

Decades of investment in education and social protection have empowered and improved the socio-economic conditions and opportunities for the majority of Europeans. There remain, however, significant inequalities that are transmitted between generations, or that run deeper in some regions and countries than others. And, in spite of one of the most elaborate and inclusive legal frameworks in the world, many Europeans continue to see their opportunities restricted due to various forms of discrimination, and certain population groups remain or are becoming more vulnerable to risks and exclusion than others. These

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developments or entrenched divides have brought concerns for widening socio-economic inequality high on the political agenda across the EU. Over the past two decades, however, rapid and volatile transformations in the world economy, the impact of the digital revolution on employment, and demographic trends associated with ageing and migration have posed new challenges and exacerbated existing inequalities and vulnerabilities. Socio-economic trends, regional disparities and political developments suggest that specific forms of inequality, prejudice and discrimination are taking disconcerting directions in many Member States (ESPAS, 2018; Joint Research Centre, 2017; Report of the IPSP, 2018).23 The global financial crisis has impacted deeply on the European economy and along with the rise of populism has contributed to the polarisation of European societies. The combination of the economic and financial crisis with longer-term structural shifts in European economies, appear to be linked to a sense of insecurity with regards to work, and a wider perception of disempowerment. So, while overall there has been remarkable economic progress at the global level in the last few decades, research and data shows that not everyone has enjoyed the same gains, or even the same opportunities. Some parts of Europe have been affected the most from the distributional tensions and this has been particularly the case for younger cohorts, routine-task intensive and lowwage workers, women, and inhabitants of so called economically lagging regions (Bussolo, Davalos, Peragine, & Sundaram, 2018). The COVID19 pandemic which emerged in 2020, has laid bare different types of inter-related inequalities and has reinforced socio-economic disparities. These trends together have impacted on civil liberties in some parts of the Union and social cohesion in others, with some population groups becoming increasingly vulnerable to discrimination. The challenge posed in the current EU context is how to effectively promote in parallel equality of opportunity (which related to rights) and pluralism (which relates to values), both of which are at the heart of the EU project, at a time when political polarisation, distrust and a wider sense of unfairness are on the rise.

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Notes 1. These include inter alia the major human rights instruments concluded under the auspices of the United Nations and specifically the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Additional international treaties with specific focus on discrimination and equality include the Convention on the Political Rights of Women 1953, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 1966, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 1979, and Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989. A number of International Labour Organization (ILO) instruments and Council of Europe conventions also deal with discrimination and are relevant, most notably the ILO Equal Remuneration Convention 1951 (No. 100) and the ILO Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention 1958 (No. 111), the European Social Charter 1961/ revised 1996), the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities 1995, and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, 1992. 2. Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Protocols— Annexes—Declarations annexed to the Final Act of the Intergovernmental Conference which adopted the Treaty of Lisbon, signed on 13 December 2007, available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:12012E/TXT&from=en. 3. EPRS (2018), Fact sheet: Equality between men and women, available at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/59/equality-bet ween-men-and-women. 4. EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, available at: https://fra.europa.eu/en/ charterpedia/article/21-non-discrimination. 5. Judgment of 13 November 1984, Case 283/83 Racke [1984] ECR 3791, judgment of 17 April 1997, Case 15/95 EARL [1997] ECR I1961, and judgment of 13 April 2000, Case 292/97 Karlsson [2000] ECR 2737; for further case law see https://fra.europa.eu/en/charterpedia/article/20-equali ty-law. The protection of fundamental rights is also one of the general principles of EC law and is binding on the EC institutions and on the Member States when they implement EC rules or act within the scope of Community law (McCrudden & Prechal, 2009).

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6. See inter alia the work of Sidney Tarrow on the New Transnational Activism (2005, Cambridge University Press); Anne-Marie Slaughter on A New World Order (2004, Princeton University Press); Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink on Activists Beyond Borders (1998, Cornell University Press), and the overall work of Sonia Mazey and Jeremy Richardson on interest groups and policy-making in the EU. 7. In an effort to consolidate and simplify the relevant legislation and case law of the CJEU, the 2006 Recast Directive (2006/54) brought together the Directive on equal pay for men and women (75/117), the Directive on equal treatment of men and women in employment (76/207 as amended by Directive 2002/73), the Directive on equal treatment of men and women in occupational social security schemes (86/378, as amended by Directive 96/97) and the Directive on the burden of proof (97/80) (see Burri, 2018). 8. OMC is a ‘soft law’ form of governance that requires member states to prepare action plans according to common principles and to receive and respond to recommendations in a regular cycle of policy scrutiny and benchmarking (Pollack & Hafner-Burton, 2000). 9. The turn to mainstreaming in the 1990s originated in the area of development assistance, and permeated the work of the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and was adopted as a strategic objective by the United Nations in the Platform for Action agreed at Beijing in 1995 (Beveridge & Shaw, 2002). 10. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1435768861022& uri=CELEX:32006R1922. 11. See EIGE’s database on: https://eige.europa.eu/gender-statistics/dgs/bro wse/wmidm. Accessed 9 April 2020. 12. European Pillar of Social Rights (2017). https://ec.europa.eu/commission/ publications/european-pillar-social-rights-booklet_en. Accessed 9 April 2020. 13. See Directive (EU) 2019/1158 of the European Parliament and the Council on work-life balance for parents and carers and repealing Council Directive 2010/18/EU. 20 June 2019. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-con tent/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32019L1158. Accessed 4 April 2020. 14. The racist murder of Stephen Lawrence led the UK Home office to order an inquiry which exposed ‘institutional racism’ and provoked an important shift in public attitudes towards race and racism. For more see the Independent report of The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry by Sir William Macpherson

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15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

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submitted to the British Parliament (1999) available at: https://www.gov. uk/government/publications/the-stephen-lawrence-inquiry. European Commission, DG JUST, https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/jus tice-and-fundamental-rights/combatting-discrimination_en. Council Directive 2000/43/EC implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial and ethnic origin, OJ 2000 L 180. Council Directive 2000/78/EC establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation, OJ 2000 L 303. See https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/MEMO_1 9_542. See, for instance, the EC Press release IP/01/466 (2001) http://europa.eu/ rapid/press-release_IP-01-466_en.htm. See https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/com batting-discrimination/tackling-discrimination/network-experts-field-antidiscrimination_en. http://www.equineteurope.org. https://www.equalitylaw.eu. See the Fundamental Rights Agency’s relevant website: https://fra.europa. eu/en/theme/racism-related-intolerances.

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Part IV Experiences & Impressions

8 How Do People React to (In)Equality and (In)Justice? A Psychological Approach Johanna Pretsch

8.1

Introduction

People want to get what they deserve and deserve what they get (Montada & Lerner, 1998). When people feel that this need is met, they experience justice. But what people think they deserve and what they think others deserve in relation to themselves is a very complex question. Do all people deserve equal resources and outcomes? Or does everyone’s respective input matter when resources are distributed? When studying (in)equality and (in)justice and people’s reactions to them from a psychological perspective, a subjective approach is inevitable, and subjective perceptions and evaluations of inequalities are highly relevant (Hülle, Liebig, & May, 2018). This subjective approach will show that not all equalities will be perceived as just, and not all inequalities will be perceived as unjust. Rather, whether equality is perceived as just or unjust depends on subjective justice evaluations made by individuals who experience distributions of limited resources. J. Pretsch (B) University of Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz and Landau, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 F. Levrau and N. Clycq (eds.), Equality, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54310-5_8

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In this chapter, I will first outline the relation between (in)equality and justice from a psychological perspective, and in doing so, I will focus on distributive justice and (in)equality. I will then focus on three spheres of life, namely education, the workplace, and the family, all of which are settings in which the distribution of limited resources occurs frequently. For these three spheres of life, I will describe how people react psychologically when they experience unfair distributions of goods and resources. The chapter ends with a short conclusion and an outlook on a research field which psychological justice research has yet to examine, namely fair distributions concerning environmental issues, such as fair distributions of environmental burdens and risks.

