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The Left has forgotten its philosophy It has given up the fight on violent inequality

The Left has let inequality run wild. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The Left has let inequality run wild. Spencer Platt/Getty Images


November 2, 2024   6 mins

A mere glance at the headlines underscores what most working people under 40 intuit. Unfathomable wealth inequality, flat or barely improving wages, falling life expectancy, and a massive housing shortage are overturning the hard-won gains of the 20th century. And there has only been halting progress toward reform in most of the West. Sweeping proposals by progressives have been undermined by their inability to discard identity politics dogma and build a large tent. On the Right, meanwhile, steps toward supporting family subsidies and industrial policy — issues once prioritised by the post-war Left — have been half-hearted.

Exacerbating this stalemate are debates over what type of reform is necessary: whether investments like reindustrialisation or more welfare programmes are most urgent; whether an active state can solve the crisis of development; and whether a global wealth tax is preferable to protectionist experiments in “deglobalisation”. Bidenomics seems to have had little ripple effect across the West, while Kamala Harris and Donald Trump make only vague promises about economic growth.

Our challenges are, however, only the latest iteration of an age-old problem. As captured in David Lay Williams’ new book, The Greatest of All Plagues, the social, political, and economic costs of gaping inequality have preoccupied an eclectic range of philosophers over millennia — from Plato to Marx via Jesus, Hobbes, Rousseau, Adam Smith and J.S. Mill. Broadly agreeing that it is both a material and spiritual problem, Williams’ thinkers confront us with powerful arguments against inequality: it degrades civilisation because it rewards greed at the expense of the community, ultimately destroying any basis for social cooperation and respect for the rule of law. Yet for nearly all of these philosophers, maintaining civic virtue and the public good must be central to any project that might fundamentally reduce inequality. This distinguishes them from many modern progressives, whose preoccupation with group identities and historical injustices ultimately precludes a coherent vision of what might reverse inequality’s baleful effects. If today’s reformers are to truly mobilise the public, they must identify, as these philosophers did, what it is about society that they aim to conserve.

Fear of disunity that spills into violent civil strife is a frequent theme throughout the book. When citizens no longer view the law as just and impartial, these philosophers warn, factionalism increases. Summarising Hobbes, who is not exactly known for trumpeting the holistic benefits of civic welfare, Williams writes that “a commonwealth tolerating needless hunger flirts with its own demise”. The deleterious effects of greed, or pleonexia, however, extend beyond the collapse of law and order. Rousseau observes that it destroys compassion, leaving the destitute yet more helpless and loathed. As he writes of the poor man: “all free assistance flees him when he needs it, precisely because he lacks the means to pay for it.” The poor, in turn, succumb to the same miserly outlook of those who rule unjustly.

Here is one of the most important insights in Williams’ book: widespread resignation to these conditions amongst the working classes ultimately enervates the human desire for liberty. Some readers may point to modern-day philanthropy to suggest that all-consuming greed is not an inexorable force which destroys virtue among the elite. Yet according to Rousseau and Mill, the spiritual violence of extreme inequality isn’t mitigated by a spurt of good deeds. On the contrary, Rousseau writes that the poor lose their freedom when they become dependent on the rich. Similarly, Mill stresses that poverty breeds dependency, obstructing the talents which propel human development. This is a situation that cannot be easily remedied through compensatory measures.

Attempts to soften inequality through philanthropy must therefore be scrutinised: do they raise the general welfare whilst empowering the individual to make their own way, or do they place those desperate for work and bread at the utter mercy of elites? From Mill’s perspective, there were mental and moral benefits of individual achievement. Therefore, if he was immensely sceptical of private charity, regarding the Victorian economy as one based on “conquest and violence”, it is doubtful he would have endorsed state socialism of the kind experienced in Eastern Europe.

Instead, Mill advocated a mix of pragmatic and radical reforms, including estate taxes, widespread but decentralised education, worker cooperatives, property redistribution, and some form of guaranteed subsistence. His primary objective — to eradicate poverty and foster individual opportunity — reflected his utilitarian sentiments. This was a philosophy of broad enablement in a time of still rigid hierarchy. Unlike Smith, who believed the fruits of economic growth and doux commerce between nations would be enough to alleviate poverty, Mill thought active state policy was necessary. In these respects, Mill anticipated some of the guiding principles of New Deal liberalism and social democracy.

The appeal of such reformism has waxed and waned in our own era of slack growth. Many young people despair that the government appears unwilling or unable to reinvest in what the post-war generation took for granted. Drawing inspiration from Marx, some believe that only the threat of revolution can compel the government to once again subordinate vested interests to the public interest. But the modern Left’s ability to rouse the public has been largely ephemeral. A grassroots focus on inequality and austerity largely peaked in the middle of last decade, giving way to demands to centre identitarian issues that seemingly mattered most to a diversifying electorate. Needless to say, this course has not realigned Western politics in favour of a new, more egalitarian social contract.

