Social justice?

A major complaint that many people have had concerning the past eight years of the Bush administration is that it has had no interest in addressing issues of social justice in the United States. What are these issues? And what steps would a genuinely responsible government take to address them?

Here are a few core social justice issues that have become increasingly visible in the past eight years. Can we hope they will do better under the Obama administration?

Income inequality that has risen steeply since 1980
Disregard of the most basic human needs of poor people — e.g. the indifferent Katrina relief response
Serious race gaps in quality of life and economic opportunity that have held steady or worsened
A worsening healthcare crisis affecting 47 million uninsured people
A financial and economic meltdown that differentially hurts low and middle income people
Poor quality schools in high poverty areas
Deteriorating conditions in many American cities
Homelessness and hunger rising
Environmental harms that are disproportionately found in urban poor populations
Tax reforms that greatly privilege the most affluent
Mistreatment of immigrant communities

What these issues have in common is the fact of inequality across large social groups, and a profound lack of a fair level of priority offered by government to address the issue. The inequality part of the picture has to do with gross inequalities in resources, opportunities, dignity, and outcomes for different groups. And the priority issue has to do with “voice” — the degree to which claims by disadvantaged groups are taken seriously by policy makers. The rich and powerful have not had difficulty in gaining the ear of the Bush administration. But poor and middle-class people have knocked in vain.

Most generally, what might an Obama administration do to improve the situation of social justice in the United States? A first step — and it is an important one — is to give the signal to all parts of government that social justice is an important priority for this administration. This priority needs to affirm the centrality of equality, fairness, and a concern for improving the condition of the least-well-off in society. It is understood that every problem cannot be addressed at the same time, and that there are other important priorities as well. But social justice is generally compatible with other priorities, and it will be an important step forward to simply know that the government is concerned with these issues.

A related step that will further the cause of social justice will be to give voice to the disadvantaged within the process of policy formation. If poverty alleviation is to be back on the agenda, then make sure that the voices of poor people are heard as policies are formulated and discussed. And make sure that leaders are selected who have a genuine and innovative commitment to change. (A conference on poverty being sponsored in Michigan by the Department of Human Services (link) is a good example of a process that involves the voices of affected people in a meaningful way. One can hope that committed experts such as Rebecca Blank or Douglas Massey will be involved in the policy leadership group of the next administration.)

Beyond these general steps — laying the groundwork for meaningful social justice reform — one would hope the administration will take on a few key issues to be addressed first. And perhaps these should be —

Healthcare reform to assure that all Americans have access to adequate healthcare through insurance and government programs
a focused urban strategy for addressing the issues of poverty and limited opportunities in our nation’s cities
implementation of a tax system that removes provisions favoring the most affluent individuals and corporations

This isn’t the whole of a social justice agenda, but it would be a very good start. And progress on these issues would also result in progress on other issues as well, including the gaps in opportunity and quality of life experienced by disadvantaged groups today.

It seems almost self evident that a more just society is a stronger and more unified society. So a government that consistently works towards improving social justice will build a much stronger foundation for America’s future in the coming half century.

Spreading the wealth around?

So Joe the Plumber thinks Obama may be a socialist, and that he wants to spread the wealth around. And this all seems to come from Obama’s proposed tax policies — higher taxes for individuals and businesses with income more than $250,000 and lower taxes for everyone else. So why does that count as “spreading the wealth around”, and why exactly should the 95% think it’s a bad idea?

To the first point, this sounds like a different kind of redistribution than Joe is calling it — not a redistribution of income or wealth, but a redistribution of tax burdens towards the wealthiest citizens. And what is the moral justification for such a shift? Surely it’s based on the principle of placing the tax burdens our society creates disproportionally on those individuals with the greatest ability to pay and who derive the greatest benefits from our society. And there’s a moral justification for this principle: higher income individuals are gaining more from the extended system of social cooperation our economy consists of, and it’s only fair that they should pay more of the total costs created by that social cooperation. Someone has to pay these costs — so the fundamental issue is simply how they should be divided. And the principle of “higher rates for higher gains” has a lot going for it.

But is it socialism? Certainly not, except in the over-the-top sense in which downstate Illinois Republicans denounced FDR for being a socialist in the 1930s. There’s no collective ownership (except of banks, thanks to a $700 billion bailout). There’s not even much of a social safety net — especially when it comes to healthcare or extended unemployment benefits. And workers and other citizens have only the most limited role imaginable in making decisions about the management of the private companies they work for. So it’s not socialism in any meaningful sense.