8.2

Inequality and Injustice

How are (in)equality and justice related? To understand their relationship, it is first helpful to differentiate between three forms of justice that have commonly been differentiated in the recent justice literature (Sabbagh & Schmitt, 2016): distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice. The question of distributive justice arises when there is more than one party and a limited resource or desired good. Distributive justice refers to whether a distribution of goods is perceived to be fair. Therefore, people perform comparisons between the share of a resource they (or others) have actually received and the share of the resource they think they (or others) deserve (e.g. Jasso, 1980; Markovsky, 1985). Distributive justice is perceived if the actual amount of goods or resources is equal to the amount that people think they should have received. It is important to note that an overbalance of either actual or ‘deserved’ resources can lead to the perception of injustice. That is, distributive injustice can also be perceived when individuals feel that they have received more than they think they deserve. The limited amounts of goods that are distributed do not have to be real objects; they can also be time, attention, or praise (Jasso, Törnblom, & Sabbagh, 2016). Deutsch (1975, p. 137) put it very generally by stating that distributive justice ‘is concerned with the distribution of the conditions and goods which affect individual well -being ’.

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Procedural justice is related to the processes that lead to outcomes such as a distribution of goods, punishment, or duties (e.g. Leventhal, 1980; Lind & Tyler, 1988). For procedural justice, the locus of control of the process and the decision is crucial (Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001; Thibaut & Walker, 1975). For example, a process is perceived as just when the information that is given about the process is accurate, when decision practices are consistent across people and time, when decision makers are supposed to be neutral and, when there is the possibility to correct the decision process (Leventhal, 1980). Interactional justice refers to the fairness and quality of interactions (Bies & Moag, 1986). Interactions are fair when people are sensitive, kind, and respectful to each other. Interactional justice can be further differentiated into informational and interpersonal justice (Bies & Moag, 1986; Greenberg, 1990, 1993; Shapiro, Buttner, & Barry, 1994). Whereas informational justice refers to the explanations that are provided to people and that contain information about decisions, processes, and distributions of outcomes, interpersonal justice focuses on whether people are treated politely and with dignity and respect by the people responsible for processes and outcome distributions (Greenberg, 1990, 1993). When reconsidering these three forms of justice (i.e. distributive, procedural and interactional), it becomes obvious that the relationship between (in)equality and injustice may most comprehensively be described by the concept of distributive justice because (in)equality is often conceptualized as the result of a distribution of resources. However, notions of equality can also be embedded in procedural justice (e.g. when the equality of representation in a decision is in the focus or when decision practices are applied equally or unequally across actors). Still, the relationship between (in)equality and procedural justice is considered to be less complex than the relationship between (in)equality and justice with regard to the distribution of resources (Hegtvedt & Isom, 2014). This might be because there is a greater compatibility between just procedures and notions of equality: people might prefer equal procedures (e.g. consistency of processes across people) and might find it obvious to grant equal procedures to everyone, but, in the end, prefer equity with

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regard to outcomes (see next section). There is also evidence that people who benefit from unequal distributions generally prefer equal procedures (Lind & Tyler, 1988).

8.3

(In)Equality and Distributive Injustice

The evaluation of a distribution as fair or unfair usually depends on the principle of distribution that was used or the one that people would have preferred to have been used. There are three principles of distribution that are commonly differentiated: equality, equity, and need (Deutsch, 1985; Jasso et al., 2016). Equality, equity, and need can be viewed as three different distributive justice rules that are applied in different situations or contexts. Various studies show that people use the concept of these three principles of distribution, that is, they consider them to be distinct from each other (e.g. Jasso et al., 2016; Schwinger, 1980). People can apply these rules separately or in combination, and people differ in their attitudes towards the distributive principles of equality, equity, and need (e.g. Hülle et al., 2018; Sabbagh, Dar, & Resh, 1994). The equality principle requires everyone to be treated equally and to receive the same outcome (e.g. goods, conditions, rewards, but also burdens) but can also be further differentiated into ‘sub-rules’ (e.g. arithmetic equality, equality of results, equality of opportunities; Sabbagh et al., 1994). Because equality is usually associated with the ‘natural’ equality of all people (Corson, 2001), the equality principle is closely related to the democratic ideal of social justice (Strike, 1985). This principle is considered most appropriate in small groups such as families (Deutsch, 1985) and more generally in situations characterized by intimacy, affection, and socio-emotive concerns (e.g. Hysom & Fisek, 2011; Peterson, 1987). The equality principle has also been suggested to apply in groups that place a great deal of emphasis on solidarity, cooperation, and harmony (e.g. Deutsch, 1985; Schwinger, 1980). However, as pointed out by Wagstaff (1994), findings concerning the context-specific use of the equality principle have been inconsistent. Accordingly, there is also evidence that the equality principle might be chosen in contexts in which people are not well-acquainted (Elliott & Meeker, 1986). Besides

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contextual factors that influence a preference for the equality principle, characteristics of the resource to be distributed may also be relevant (e.g. material vs. symbolic benefits; Otto, Baumert, & Bobocel, 2011). The justice principle of equity refers to the Aristotelian concept of equality. Thus, equity requires—in contrast to equality as defined above—differentiation (Jasso et al., 2016). Equity justice is served if not everyone receives the same treatment but everybody receives what he or she deserves with respect to the input that he or she provided. Adams (1965) specified that equity is equality between the ratios of outcomes and inputs for two or more people, social groups, and so forth. Stated simply: ‘when equity holds, outcomes are an increasing function of inputs’ (Harris, 1976, p. 197). That is, the equity principle takes individual conditions and circumstances (e.g. experience, education, status, abilities, performance) into account, thus tolerating and sometimes demanding unequal results (Espinoza, 2007). This implies that when equity is promoted to a greater extent, the results may be less equal (Gans, 1973; Rawls, 1971). The equity principle is conceptualized with reference to human capital theory and utilitarian thinking (e.g. Rawls, 1971; Strike, 1979). Consequently, it is supposed to be applied in situations and contexts involving competition, status, productivity goals, a focus on individuality, and a lack of (positive) interpersonal relatedness (e.g., Deutsch, 1975; Hysom & Fisek, 2011; Lerner, 1977). Accordingly, it has been argued that equality is the preferred justice principle with regard to outcomes in more collectivistic countries, whereas the equity principle may be preferred in more individualistic societies (Hegtvedt & Isom, 2014). Like the equity principle, the need principle also requires differentiation (Jasso et al., 2016). Very generally speaking, when the need principle is applied, everyone should get what he or she needs in order to have a decent life (Deutsch, 1975). This is, for example, when basic physiological and bodily needs as well as basic psychological needs such as autonomy, relatedness, and competence (Deci & Ryan, 2008) are met. People often favour the need principle in caring-oriented group contexts where intimacy and dependency between the group members exist, but also in less intimate contexts such as healthcare (e.g. Deutsch, 1975, 1985). Also, the need principle might be divided into ‘sub-principles’

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depending on the definition of need as it is done in medical ethics (e.g. degree of ill health vs. immediate suffering; Cookson & Dolan, 2000) which may lead to different distributions of limited resources. What people are supposed to need, however, also depends on sociocultural and economic factors such as the wealth of a country or social group bringing along further definitions of need. The need principle is therefore a complex, yet understudied one. The three rules can be described by the level of differentiation between individuals or social groups they promote: equality requires the smallest amount of differentiation, followed by need, and finally by equity as the rule that promotes the most differentiation (Sabbagh et al., 1994). Interestingly, the level of differentiation that is required by each justice principle finds its match in a developmental perspective, that is, when focusing on how the use of and preferences for the different principles develop throughout individual human development. According to a study by Smith and Warneken (2016), four- and five-year-olds evaluate a distribution of goods as just if everybody receives the same share (i.e. they have a preference for the equality principle). Likewise, they evaluate a distribution of resources as unfair if the distribution depends on people’s prior behaviour (‘good’ or ‘bad’ behaviour). six- to sevenyear-olds begin to consider the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ behaviour of others when making or evaluating distributions of limited resources. For eight- to tenyear-olds, a distribution in which the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ behaviour of others is reconsidered is viewed as very fair. Other studies have shown that children between six and ten years of age use the equality principle most frequently to distribute resources; seven- to nine-year-old children also consider the neediness of others when distributing goods and perceive the need principle to be fair; whereas 15-year-olds prefer to draw on the respective inputs people have made when evaluating the fairness of a distribution (i.e. they prefer the equity principle; Conry-Murray, 2017; Forsé, Richardot, Frénod, Guibet Lafaye, & Parodi, 2016; Kienbaum & Wilkening, 2009). In contrast to the findings in children and adolescents (i.e. a general preference for one principle, no consistent use of situational or context factors), adults show individual differences in this preference (e.g. Hülle et al., 2018) and differentiate between different contexts (Deutsch, 1975). As mentioned above, equality requires the