“The modern Left’s ability to rouse the public has been largely ephemeral.”

Part of the Left’s ineffectiveness reflects the pessimism of our times. But it also stems from a deep reluctance, in the 21st century, to affirm the universality of the principles which Williams’ thinkers used to make sense of their world. In particular, the idea of the whole is as open-ended and contested as ever. As a kind-of revisionist, anti-Western outlook pervades the Left, it would appear many activists do not want to conserve much of anything. This contrasts with an older social-democratic tradition more in tune with Enlightenment thought. Consequently, few on the Left appear to agree on what a radically egalitarian economy would look like. Would it resemble, for instance, the autarkic community envisioned by Rousseau, or would such “withdrawal” from the world stage be inegalitarian in an already globalised and interconnected world? Would a “post-capitalist” economy affirm the republican freedom envisioned by Marx, or would it impose austere measures to limit climate change? And if the latter, would such a surveillance state in the name of global justice derail innovation while stifling development in poorer countries?

These are not merely academic debates. For example, industrial policy — the main way in which the Democratic Party has tried to address America’s socioeconomic divide, and which other centre-left parties such as Keir Starmer’s Labour have entertained — has antagonised parts of the Left due to its intrinsic economic patriotism. Some believe that China is now best poised to catalyse the global clean tech revolution, while others advocate a process of radical “degrowth” for the West that would make most households poorer. And yet, amid worrying signs of stagnation and low social trust, it would seem incumbent on policymakers to kickstart a new era of development.

Of course, a national wealth tax as proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren, or a global one, as envisioned by Thomas Piketty, would certainly go some way toward compressing wealth inequality. But there are legitimate questions over how such taxes would be best used to address the widespread decline in upward mobility and life chances. If they went toward a basic income, would that actually solve the social problems that are symptomatic of extreme inequality? Would that, in turn, lead to a new kind of political complacency over concentrated wealth and power? Charity, as Williams’ book underscores, does not address the root causes of indigence. There are sound reasons from a Left-wing perspective to be wary of solutions that do not facilitate the mix of freedom and development that both Mill and Marx advocated.

These are just some of the issues that loom for those who are inclined toward radicalism but still believe in democracy. As The Greatest of All Plagues suggests, tackling inequality is never so direct as levelling the power of the ultra-wealthy, even if a government were elected with this express purpose. It requires navigating the contradictions which have bred social conflict throughout history. Security, freedom, progress, and fairness: these are among the most essential values which continually animate politics, but they are hard to hold in equilibrium. This is especially true of modern liberal democracies, which, for all their flaws, have accommodated an unparalleled degree of change and pluralism.

Some observers may darkly wager that this pluralism is on the wane and that an age of oligarchy is already upon us. If the most extreme antagonisms theorised by Marx are to be avoided, then society must at the very least strive to balance liberality with common purpose. Still, the central lesson is as clear as day. Rebuilding that social trust unequivocally depends on a restoration of the public good, and thus putting an end to the extreme inequality which imperils all. A democratic Left that has any hope of realising a better world must not lose sight of this historical mission.


Justin H. Vassallo is a writer and researcher specialising in American political development, political economy, party systems, and ideology. He is also a columnist at Compact magazine.

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Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
1 month ago

 Sweeping proposals by progressives have been undermined by their inability to discard identity politics dogma and build a large tent.
It’s not an inability; it’s a refusal. Tell an American leftist you are pro-choice and it’s not enough; you must be pro-abortion. Tell one that you don’t judge people by color and you’ll be told of the need to an ‘anti-racist,’ which is a racist in reverse. Tell one you oppose unfettered immigration and you’re a xenophobe. Identity politics IS the progressives’ north star.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 month ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

There is some stubborn refusal for sure. But there is far more nuance and moderation than you acknowledge among most of your political opponents. Do you stand behind every statement made by the most extreme and ideological people in your voting bloc? I really don’t think it’s a large minority of people who would try to demand you be, or consider themselves “pro-abortion”.

Brett H
Brett H
1 month ago

And ….?

David Morley
David Morley
1 month ago
Reply to  Brett H

More questions than answers, but given that many are not even recognising inequality as an issue, it’s perhaps what is needed.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 month ago
Reply to  David Morley

Aye. A series of questions is better than a list of answers in this present moment.

David Morley
David Morley
1 month ago

Great piece. Book sounds interesting. More questions than answers, but it points us in the direction that that our thinking needs to go. Above all, we need to start thinking about our societies as societies. I’m all right Jack just isn’t enough.