But the bigger question is this: why would any middle- or low-income American object to the principle that the most affluent should assume slightly more of the burden? Is it that they imagine (fictionally) that this is where they will wind up eventually, and they won’t want the bigger tax burden when they get there? Do they give credence to the trickle-down theory that got this whole slide towards greater income inequality going in the first place in 1980? Plainly most people are deeply offended by the excesses of executive compensation that are now so visible; is that an impulse towards socialism? Or is it simply that they’re alienated by the label that is being thrown at this fairly ordinary tax proposal — which certainly gives a lot of credence to the irrational power of negative image marketing?

But there is another possibility that maybe the current spin meisters haven’t thought through well enough: that the obfuscations aren’t going to work any longer; that the majority of Americans will recognize that they have a basic interest in a society that assures a decent social minimum; that paying taxes is an important act of citizenship — and therefore “patriotic”; and that the costs of sustaining social cooperation ought to be tilted moderately in favor of the non-wealthy in our society. Maybe they will begin to demand more of their government, in the form of a meaningful social safety net and assured healthcare. And maybe the old saws about having to fear “socialism” are nothing but a tired marketing campaign that just won’t work anymore.

Inequalities based on prior inequality

Many people think that grossly unequal outcomes across a society with respect to the amount and quality of social goods each enjoys are profoundly unjust. (By social goods I am thinking of things like income, wealth, power, healthcare, and education.) Why should some members of society have such a lower level of access to the things that constitute contemporary life? And if, as people like Amartya Sen maintain, some of these goods are necessary components of full human development, how can it be just that some people are less able to develop their capacities as full human beings (Development as Freedom)? So gross inequalities in the current distribution of social goods are bad enough.

But what if it is also true that a low bundle of social goods in one time period is the largest factor in determining a low bundle in the next time period as well? And what if that is true across generations as well as across stages of individuals’ lives? What if current poverty of a family is itself a primary cause of the next generation’s poverty? Is this not a particularly unacceptable form of inequality?

And yet this cross-generational transmission of poverty and reduced life chances is precisely what we observe. Children born into poverty have less access to crucial resources necessary to their personal and social development. They are exposed to opportunities that are very different from children in other levels of wealth. And, not surprisingly, their probability of winding up as adults in any more affluent segment of the population is markedly lower than that of other children.

So the phrase “the recurring cycle of poverty” is exactly descriptive of the social realities of our society.

What a progressive society promises is that every person will have a reasonable chance of success in life. That means that every person — and every child — should have access to the resources that are necessary for full personal and social development, in order to develop the talents and capabilities that will permit him or her to be creative, productive, inventive, and successful. A democracy based on the equality of all men and women promises exactly this — the idea of unfettered social mobility and real equality of opportunity.

But it is quite evident that American society today falls short of this goal, in large ways and small. The likelihood of graduating from high school if you live in an inner city neighborhood in Chicago, Detroit, or New York is only a fraction of the comparable likelihood in the suburbs; likewise for college attendance and for eventual college graduation. And the likelihood of a high school senior from the lower-quintile of family income is only one-seventh that of a high school senior with the same SAT and high school qualifications from the top quintile of family income — the same qualifications! (This example is taken from William Bowen, Eugene Tobin, and Martin Kurzweil, Equity And Excellence in American Higher Education.) So it seems fairly evident that opportunities are very differentially offered to young people, irrespective of “merit” or qualifications.

So where does this take us? It seems to convey a pretty deep issue about justice in our society: that we have done a very poor job of ensuring that persons from all levels of income and wealth have a decent chance at fulfilling their human talents and achieving their aspirations. And that is a pretty serious thing! And it also puts the spotlight on public education as a crucial component of a just society. If we were to succeed in providing effective K-12 schools to all children, and made it possible for every young person to pursue a university education at a good public university — think of the step forward that this would represent in the basic justice of our society.

A sense of justice

What does it take to get people truly engaged in a common purpose, joined with others in pursuit of a common cause?

I suppose there are numerous answers to this question — fear of impending danger (global warming), a sense of empathy at the suffering of others (Katrina, the Indonesian tsunami), a rational desire to gain a collective benefit, resentment of other people or groups, anger at the actions of the state or its officials. But the question on my mind right now is about the role of the sense of justice in people’s readiness to act collectively or politically.