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smallest amount of differentiation between persons or groups, followed by need and equity. As more differentiation requires more and more developed cognitive abilities, these findings can to some extent be related to a broader theory of moral development, the cognitive developmental theory of Kohlberg (1976). Kohlberg emphasizes that individuals have to develop in different areas in order to progress in the stages of moral development. For example, their social perspective has to widen and their rationales about their moral behaviour have to improve. Children also need such abilities to apply the need principle (i.e. they need to know about the mental, emotional, physical, material status of others) and the equity principle (i.e. they need to compare input/output ratios for several people). Therefore, it can be assumed that children need to have reached a certain developmental stage to be able to apply a certain distribution principle at all and it could be that for children applying the equality principle demands less developed cognitive abilities than applying the need or equity principle. Importantly, as mentioned above, this is different for adults who not only differentiate between people when applying the need or equity principle, but also between contexts when choosing the principle that they want to apply. Kohlberg (1976) emphasized that his theory does not differentiate between morally ‘good’ and morally ‘bad’ reasoning, but rather focuses on the cognitive complexity of moral decisions. This is also true for the three justice principles: psychological theory and research do not evaluate whether the application of one principle is more just or morally better than another. Summing up, distributions made according to equality, equity, or need are subjectively considered fair only under certain circumstances that include situational and contextual factors such as group characteristics, cultural factors, characteristics of the resource to be distributed, stable individual differences regarding attitudes towards the different principles, and the developmental stage of the individual. What does this mean in general for the relationship between (in)equality and distributive justice? Even though the justice principle of equality has been verified to exist in the area of distributive justice, and even though it can also be differentiated from other justice principles, the relationship between (in)equality and distributive justice still remains a complex one. There are several reasons for this. When equality is defined

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as a distribution rule/justice principle, (in)equality is not the result of distribution but refers to the logic that underlies the distribution. Therefore, when the result is equality, an individual will perceive such a result as just only when the applied and the preferred distribution rule were both equality. Remember that—as mentioned above—equality is used and preferred as a distribution rule only under certain circumstances. From a psychological perspective, this implies that not all existing (objective) equalities are perceived as just, and not all existing (objective) inequalities are perceived as unjust. (Distributive) justice must therefore be considered to be the result of a subjective perception and interpretation process and can be defined as socially constructed (Cropanzano & Greenberg, 1997), whereas equality and inequality can take objective forms (e.g. the result of an equal or unequal distribution of a resource between individuals or groups; e.g. income inequality). Therefore, it is reasonable to speak of the (perceived) fairness of equality and inequality or equality (in)justice when a psychological perspective on equality and justice is taken: under certain circumstances (e.g. when equity was the preferred rule for the distribution), equality can be perceived as unfair, and inequality can be perceived as fair.

8.4

Psychological Reactions to Unfair Distributions

How do people react to equality injustice? Most relevant to people’s psychological reactions is that they have initially perceived a distribution as unfair. This implies that we need to differentiate between perception and evaluation processes on the one hand and reaction processes on the other hand. Even though the focus of this chapter lies on reactions to injustice, it is important to note for the perception and evaluation process that there is evidence that people differentiate between experiencing something as unjust and experiencing something as simply negative, i.e. having negative valence (Baumert & Schmitt, 2009). That is, unjust can be seen as a psychologically distinct category of evaluation. In order to shed light on the question of how people react to unfair inequality, it is reasonable and most fruitful to look at how people generally react to

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unfairness and more specifically to unfair distributions as psychological reactions to unfair distributions can be assumed to be similar no matter whether it is equality justice, equity justice, or need justice that is not served. For this purpose, it is important to make several distinctions. First, it is reasonable to theoretically differentiate between several qualitatively different psychological reactions to unfairness. Reactions to injustice can be found on emotional, cognitive, and motivational levels (e.g. Thomas, 2013): emotional reactions to injustice include anger, moral outrage, and guilt, but—on a more abstract level—they may also encompass variables such as well-being and satisfaction. Cognitive reactions to unfairness include uncontrollable recurring and intrusive thoughts about the experienced injustice (i.e. ruminative thoughts) but may also encompass cognitive evaluations of situational aspects and people linked to the experience of injustice. Motivational reactions to experienced injustice are expressed in readiness to eliminate the experienced unfairness and to restore justice. Motivational reactions may also include tendencies to engage in retaliation, punishment, and withdrawal. Besides these emotional, cognitive, and motivational reactions to the experience of injustice, reactions to injustice can also be found on a behavioural level and may include antisocial or prosocial behavioural responses (Schmitt, Gollwitzer, Maes, & Arbach, 2005). Besides these more direct and specific reactions to injustice, experiences of injustice can also have more global effects and can influence more stable individual attributes such as attitudes (e.g. Colquitt et al., 2001; Pretsch & Ehrhardt-Madapathi, 2018). Note, however, that depending on the measures used in the different studies, it is not always possible to clearly distinguish between these different forms of psychological reactions to unfairness, and some measures that are used may match several forms of reactions (e.g. emotional and motivational ones). Importantly, it seems to be a general phenomenon that people react to injustice on an emotional, cognitive, motivational, and behavioural level. However, people differ in how easily and how strongly they react on these levels (Schmitt, Neumann, & Montada, 1995). That is, general reactions to injustice may be shaped by stable individual differences and the construct which describes these differences is called justice sensitivity (Schmitt et al., 1995).

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Second, different perspectives from which injustice can be perceived can be differentiated. People can experience injustice from a victim perspective, an observer perspective, a beneficiary perspective, or a perpetrator perspective (e.g. Schmitt, Baumert, Gollwitzer, & Maes, 2010). Importantly, reactions to injustice can be qualitatively or quantitatively different depending on the perspective from which an individual experiences an unjust event (Mikula, 1994; Mikula, Petri, & Tanzer, 1990; Schmitt et al., 2005). Using distributive justice as an example, when a person feels that he or she has been the victim of an unfair distribution (e.g. I received less of a reward than I think I deserve), this experience should theoretically lead to anger as the immediate emotional response. Experiencing an unfair distribution from the perspective of a bystander (e.g. I have observed that my coworkers are paid less than I think they deserve) can typically lead to moral outrage. When people experience distributive injustice from the role of a passive beneficiary (e.g. I benefitted from the fact that someone else unjustifiably received less of a resource than he or she deserved) or an active perpetrator of distributive injustice (e.g. I took goods from someone who deserved them), these experiences can lead to feelings of guilt and shame (e.g. Weiss, Suckow, & Cropanzano, 1999). As I will show later, most of the findings concerning reactions to unfair distributions refer to perceptions of justice from a victim’s perspective. Third, with regard to distributive justice, it makes sense to take a closer look at different areas of life (e.g. education, work, family) in which distributions of limited resources take place because reactions to unfair distributions might differ across these areas.