David Morley
David Morley
1 month ago

Rousseau observes that it destroys compassion, leaving the destitute yet more helpless and loathed

Psychologically, in a situation of gross inequality, the rich must crush their compassion in order to avoid feelings of guilt. It’s not easy to blow a fortune on a handbag while others struggle to make ends meet. Feeling loathing and contempt for the poor, and convincing yourself it’s their own fault really helps.

Duane M
Duane M
1 month ago
Reply to  David Morley

Yes, and I think that is why the very wealthy genuinely view the rest of us as lesser beings. As in the famous quote from Leona Helmsley, billionaire hotellier: “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” (She was later convicted for tax evasion and mail fraud, and served time in federal prison).

Terry M
Terry M
1 month ago
Reply to  Duane M

You are painting with a very, very broad brush when you condemn ‘the very wealthy’. How do you know what ‘they’ think? You don’t. It’s all projection based on a few bad apples. Should you be judged by the actions of the most notorious of your socioeconomic group? The rich just get more attention because it is more sensational when they go bad – and the MSM loves to cut them down and feed your envy.

David Morley
David Morley
1 month ago
Reply to  Terry M

All analysis is based on generalisation – but there is a whole history of the privileged finding reasons to look down on those with less. And indeed there are whole areas of academia dedicated to studying it.

Also some group generalisations make more sense than others. All the children of billionaires are privileged, for example, makes more sense than all white people are.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 month ago
Reply to  David Morley

Your own generalisation has general but not real accuracy. One might as well claim that all generalities are based on particulars, which is true enough, but unilluminating.
Your case is valid, at least according to my “lived experience”. It’d be more popular among this Herd to assert that the poor need to examine themselves, whereas the rich are self-justified in their influence and success. Until a Musk or a Gates or a Bezos uses his grotesque, oversized influence to promote a cause that one, as an individual, doesn’t like.

J Hop
J Hop
1 month ago
Reply to  David Morley

Yes, they are “garbage” humans.

Benjamin Greco
Benjamin Greco
1 month ago

Any program of economic reform must include a vigorous anti-trust campaign weakening the power of monopolies like Google, Microsoft and Apple are essential to creating economic opportunities for others and ending inequality.

Andrew
Andrew
1 month ago

“others advocate a process of radical “degrowth” for the West that would make most households poorer.”

Well, no, that unsubstantiated claim has been addressed countless times by degrowth economists. It seems the author hasn’t read the literature.

Degrowth advocates for an economy in which we reduce resource and energy use while specifically preventing unemployment and decreasing inequality. The core idea is to allocate resources and energy more rationally and democratically, to enable all to thrive in balance with the ecosystems we rely on. It’s a planned reduction of energy and resource throughput, in order to return the economy into balance with the biological world in a way that reduces inequality and increases well-being.

People routinely assume that GDP growth is necessary for social progress, but beyond a certain level (long exceeded in high-income countries) the link between GDP and social indicators collapses. Many countries significantly outperform the U.S. in social indicators (life expectancy, etc.), despite recording far less GDP per capita.

That’s because GDP has never been a proxy for human well-being, or for social value. What actually matters for well-being is access to resources needed to live long, healthy lives. Things like universal healthcare and education, affordable housing, public transport, nutritious food, etc.

Reducing throughput will impact GDP, so degrowth economics focuses on restructuring in ways that manage it in a safe and just way.
 
Another flawed assumption:

“there are legitimate questions over how such taxes would be best used to address the widespread decline in upward mobility and life chances. If they went toward a basic income… [etc]”

Creating a healthier society is not reliant on increasing revenue to pay for it. The point of taxes is not to raise revenue, it’s to reduce consumption and thus decrease demand. We certainly should tax the rich, but not for the revenue: it would be to adjust the distribution of wealth and income and to recover and enhance our degraded democracy, caused in large part by the outsize influence of extreme wealth. We don’t need to find more revenue, including from this relatively small cadre of the uber-rich (which would open up little to no added fiscal space anyway) to do any of the things we want to do, and there is no need to think they are vital to that agenda.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew

Degrowth advocates for an economy in which we reduce resource and energy use while specifically preventing unemployment and decreasing inequality. —-These sets of goals are fundamentally at odds, but never fear, the next line brings the money shot.
The core idea is to allocate resources and energy more rationally and democratically, to enable all to thrive in balance with the ecosystems we rely on. —–Explain how democratic rationing would work.
And finally, this: The point of taxes is not to raise revenue — Sorry, no. The point IS to raise revenue for the provision of public services. Anything beyond that is social engineering the likes of which authoritarians love.  

Andrew
Andrew
1 month ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

The onus is on you to substantiate the claim that reducing resource and energy use and preventing unemployment and decreasing inequality are “fundamentally at odds.”

I’m happy to engage once you’ve done that, as it would indicate good faith.