I asked a group of students today to talk about their perceptions of “major social problems” in the United States today. This wasn’t part of a class, and it wasn’t a group of students who knew each other well. It was a very diverse group of young people from Detroit and the suburbs. But in spite of the fact that there wasn’t an organized setting of the problem, we had a good discussion that brought out some of the most fundamental issues of justice in our country today. They talked in very personal terms about poverty, inequality of opportunity, racism, hunger, lack of access to health care, and personal uncertainty about their futures. One young woman said to me, “There are hungry people on this campus — and there are caring people on the campus who help by making sure that food at campus events isn’t wasted.” These students tended to agree with each other that the worst sources of injustice are those that involve enduring inequalities of opportunities across generations.

I mention this conversation for several reasons. First, it illustrates the point that these young people have very developed intuitions about fairness and justice, and they have had very concrete experiences that inform their judgments. They have a sense of justice, and they have a strong ability to recognize and evaluate some of the unfair workings of our basic social institutions. It’s not a theoretical issue to them.

Second, there is a very palpable sense of a desire to do something about the social problems they see around them — to be engaged, to find organizations that make a difference. We talk a lot on our campus about the value of “student engagement” — these students want to be engaged, and sometimes the frustration is that there aren’t opportunities for engagement that can really promise to make a difference.

Third, there was in this discussion a very strong illustration of the value of “diversity” in American communities and on American university campuses. I mean this in two ways — first, the valuable contributions brought by the different life experiences of different people in the room. The perspectives and experiences that African-American students brought into this discussion was very different from that of their white suburban fellow students. But equally, the perspective that a returning woman student brought — her own story of going from a white middle-class life to a struggling life of near-poverty — added tremendously to the discussion. (This is a dimension of age diversity that you don’t often find on many university campuses.)

Moreover, every student in the room plainly recognized the value of a diverse discussion of these topics. The group was willing to talk honestly about their different experiences in white, black, and brown communities — and to value the fact that they were able to do so. There was a strong shared sense of the reality and importance of mutual respect, and an openness to learning from each other’s experiences.

So what does this show? In my eyes, it demonstrates two important facts. First, many young people have well-defined ideas about justice, fairness, and denied opportunities, and they care about these issues. They can figure out some of the ways in which some of our basic institutions assign benefits, burdens, and opportunities in very different ways to different groups — and they are offended. And second, this “knowledge” of injustice also has a motivational effect. They want to be mobilized around a project that can have some success in addressing some of these unjust inequalities. Their engagement can take many forms — excitement about a political candidate who is speaking of these issues, involvement in a tutoring program in an inner-city school, participation in a student organization that is campaigning for more scholarships for poor people.

So this experience with a dozen students at a public university in the midwest goes against the grain of those who talk about the current youth generation as being apolitical, disengaged, and unmoved by injustice. Isn’t there something in this story that lays a basis for some hope about the feasibility of a more activist politics in the America of the future?

Progressive politics

There are many ways of distinguishing different kinds of political values: liberal-conservative, environment-growth, radical-reactionary, left-right, Democrat-Republican, social democrat-christian democrat, libertarian-statist. But consider this fundamental divide: between those political programs dedicated to progress for the poor and powerless, versus those focused on conserving the power and privilege of existing elites. One is a party of progress and change; the other is one focused primarily on conserving the status quo.

To locate this distinction in political space we need first to identify the dimensions of inequality over which the privileged and the non-privileged are separated. These obviously include ownership of wealth, income, ability to influence or determine major social institutions; access to important social opportunities (education, healthcare, mobility), quality of life, and degree of independence and self-determination. And these can be further simplified as wealth, power, and distributive outcomes. Most societies provide very different levels of these goods to various groups in society — and almost always there is a high degree of overlap across the membership of the various disadvantaged groups.

It is plain that many societies create substantial inequalities along these lines, and that these inequalities arise as a consequence of systems of power and distribution. Powerful institutions — corporations, governments, insurance companies, political parties, the military — make private decisions that affect outcomes and quality of life for the non-privileged — and these decisions are almost always beyond democratic control. These institutional arrangements give rise to a systematic flow of basic goods that is highly unequal across society. Moreover, the institutions and their directors have substantial power to protect and preserve their positions of privilege.