Reactions to Unfair Distributions in Education How do people react to unfair distributions that they experience in the educational context? What do we know about the effects of perceived distributive (in)justice on students’ outcomes? In the school context, limited resources are constantly being distributed (Connell, 1993), a fact that renders this context an especially appropriate one for studying reactions to unfair distributions. However, research in this area is still

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relatively scarce, and as mentioned above, most studies have referred to perceptions of injustice from a victim’s perspective. In addition, there are some studies that have not differentiated between different forms of justice (e.g. distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice). Note that in these cases, the reported reactions to injustice cannot be restricted to unfair distributions. With respect to emotional and motivational reactions, Chory-Assad (2002) found that college students’ perceptions of fair distributions in the classroom were positively associated with student motivation and affective learning. Peter and Dalbert (2010) showed that students’ perceptions of the extent to which their teacher showed justice towards the students themselves (victim perspective) was positively correlated with a good classroom climate, and the classroom climate in turn influenced students’ well-being. Likewise, Dalbert (2011) reported that perceived teacher justice had a positive effect on perceived class climate and perceived social inclusion. Pretsch et al. (2015), who examined distributive injustice in school from a beneficiary perspective, found that students who felt privileged for arbitrary reasons (i.e. who were given better learning conditions than other students and considered this to be unjust) showed an increase in a bad conscience and anger over time accompanied by an increase in an appreciation of their privileged learning conditions. Also, experiencing an unfair distribution of learning opportunities from a beneficiary perspective reinforced students’ desire for more justice in schools in general. With respect to behavioural reactions, Dalbert (2011) found that experiencing justice in school generally led to more favourable social behaviour and better academic achievement. In line with this finding, Donat, Umlauft, Dalbert, and Kamble (2012) found that if students perceived the teacher’s behaviour towards them to be just (victim perspective), then the students tended to show less deviant behaviour (i.e. bullying behaviour in this case). Donat, Dalbert, and Kamble (2014) showed that students who reported being treated fairly by their teacher were less likely to show disruptive behaviour in the classroom and were less likely to cheat on tests. In a study conducted by Chory-Assad (2002), college students’ perceptions of fair distributions in the classroom were negatively correlated with aggressive behaviour towards the

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teacher. Nouwen and Clycq (2016) could show that experiencing negative teacher–student relations (i.e. an unfair distribution of respect) plays an important role in the occurrence of psychological disengagement, discounting of negative teacher feedback, and disidentification from education. Ehrhardt-Madapathi, Pretsch, and Schmitt (2017) found a bidirectional relationship between classroom justice concerning the distributions of appropriate tasks and appropriate support and students’ behavioural problems. Children reacted to such unfair distributions in learning settings with behavioural problems such as conduct problems, hyperactivity-inattention, and peer relationship problems, and vice versa. With respect to attitudes and more stable attributes, Resh and Sabbagh (2013) found that perceived distributive justice in school was positively associated with students’ sense of belonging and students’ trust in people and formal institutions. In this study, a fair distribution with regard to the teacher–student relationship seemed especially relevant. Resh and Sabbagh (2014) showed that experiencing a fair distribution of grades in school and fair teacher–student relationships—an aspect of distributive justice concerning the fair allocation of interactional resources—were important predictors of a civil rights orientation. A study by Pretsch and Ehrhardt-Madapathi (2018) showed that experiences of distributive justice in school in general (a fair allocation of grades, help, and support, but also interactional resources) predicted democratic attitudes, more specifically, support for civic and human rights and democratic institutions. Furthermore, the authors found that the relationships between these overall perceptions of fair distributions in school and beliefs in civic and human rights, democratic institutions, and democracy-supporting behaviours were each mediated by general interpersonal trust.

Reactions to Unfair Distributions in the Workplace Whereas not many studies have been conducted on reactions to unfair distributions of resources in the educational context, the situation is different in organizational and work contexts. Again, we will look at different aspects of psychological reactions to unfair distributions in the

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workplace. However, many studies in the area of organizational fairness have focused on behavioural reactions rather than on emotional or cognitive reactions. Note also that all reported studies have referred to experiences of (in)justice only from a victim perspective. With respect to emotional and motivational reactions, Skarlicki and Folger (1997) reported that employees responded to unfair distributions at work with negative emotions such as anger, outrage, and resentment. Likewise, Fox, Spector, and Miles (2001) showed that the perception of distributive justice was significantly and negatively related to negative emotions such as anger, boredom, anxiousness, confusion, depression, and frustration. A study by Spell and Arnold (2007) found that distributive justice influenced employees’ feelings of depression and anxiety, that is, the more distributions at the workplace were perceived as unfair, the more depression and anxiety employees reported. Rousseau, Salek, Aubé, and Morin (2009) showed that the perception of fair distributions at work was significantly negatively related to psychological distress. Kwak (2006) found that unfair distributions at the workplace were related to experiences of burnout. Therefore, the experience of fair distributions of resources can be assumed to have a positive influence on psychological health outcomes. A meta-analysis by Colquitt et al. (2001) showed that the perception of fair distributions in the workplace leads to satisfaction with outcomes such as pay, promotions, and performance evaluations as well as to job satisfaction. Haar and Spell (2009) found that perceiving distributions at work as fair with regard to pay, benefits, and rewards were negatively linked to turnover intentions. With respect to cognitive reactions, Colquitt et al.’s (2001) metaanalysis revealed that experiencing fair distributions of resources at work leads to positive evaluations of specific supervisors as well as management or the organizational system in general. With respect to behavioural reactions, organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) are probably best studied when reactions to unfairness in the workplace are the focus of the study. According to Organ (1990), OCBs are work-related behaviours that are optional and are not explicitly required or rewarded but have the potential to improve organizational processes. Colquitt et al. (2001) reported that experiencing fair distributions in the organization is positively related to OCBs.

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Furthermore, just distributions in the workplace lead to less absenteeism, turnover, and neglect (withdrawal). Meta-analytic results by Colquitt et al. (2001) also revealed a negative relationship between the perception of fair distributions at work and negative behavioural reactions such as employee theft and organizational retaliatory behaviours. Fox et al. (2001) found that the perception of distributive justice was negatively related to counterproductive work behaviours targeting the organization and its productivity such as coming to work late without permission or incorrectly recording the time on one’s timesheet. As in the educational context, fair distributions at work may also lead to better work performance (Colquitt et al., 2001). With respect to attitudes and more stable attributes, trust has been found to be linked to the experience of fair distributions in the workplace (Aryee, Budhwar, & Chen, 2002; Colquitt et al., 2001). Also, several studies have shown that employees react with high organizational commitment to fair distributions, that is, they feel a high degree of identification with the organization (Bakhshi, Kumar, & Rani, 2009; Colquitt et al., 2001; Olkkonen & Lipponen, 2006).

Reactions to Unfair Distributions in the Family Research on distributive justice and reactions to it in the family is relatively scarce, and I will focus on perceptions of and reactions to parental justice behaviour. However, I will try to make the same distinctions (quality of psychological reactions, perspective of justice experiences) as for the other spheres of justice discussed above. With respect to emotional and motivational reactions, Meunier et al. (2012) found that the perception of favouritism (i.e. when a child perceived that he or she was treated less favourably by his or her parents than a sibling) led to feelings of sibling hostility. Boll, Ferring, and Filipp (2003) showed that relationships between siblings were best when siblings were treated equally by their parents with regard to parental recognition, nurturance, and demands for filial responsibility; increasing favouritism or disfavouritism led to a worsening of sibling relationships. In the same study, it was shown that participants evaluated their

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relationship with their parents best when participants were favoured a bit by their parents in comparison with a sibling. Likewise, Boll, Ferring, and Filipp (2005) showed that justice evaluations of distributions of parental recognition, nurturance, and demands for assuming filial responsibility were strong predictors of the quality of children’s relationships with their parents. It is important to note here that a lack of parental recognition and appreciation may lead to psychopathological symptoms such as anxiety (Bögels & van Melick, 2004). Ferring, Boll, and Filipp (2003) found that adult children who perceived themselves as disadvantaged with regard to how their parents had treated them in childhood reported less current attachment and closeness to their parents and siblings (emotional level) as well as less willingness to support their parents and siblings than adults who retrospectively felt equally treated or favoured by their parents in childhood (motivational level). With respect to behavioural reactions, Kowal, Kramer, Krull, and Crick (2002) reported that perceptions of unfair distributions of parental affection and control were related to more externalizing behaviours (i.e. negative behaviours that are directed towards the external environment such as aggression). Also, perceptions of fair distributions of affection and control were associated with lower levels of internalizing behaviours (i.e. negative behaviours that are directed towards the self such as social withdrawal). Scholte, Engels, de Kemp, Harakeh, and Overbeek (2007) analyzed the moderating role of the sibling relationship in the effect of parental distributions of affection and control on delinquency in adolescence and found—for same-sex couples—that younger boys who felt treated less favourably by their mothers with regard to affection and control were most likely to show high levels of vandalism and violence when the sibling relationship was perceived as poor. Girls reacted to unfair distributions of parental affection and control with high levels of theft when the relationship between the sisters was perceived as poor. With respect to attitudes and more stable attributes, Kowal et al. (2002) reported that perceptions of fair distributions of affection and control were associated with higher global self-esteem.

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Future Directions: Reactions to Unfair Distributions with Regard to Environmental Issues

As compared to the areas of life mentioned above (education, the workplace, and the family), there are other spheres of life which have not been considered that much by psychological justice research. One of these areas is the environment with environmental issues and problems such as climate change and global warming being currently discussed in broad public. There may be different reasons for this under-representation of the environmental and climate change topic in psychological justice research. One may be that justice-related aspects of environmental problems are not consistently discussed in public and politics. Thus, I will give an outlook on this field showing that psychological justice research could contribute a lot to the understanding of people’s reactions to environmental and climate problems and their potential solutions. What are these justice-related aspects of environmental problems? Concerning distributive justice, the fairness of distribution of environmental hazards among individuals and social groups may be considered the most prominent aspect (e.g. Maschewsky, 2004). Here the focus is not primarily on the distribution of goods and resources (as it mainly seems to be in other areas of life), but rather on a fair distribution of burdens and stresses. However, according to Deutsch (1975), distributive justice in general is concerned with the distribution of the conditions affecting individual well-being. Thus, the distribution of environmental hazards and burdens may well be understood in terms of distributive justice as they can clearly be defined as factors influencing individual well-being. Such environmental burdens could be air, soil, water pollution, and littering from industrialization, militarization, and consumer practices as well as the environmental effects of climate change and global warming (e.g. Mohai, Pellow, & Roberts, 2009). Another justice-relevant aspect is the distribution of benefits of environmental regulation and resources to avoid, reduce, or remove environmental burdens (Maschewsky, 2004; Mohr & Saha, 2008) which may be unfairly distributed among people. Such resources could include

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investments for climate change mitigation, for the conservation of biodiversity, or for the reduction of water pollution. A third aspect which relates environmental issues to distributive justice is the distribution of obligations between individuals and groups to contribute to the reduction of environmental risks and burdens (Dittmer & Riemer, 2012) such as taking action to reduce carbon dioxide emission. Thus, the environment is indeed a sphere of life where burdens, obligations, and resources are distributed constantly among individuals or social groups and where distribution conflicts are likely to occur (Martinez-Alier, Temper, Del Bene, & Scheidel, 2016). If these distribution conflicts are framed as justice-relevant, it may lead people to show justice-specific psychological reactions. Also, reactions to environmental problems such as environmental refugeeism and climate change migration would have to be understood as reactions to injustice caused by distant others which would raise questions of legitimacy. Consequently, there are many questions which are worth being studied from a psychological justice perspective. First, it should be studied how prevalent the notion is that environmental issues involve questions of distributive justice as other areas of life such as work or education do as well. Even though political movements focusing on environmental justice have been existing since the 1980s (e.g. Martinez-Alier et al., 2016) and global youth for climate movements such as Fridays for future strongly incorporate ideas of climate justice, it is not yet known if and how such ideas are received in broad public and whether emotional reactions to environmental incidents such as the devastating 2019–2020 Australian wildfires can be understood as justice-related. Second, a closer look should be taken on the three distribution principles equality, equity, and need. In line with what we know about fairness evaluations in other areas of life, it can be assumed that people evaluate the fairness of the distribution of environmental burdens, of resources to reduce environmental, and of obligations to reduce environmental risks on the basis of these three distribution principles. For example, environmental equality (i.e. the equal distribution of environmental risks and burdens among social groups and individuals; Frumkin, 2005; Mielck & Heinrich, 2002) is therefore only perceived as fair when the preferred rule for the distribution is equality, and not equity or need. Therefore, from

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a psychological perspective, environmental justice and environmental equality—terms that are often used interchangeably in other fields of research (e.g. Brulle & Pellow, 2006)—need to be differentiated. Psychological research could at this point focus on the question which justice principles people prefer when it comes to the distribution of resources, burdens, and obligations related to environmental issues. Here it seems important to clearly distinguish between benefits, resources, burdens, and obligations as people may prefer another distribution principle for obligations as they do for resources or burdens. Also, research might shed light on the question why a certain principle is preferred or not preferred (e.g. the equality principle may not be preferred because people do not consider cooperation and solidarity with distant others as main aspects of the context, but rather focus on individuality and competition). In addition to this, it would be important to know whether the preference for one or another distribution principle with regard to environmental issues is related to individual efforts to reduce environmental risks. A third research direction could focus on psychological reactions to unfair distributions with regard to environmental issues depending on the perspective from which environmental injustice is perceived. When environmental problems are increasingly framed and understood as problems of distributive justice, do people react to unfair distributions in the same way as they do in other areas of life? This would imply that people experiencing environmental injustice from a victim perspective may react with depression, reduced well-being and health which may add to the detrimental health effects they already experience, e.g. by a larger exposure to toxins (e.g. Brulle & Pellow, 2006). They may also experience anger, frustration, and hostility and show counterproductive and disruptive behaviour. Given the notion that experiencing unfair treatment by superiors leads to low trust, low engagement, and unfavourable attitudes towards institutions (see the findings from the educational and the work context), policymakers, and society would have to deal with these justice-specific reactions—which would imply that policy and society need to find justice-specific solutions. When focusing on environmental distributive injustice experienced from a beneficiary perspective (e.g. when learning about one’s privileges and that oneself is benefiting from environmental unfairness happening to others) or a perpetrator

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perspective (e.g. when learning that oneself is actually causing environmental injustice to others), people may react with shame and guilt and a desire for more environmental justice. Indeed, there is evidence from qualitative research that framing environmental issues in terms of justice from a beneficiary perspective leads to emotional responses such as moral outrage and anger and a motivational tendency to engage against environmental injustice (Dittmer & Riemer, 2012). It may be that such justice framings are especially effective in spheres of life where people feel embedded in broader social, cultural, and political contexts (Uzzell & Räthzel, 2009). Environment may be such a sphere and knowing about the underlying mechanisms of such effects could be crucial for environmental education. Forth, psychological justice research may add to the understanding of phenomena like different forms of climate change denial. It could be that such phenomena arise as a reaction to an experienced overemphasis of a beneficiary or perpetrator perspective when it comes to the distribution of environmental burdens and obligations to contribute to the reduction of environmental risks. Such an overemphasis of a beneficiary or perpetrator perspective on environmental injustice may lead people to maintain or restore a sense of legitimacy of the share on environmental benefits and burdens of their social group, a process that is called system justification (Liviatan & Jost, 2014). Putting a strong focus on a beneficiary or perpetrator perspective on environmental injustice may therefore lead to an unintended shift towards a victim perspective as people may fear to lose environmental resources and benefits and to be charged with more obligations to reduce, avoid, or remove environmental burdens.