So these are the central social cleavages that exist in many societies. Corporations, powerful officials, landlords, party functionaries, and owners of large wealth stand on one side — and wage-earners, tenant farmers, the urban poor, the uninsured, some racial or ethnic minorities, and the disabled stand on the other side. And they are separated by powerful and entrenched distributive institutions that reproduce these inequalities generation after generation.

So now we are face to face with the most fundamental dichotomy among political parties and programs: between those that attempt to modify some of these distributive institutions in favor of the poor, and those that are committed to preserving this whole system of inequality creation. There is a “party of progress” and a party of the status quo, conserving of a system of power and privilege.

Are there any political movements in the US today that stand for meaningful change in our system of inequality? And do these movements offer any significant challenge to the most fundamental interests of this system? Yes and no. Examples of programs that would significantly improve outcomes for the disadvantaged in our society include efforts to invent a system of universal health insurance, efforts to secure greater environmental justice for urban people, efforts to turn back the regressive tax policies of the recent past, and efforts to reinvigorate the union movement in this country.

But do any of these political goals present a serious challenge to the basic structures of a divided society? Most likely not. The American economy can absorb a huge amount of redistribution of benefits from rich to poor without fundamentally changing the mechanism of inequality of power and privilege that has endured throughout our history. The New Deal created a meaningful change in American distributive structures — but it did not significantly reduce the wealth and privilege of the elites. There is ample room for a “New Deal for the twenty-first century” that would significantly shift our inequalities in the direction of greater justice — but such an effort is likely to leave unchanged the system of power and privilege that exists.

A progressive politics is possible. But unfortunately our national political parties have rarely addressed these core issues. Where are the national leaders who look honestly at the facts of poverty, powerlessness, racism, and lack of health care, and work for the changes that will structurally address these issues?

Why isn’t there a progressive majority in the US?

Progressive politics center on a few core commitments — the value of some kinds of equality (equality of opportunity, equality of access to some central social goods like education and healthcare), a concern for the pattern of rising inequality in income and wealth in the United States since 1980, a commitment to the idea of a social welfare net for all citizens, a concern for international justice, a concern for the global environment, and a concern that our nation should not use military force aggressively or wantonly. These values highlight inequality and injustice as particularly important wrongs, and they support political agendas that would strive to create greater equality and justice in our country and the world.

The question here is, why has it been supremely difficult to create a progressive majority in the United States?

Consider first a material calculation of interests. Let’s assume that people choose what party or candidate to support based on the effects that party would have on their own interests, if successful in gaining office. There are tens of millions of Americans who lack access to health insurance. Even larger numbers fall below the level of a family income of $50,000. And increasing millions of young Americans are finding that the rising privatization of the costs of public education are making university attendance impossible. The progressive values mentioned above suggest policy goals that would address all these interests. So why does this constituency not create an electoral majority, based simply on a calculation of material interest? Why has a party not emerged that successfully crafts an agenda capable of mobilizing this majority?

Consider next the workings of a factor that has played such a decisive role in American politics, fundamentalist moral and social values. These are the “social issues” that get the blogosphere going and that motivate some voters so strongly. These values are working against the material interests of the majority just enumerated (because they lead to the success of parties and politicians dedicated to an anti-progressive agenda). So why do these values find a foothold among non-privileged voters in sufficient numbers to swing elections?

One part of the answer to these questions derives from a more realistic understanding of the mechanisms of political choice formation in this country. Parties and candidates are able to influence voters on the basis of their ability to raise campaign moneys and to use these funds to put together marketing campaigns that shape the minds of potential voters. This appears not to be a rational process, but rather one that turns on emotion, misrepresentation, and framing. It is an exercise in applied social psychology rather than rational debate. So if campaign strategists can turn funding into persuasion, then the “material interest” theory above is to some extent neutralized. And therefore we shouldn’t expect a majority defined simply in terms of its shared material interests, to turn into an effective electoral majority.

Combined with this point about political funding and marketing is the creation of a substantially greater sophistication when it comes to disaggregating and combining the micro-demography of a particular election. Targeted campaign marketing has turned into a big business and an effective political strategy. The tactics of mobilizing the faithful while depressing the opponents have reached the level of a fairly successful form of social engineering.

What these points amount to is a fairly gloomy assessment of today’s democracy. Parties succeed in distracting voters from their real interests and commitments by shaping meaningless ideological debates, framing issues in false or misleading terms, obscuring the real underlying issues, and manipulating election outcomes with micro-electoral information. And so the real interests of a majority of voters may continue to be ignored.