8.6

Conclusion

Even though education, work, and the family are three different spheres of distributive justice in which different kinds of limited resources are distributed, reactions to unfair distributions appear to be parallel to a large extent. This suggests that knowledge about psychological reactions to distributive injustice may be transferred to other significant areas of life such as the environment and may also offer a framework

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to understand and shape psychological reactions to more global social and environmental issues. When people experience unfair distributions from a victim perspective, they tend to react with negative emotions such as anger, frustration, depression, and hostility as well as low satisfaction, poor attachment, reduced well-being, psychological distress, and negative psychological health outcomes. When experiencing unjust distributions from the perspective of a beneficiary, people tend to react with a bad conscience and anger and tend to develop a desire for more justice. Note that this might be different within the family: here, it seems that the perception that one is favoured by one’s parents over one’s siblings leads to more positive outcomes and reactions. When people perceive themselves to be victims of unfair distributions—at work, in school, or in the family—they react with disruptive, counterproductive, and externalizing behaviours such as cheating, bullying, absenteeism, theft, vandalism, and reduced performance. With respect to attitudes and more stable attributes, the experience of fair distributions has a positive effect on interpersonal trust, organizational trust, and trust in institutions as well as on attitudes related to democracy such as a civil rights orientation and support of democratic institutions. In addition, experiencing fair distributions seems to lead to high commitment and high self-esteem. With respect to school experiences and justice experiences that occur within the family, fair distributions of interactional resources such as affection, appreciation, attention, respect, and honesty seem to be especially relevant. In addition, for most of the abovementioned studies, the authors did not assess which justice principles participants applied when they evaluated the distributions they were asked about. In addition, it was mostly not assessed which justice principles participants would have preferred. In some cases, they may have perceived equality injustice, that is, they would have preferred equal results or equal shares of a limited resource (e.g. material benefits, rewards, attention, affection), but this kind of justice was not served. In some cases, they may have perceived equity injustice, that is, they would have preferred differing or unequal results depending on the respective inputs they and others gave, but they may have received equal results or equal shares of a good. Or even more complicated, the result of a distribution may have been evaluated

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as appropriate, but the applied principle of distribution may have been considered inappropriate, and therefore the overall evaluation of justice was negative (e.g. if the application of the equity principle led to equal results, but people still preferred the application of the equality principle). Taken together, as we have learned from various studies from the different spheres of distributive justice, it is not the actual and objective result of a distribution that is crucial; rather, people’s evaluations of results as just or unjust are most relevant for determining the psychological reactions and outcomes that follow. Also, it seems that these subjective experiences of fair distributions are important factors for socialization—with regard to people’s personal and civic development. Concerning environmental problems such as climate change and global warming, shedding light on what people eventually experience as environmentally just, on how they react to experienced environmental injustice from different perspectives, and on how their reactions may be transformed into pro-environmental engagement and action may add to the reduction of environmental inequality.

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Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Self-determination theory: A macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health. Canadian Psychology, 49, 182–185. Deutsch, M. (1975). Equity, equality, and need: What determines which value will be used as the basis of distributive justice? Journal of Social Issues, 31, 137–149. Deutsch, M. (1985). Distributive justice: A social-psychological perspective. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dittmer, L. D., & Riemer, M. (2012). Fostering critical thinking about climate change: Applying community psychology to an environmental education project with youth. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 3, 1–9. Donat, M., Dalbert, C., & Kamble, S. V. (2014). Adolescents’ cheating and delinquent behavior from a justice-psychological perspective: The role of teacher justice. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 29, 635–651. Donat, M., Umlauft, S., Dalbert, C., & Kamble, S. V. (2012). Belief in a just world, teacher justice, and bullying behavior. Aggressive Behavior, 38, 185–193. Ehrhardt-Madapathi, N., Pretsch, J., & Schmitt, M. (2017). Effects of injustice in primary schools on students’ behavior and joy of learning. Social Psychology of Education, 20, 1–33. Elliott, G., & Meeker, B. (1986). Achieving fairness in the face of competing concerns: The different effects of individual and group characteristics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 754–760. Espinoza, O. (2007). Solving the equity equality conceptual dilemma: A new model for analysis of the educational process. Educational Researcher, 49 (4), 343–363. Ferring, D., Boll, T., & Filipp, S.-H. (2003). Elterliche Ungleichbehandlung in Kindheit und Jugend aus der Perspektive des mittleren Erwachsenenalters [Parental differential treatment in childhood and adolescence from the perspective of middle-aged adults]. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie, 35 (2), 83–97. Forsé, M., Richardot, S., Frénod, A., Guibet Lafaye, C., & Parodi, M. (2016). The sense of distributive justice in children from 6 to 10: Equality predominates but sharing norms are different depending on school performance. Revue Europeenne des Sciences Sociales/European Journal of Social Sciences, 54 (1), 13–36.

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Fox, S., Spector, P. E., & Miles, D. (2001). Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) in response to job stressors and organizational justice: Some mediator and moderator tests for autonomy and emotions. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 59, 291–309. Frumkin, H. (2005). Health, equity, and the built environment. Environmental Health Perspectives, 113(5), 290–291. Gans, H. J. (1973). More equality. New York: Pantheon. Greenberg, J. (1990). Employee theft as a reaction to underpayment inequity: The hidden costs of pay cuts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 561–568. Greenberg, J. (1993). The social side of fairness: Interpersonal and informational classes of organizational justice. In R. Cropanzano (Ed.), Justice in the workplace: Approaching fairness in human resource management (pp. 79–103). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Erlbaum. Haar, J. M., & Spell, C. S. (2009). How does distributive justice affect work attitudes? The moderating effects of autonomy. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 20 (8), 1827–1842. Harris, R. J. (1976). Handling negative inputs: On the plausible equity formulae. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 12, 194–209. Hegtvedt, K. A., & Isom, D. (2014). Inequality: A matter of justice? In J. McLeod, E. Lawler, & M. Schwalbe (Eds.), Handbook of the social psychology of inequality. New York, NY: Springer. Hülle, S., Liebig, S., & May, M. J. (2018). Measuring attitudes toward distributive justice: The basic social justice orientations scale. Social Indicators Research, 136 (2), 663–692. Hysom, S. J., & Fisek, M. H. (2011). Situational determinants of reward allocation: The equity-equality equilibrium model. Social Science Research, 40, 1263–1285. Jasso, G. (1980). A new theory of distributive justice. American Sociological Review, 45, 3–32. Jasso, G., Törnblom, K. Y., & Sabbagh, C. (2016). Distributive justice. In C. Sabbagh & M. Schmitt (Eds.), Handbook of social justice theory and research (pp. 201–218). New York, NY: Springer. Kienbaum, J., & Wilkening, F. (2009). Children’s and adolescents’ intuitive judgements about distributive justice: integrating need, effort, and luck. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 6, 481–498. Kohlberg, L. (1976). Moral stages and moralization: The cognitivedevelopmental approach. In T. Lickona (Ed.), Moral development and behavior: Theory, research and social issues. Holt, NY: Rinehart and Winston.

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Kowal, A., Kramer, L., Krull, J. L., & Crick, N. R. (2002). Children’s perceptions of the fairness of parental preferential treatment and their socioemotional well-being. Journal of Family Psychology, 16, 297–306. Kwak, A. (2006). The relationships of organizational injustice with employee burnout and counterproductive work behaviors: Equity sensitivity as a moderator. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 67 (2-B), 1190. Lerner, M. J. (1977). The justice motive: Some hypotheses as to its origins and forms. Journal of Personality, 45 (1), 1–52. Leventhal, G. S. (1980). What should be done with equity theory? In K. J. Gergen, M. S. Greenberg, & R. H. Willis (Eds.), Social exchange (pp. 27– 55). New York: Springer. Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural justice. Boston, MA: Springer. Liviatan, I., & Jost, J. T. (2014). A social-cognitive analysis of system justification goal striving. Social Cognition, 32(2), 95–129. Markovsky, B. (1985). Toward a multilevel justice theory. American Sociological Review, 50, 822–839. Martinez-Alier, J., Temper, L., Del Bene, D., & Scheidel, A. (2016). Is there a global environmental justice movement? The Journal of Peasant Studies, 43(3), 731–755. Maschewsky, W. (2004). Umweltgerechtigkeit: Gesundheitsrelevanz und empirische Erfassung [Environmental justice: Relevance for health and empirical assessment ] (WZB Discussion Paper, No. SP I 2004-301). Meunier, J. C., Roskam, I., Stievenart, M., De Moortele, G. V., Browne, D. T., & Wade, M. (2012). Parental differential treatment, child’s externalizing behavior and sibling relationships: Bridging links with child’s perception of favoritism and personality, and parents’ self-efficacy. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 29( 5), 612–638. Mielck, A., & Heinrich, J. (2002). Social inequalities and distribution of the environmental burden among the population [Soziale Ungleichheit und die Verteilung umweltbezogener Expositionen] (Environmental justice). Gesundheitswesen, 64 (7), 405–416. Mikula, G. (1994). Perspective-related differences in interpretations of injustice by victims and victimizers: A test with close relationships. In M. J. Lerner & G. Mikula (Eds.), Entitlement and the affectional bond (pp. 175–203). New York: Plenum.

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9 What Welfare Principles Do Europeans Prefer? An Analysis of Their Attitudes Towards Old Age Pensions and Unemployment Benefits Tim Reeskens and Wim van Oorschot

9.1

Introduction

Dressed in yellow vests, the gilets jaunes-movement that erupted in October 2018 underscored that France, even fifty years after May 1968, remains the historical bedrock of political protest against social injustice. While the origins of the gilets jaunes lied specifically in proposals to increase taxes on fuel and rising living costs, more generally they questioned Emmanuel Macron’s tax reform because it presented a disproportionally higher burden for the working and middle class compared to upper class citizens. Some critics have interpreted such protest as if the T. Reeskens (B) Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] W. van Oorschot Centre for Sociological Research CESO, Team Social Policy and Social Work, Leuven University, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 F. Levrau and N. Clycq (eds.), Equality, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54310-5_9

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movement favours less taxes altogether; by contrast, others have argued that the protest is not against taxes per se but rather questions how the available resources allocated by the French welfare state are redistributed in a fair and just manner. The argument would be that the perception exists that the scarce available resources from the welfare state do not necessarily benefit those most in need (the poor), but seem primarily directed to those who already contribute a lot to the welfare state (the rich). This example of the French gilets jaunes-movement and its protest for more social justice not only demonstrates that there are distinct ways in which welfare resources can be redistributed, it also shows that public opinion is not homogenous in how such scarce resources should be redistributed. At a more theoretical level, scholars have described that resources can be distributed in broadly three ways (Deutsch, 1975; Konow, 2003; Miller, 2001; see also the chapter of Pretsch in this book). A first model based on the principle of equity would redistribute welfare resources primarily to those who contributed most to the production of welfare. Often, this is the richest part of society as they contributed most in taxes. Second, a system that highlights the need principle primarily or even only redistributes welfare to those most in need, in practice the poorest segment of the population. A third option is the preference for a system in which all citizens are equally entitled to services and benefits. Across welfare states, a mix of these principles is applied to the organization of welfare redistribution. Given our interest in public perceptions, building on existing research studying welfare opinions proposes that not everyone will prefer the same system of redistribution. For instance, we can expect that those who contribute most to the generation of welfare might also demand more in case a risk occurs to them; from the same logic, it can be expected that people in need might argue that the welfare state should give priority to them. In tandem, there is ample evidence that suggests that the national context also determines which principles are highlighted more. The aim of this chapter is to empirically verify what principles of welfare redistributions Europeans prefer: which individual factors explain their choice, and in what national contexts is one principle more dominant than others? To arrive at a comprehensive overview and extend existing studies

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on this topic (Aalberg, 2003; Arts & Gelissen, 2001), our review innovates in two ways. First, we consider redistributive justice preferences applied to two distinct welfare provisions, namely unemployment benefits and old age pension schemes. Secondly, we simultaneously consider individual and contextual factors, because individual opinions are not only an imprint of personal circumstances, but are also determined by the national context (Svallfors, 2012). In addition to reviewing the theoretical mechanisms, we present and analyze data from the 2008 wave of the European Social Survey (ESS). This cross-national social science research project was carried out in more than 25 countries (see Reeskens & van Oorschot, 2013, for a clear review of the data, variables, and methods). In this 2008 survey, specific questions about the preferred way of welfare redistribution applied to old age pensions and unemployment benefit schemes are asked, namely “Some people say that higher earners should get larger [old age pensions/more benefit] when they are [on pension/temporarily unemployed] because they have paid more. Others say that lower earners should get larger [old age pensions/more benefit] because they are more in greater need. Which of the three statements on this card comes closest to your view? ” The answering categories were (1) higher earners should get more, (2) high and low earners should get the same amount and (3) lower earners should get more. Clearly, the middle option corresponds with equality, while the first option reflects equity and the latter one a redistribution based on need. In this chapter, we proceed as follows. First, we provide a brief reflection on the main principles of welfare redistribution, engaging with insights from political theory. Subsequently, we proceed by providing theoretical arguments about which redistribution type can be preferred, immediately followed by an empirical verification using the data provided. Important to highlight at this point is that because they cover different social risks, different logics might be applied to the organization of unemployment provision and old age pension schemes. In the third section we build on the idea that individual differences exist in preferences for welfare redistribution and review these in an empirically way. Subsequently, we turn to the country-level to assess whether the three main principles are more dominant in some country-contexts than in others. Last but not least, we conclude our chapter with a reflection about

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the extent to which equality takes a prominent position in the minds of Europeans when it concerns the organization of their respective welfare states.

9.2

Principles of Welfare Redistribution

In the context of the welfare state, social justice concerns principles that “provide a way of assigning rights and duties in the basic institutions of society and [they] define the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation” (Rawls, 1971, p. 4, but see also Konow, 2003; Miller, 2001). Although there is a continuing debate on the variety in social justice principles (Deutsch, 1975; Konow, 2003), and a distinction is usually made between substantial and procedural justice (Rothstein, 1998), in matters of welfare redistribution three principles are seen as central: equity (or desert), need and equality. The principle of equity stipulates that those who contribute more to the generation of welfare should also receive more in case a risk occurs to them. When actors make significant contributions to the welfare state, e.g. by having a long labour-market trajectory (and therefore not being reliant on welfare), or paying more in taxes, they should be rewarded accordingly in case of setbacks. In practice, the equity principle prevails in case social protection is organized through social insurances (Clasen & van Oorschot, 2002), as it implies that the individual claim on welfare benefits depends upon previous contributions. Further, the principle of equity characterizes redistribution in conservative welfare states (with Germany as textbook example, cf. Esping-Andersen, 1990), as it reproduces social hierarchies and statuses (Arts & Gelissen, 2001).1 The need principle goes that welfare provision should especially, or even only, be directed to those who are in real need. The logic is that particularly the neediest groups in society, such as low income groups or those with an inconsistent labour-market trajectory, should be entitled to higher social benefits to make sure that they are abstained from an accumulation of social risks which result in a cumulative disadvantage for their full participation in society. By contrast, the expectation is, then, that those who are better off are considered as being able to

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provide for themselves. The need principle is seen to underlie specifically Anglophone liberal welfare states, exemplified by their dominant use of means-tests in the allocation of welfare (Clasen & van Oorschot, 2002). According to the last dominant principle of welfare redistribution, namely equality, each and every one is entitled to the same type and degree of welfare provision, no matter his or her contribution to the welfare state or the demonstrated level of need. Applied to EspingAndersen’s classification (1990), particularly the universalistic Nordic social-democratic model appeals to the justice principle of equality, as it guarantees a highly equal standard of living to all (Arts & Gelissen, 2001; Clasen & van Oorschot, 2002).

9.3

Which Principle Prevails?

Although there are clear indications that these three dominant principles of welfare redistribution relate to differences in the organization of welfare regimes, it is surprising that little is known about the extent to which these principles reflect public opinion. In a first step, it is therefore important to consider the rank order of these preferences: what can we expect about which principle is preferred first and foremost? At the theoretical level, John Rawls’ (1971) Theory of justice emphasizes that people may not be (fully) aware of (the contingencies related to) their position in society. In this, he invokes the metaphor of the ‘veil of ignorance’ to suggest a broad support for an equal way of redistribution, with some allowance of extra rewards for specific talents and efforts, and with a guarantee of a basic set of minimum rights for all (see also the chapter of Levrau in this book). Empirical verification of this influential theory is, however, rather scarce and often contradictory. Economic experiments that have manipulated core aspects of Rawls’ theory, namely the ‘original position’ and the ‘veil of ignorance’, have concurred with Rawls (Potters, Riedl, & Tausch, 2010). However, survey research, which asked people about their preferences for welfare redistribution, has yielded different outcomes. After an analysis of crossnational social surveys, Toril Aalberg (2003) states that people generally prefer a redistribution based on equity, followed by the principle of

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need; equality, by contrast, would be least popular. Arts and Gelissen (2001) arrive to similar conclusions based on the analysis of two data sources. Although it would lead us too far to engage in a discussion about the validity of laboratory experiments and social survey questions, the existing empirical knowledge limits a clear formulation of hypotheses that can be tested among public opinion. Although it is an interesting question to know which principle of welfare redistribution individuals prefer in a more general sense, in this chapter we are particularly interested in their application to two welfare provisions that cover social risks, precisely because of the idea that the type of risk matters. On the one hand, we look at unemployment provisions. Unemployment remains a major concern in many EU countries following the Great Recession and effects of globalization and technological development. On the other hand, we consider old age pensions schemes, which is of concern due to wide spread ageing of European populations. Insights from the institutional logic of welfare states (Albrekt Larsen, 2006) show that public legitimacy for welfare programmes differs along very specific programmes. Programmes thus might reflect tensions between needs in the long-run (e.g. retirement) and specific needs that result from specific situations in life (e.g. unemployment). In addition, deservingness theory (van Oorschot, 2006; van Oorschot et al., 2017) proposes that people do hold different opinions about the deservingness of the elderly and the unemployed, with the latter being perceived as much less deserving of welfare provision. Hypothesizing, then, which principles of redistribution would be applied to old age pensions schemes, the underlying logic is that the risk of being needy in old age can be foreseen well in advance. As a consequence, one can therefore consider it as a personal responsibility for which preparations and long-term precautionary measures can be taken in order to reduce its consequences (for instance by working, or saving income and wealth). Put differently, if people want to sustain an equally high living standard after retirement, they can expect to foresee in additional measures to incur in benefits that a limited pension scheme might not cover. As such, we propose that particularly equity would dominate preferences for old age pension redistribution, as it suggests that people who have contributed more over the lifespan should also receive more.

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The logic is different for unemployment provision, as the risk of falling without a job is somewhat less predictable. What Rawls refers to as the ‘veil of ignorance’ is rather untransparent in the case of unemployment benefits. A consequence might be that people demand more from the state as a collective actor to protect against this risk. As a result, we propose that in the case of unemployment provision, popular preferences might reflect the principle of equality more, for the reasons that the risk of unemployment is less controllable and reflects a greater unpredictability for everyone. We subject these expectations to an empirical test using 2008 data of the European Social Survey. The results are displayed in Fig. 9.1, with countries ordered by the degree of preference for the equality principle. The graph shows that in case of preferences for the redistribution of old age pensions, in almost half of the EU countries equity is preferred over equality; the reverse holds in the other half of European countries. Interestingly, in regard to the provision of unemployment benefits, the equality principle dominates in nearly all countries of the survey. This finding, in combination with findings from the unreported pooled data, confirms the hypothesis that equality prevails over less controllable social risks, as there is a strong preference for equality in case of unemployment benefit and a higher priority for the principle of equity applied to old age pensions. Figure 9.1 also displays that for both types of provisions, the principle of need is far less preferred, implying that variation between countries largely depends upon the degree in which equality over equity is preferred. Inspecting Fig. 9.1, the suggestion is that there are larger differences between countries in the case of preferences for pension redistribution, implying that across the board more agreement exists to apply equality to the risk of unemployment—a social risk that is less easy to foresee. One final and related observation flows from this cross-national variation. In discussing the main principles of redistribution, we connected the principle of equity to the continental welfare regime, equality to the universalist welfare state, and need to the liberal type. Eyeballing the differences between countries that are displayed in Fig. 9.1 makes it not that easy to place this variation in the three worlds of welfare. In

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BE=Belgium, BG=Bulgaria, CH=Switzerland, CY=Cyprus, DE=Germany, DK=Denmark, EE=Estonia, HU=Hungary,

ES=Spain, IE=Ireland,

FI=Finland, LV=Latvia,

FR=France,

GB=Great

NL=Netherlands,

Britain,

GR=Greece,

NO=Norway,

PL=Poland,

PT=Portugal, RO=Romania, SE=Sweden, SK=Slovakia, SI=Slovenia

Fig. 9.1 Distribution of preferences towards redistribution of old age pensions and unemployment benefits across countries

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subsequent steps, we will explore to what extent relevant country characteristics are able to explain these country differences in the relative ‘scores’ on the preferred redistributive justice principles.

9.4

Who Prefers What Principle?

Before we proceed with finding explanations for these differences between countries, we first explore to what extent different principles are preferred by different individuals or social groups. From the first studies in the field of welfare attitudes, it is known that explanations should be found in the structural and cultural (or ideational) characteristics of the individual (Kangas, 1997; Taylor-Gooby, 1985). Regarding structural features, the dominant mechanism is self-interest, which implies that the socioeconomic ‘haves’ would favour the principle of equity more (d’Anjou, Steijn, & Van Aarsen, 1995). By contrast, Robinson and Bell (1978, in d’Anjou et al., 1995) argue that the ‘have-nots’ might prefer equality more. We propose, however, that the least well off might as well prefer ‘need’ more, as this principle would benefit them more in terms of resources and welfare. This difference between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is actually confirmed by Aalberg (2003), as well as by Arts and Gelissen (2001). Derived from models of self-interest and existing studies, we propose the hypothesis that characteristics of the socioeconomic ‘haves’, like a higher income and higher educational level, as well as being employed in the case of unemployment protection, are associated with a stronger preference for the equity principle. By contrast, the expectation is that the socioeconomic ‘have-nots’ are most in favour of redistribution that targets the neediest groups, that is in particular lower income groups and the lower educated, the unemployed, but also the elderly in the case of pension protection and the young and old age cohorts in the case of unemployment benefits (as they are more vulnerable groups on the labor market). In regard to equality, one might argue that the middle class (both in terms of income as well as other socioeconomic categories)

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would endorse this principle most, as they are not so keen on redistributing towards only the poor, but also do not want that the highest socioeconomic groups receive the most significant benefits and services. In proposing hypotheses regarding cultural or ideational traits, we need to unravel them in three distinct explanations. Firstly, political orientation, i.e. aligning more to a leftist or rightist worldview, is a factor often invoked to explain differences in welfare (e.g. Jaeger 2008; van Oorschot & Meuleman, 2012). For need, it can be expected that this principle is most strongly endorsed by the left-wing side of the political spectrum, because they highlight social justice more. Contrary, equity is expected to be more endorsed by right-wing people. Lastly, the equality principle is most favoured by people with a political orientation in between. As a second cultural characteristics, we turn the attention to religious orientations, since it is known that religious people tend to be more altruistic, e.g. give more to charity (Hoge & Yang, 1994; Regnerus, Smith, & Sikkink, 1998). From this, we propose that need is more strongly endorsed by religious individuals. Thirdly, related studies suggest that individual perceptions of welfare deservingness influences their support for welfare programmes positively (van Oorschot & Meuleman, 2012). The assumption would be that perceptions of a poor standard of living of elderly and unemployed people (the target groups of the two programs we consider here), result in a stronger support for the principle of need applied to both programmes. For each of these proposed explanations, the European Social Survey has particular questions available (see Reeskens & van Oorschot, 2013) which can be used to explain individual variation in preferences for welfare redistribution. The model we use is a multinomial multilevel model (see Gelman & Hill, 2006). Without getting too technical, this model accounts for the clustered nature of the data (individuals nested within countries), and allows for a simultaneous test of the effects of individual and country-level models (which will take place in subsequent step). The output of the model are regression coefficients which can be translated into the log odds of preferring equity or need compared to preferring the reference category of equality (see Table 9.1). As we expected, the ‘haves’, i.e. those with a higher educational level and higher income groups (operationalized by subjective income), are

Intercept Education (Ref: Primary) – Lower secondary – Higher secondary – Tertiary Work status (Ref: Employed) – Unemployed – Student – Retired – Other Unemployed for three months Subjective income Welfare depend Political ideology (Ref: Left) – Middle – Right – Missing Religiosity Standard of living claimants Age (Ref: 35 and