It would really help also if you would take the time and energy to read at least some of the relevant literature on degrowth, as well as descriptions of the monetary system that exists today and government finance mechanics. It’s not hard to find, if you’re motivated by curiosity.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew

Thank you for practicing civility in a fraught time. I wish I was more consistent in that regard. Sincere question: Can you point me to one or more relevant, readable texts on “degrowth?

Andrew
Andrew
1 month ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

Thank you, AJ Mac. I’m inconsistent too. I’m most vulnerable when I encounter bad faith. I find that far more discouraging than even wide differences of opinion.

Among the de-growth books that have helped me understand the idea, I think a good primer is Jason Hickel’s “Less Is More.” Very accessible. He’s an economics scholar, but one of the few who writes well.

His website: https://www.jasonhickel.org/

He also writes interesting threads on X. I use ThreadReader:

https://threadreaderapp.com/user/jasonhickel

All the best.

Andrew R
Andrew R
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew

Writing sophistry and have people point it out to you is not bad faith. Degrowth is simply an absurd position, and no that doesn’t make me an advocate for unlimited growth.

Andrew R
Andrew R
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew

Utilitarianism is simply totalitarianism by another name with a panopticon to maintain it.. That’s why we have supranational bodies and NGOs undermining democracy in order to achieve it.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew R

Nearly any totalizing ism becomes totalitarian and oppressive. Even altruism can go horribly awry. No one should should make utility—nor capital, liberty, conserving, the individual or the collective—their sole metric.
I believe J.S. Mill would acknowledge that too. Though influenced by Jeremy Bentham, he was no runaway Benthamite, and he valued privacy more than the inventor of the panopticon (a low bar, I admit).

Terry M
Terry M
1 month ago

He misdiagnoses the problem. Income inequality should not be a concern unless that income is unjustly earned. For guys like Musk, Gates, etc. their incomes have been honestly earned.
What is wrong is the inability of people to give credit to those who have worked hard and been successful. We have a pandemic of envy, encouraged by the MSM who keep talking about rich people’s fair share. After all, what does it matter if Musk makes a billion more dollars? Does it impact me? Define fair share. Who decides?
This arises from our culture of victimhood, again led by the MSM who lionize victims as if this is a sign of virtue. So everyone has to find their victimhood and express it. Victimhood is not virtuous, rising above it and making something of what you have is the virtue.
Where have you gone Horatio Alger?

RA Znayder
RA Znayder
1 month ago
Reply to  Terry M

I have nothing against wealthy entrepreneurs that actually produce something. But a lot of wealth isn’t earned through meritocratic principles. For example, after 2008 and 2020 many of the ultra wealthy saw their wealth spontaneously explode. Why? It is precisely because the game is rigged, big capital has been protected against market discipline while receiving a lot of stimulus from the (central bank) nanny state for a long time. That produced a lot of additional inequality. So that does impact you.

Andrew
Andrew
1 month ago
Reply to  Terry M

Gates, Musk, and justly earned income…

Let’s look at Gates. Musk has similar qualities. 

Gates has always been a parasite, leaching off others’ innovations. From the start, he’s utilized predatory business strategy. He claims ideas as his own but they were mostly stolen from others — a similar playbook to Musk’s. 

Thanks to his mom’s connection, Gates was given a sweetheart deal to supply the OS for IBM’s PC. He then enlisted his friend Paul Allen (a friend he’d later rip off for billions) and they licensed a pirated clone of Gary Kindall’s CP/M program. They renamed it and sold it to IBM with over 300 bugs. IBM fixed most of them, improved the OS and wrote the manual. Since Gates had made nearly zero investment in DOS, had zero production costs, and since he was competing with companies that had a ton invested in their products, he could sell “his” OS lower than anyone else, which drove competitors out of business.
 
The myth is that Gates is the billionaire dropout wunderkind, except the reality is he stole from Gary Kildall, who had actually “worked hard” and earned a PhD and had invented a high volume, low royalty license for an OS (CP/M) that ran on various kinds of otherwise incompatible computers. His innovation allowed economy of scale, so that computer prices dropped from multiple thousands to a few hundred dollars. 

Kildall: 

“Well, it seems to me that he did have an education to get there. It happened to be mine.”

Gates then made his fortune by monopolizing the OS market via illegal, collusive compacts with the PC clone biz. Windows has always been a blatantly defective product, but Microsoft/Gates has constantly and illegally aimed to block any OS but theirs, creating a kind of immunity. He’s really in the patent business. Microsoft works by exploiting intellectual property rights, in order to create and maintain a monopoly, and thereby set any price it likes.

Yet back in 1982, Gates wrote this:

“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique. If we assume this company has no need of any of our patents then they have a 17-year right to take as much of our profits as they want. The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can. A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high: Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors.”

Gates’ predatory style is the opposite of free-market enterprise, and the opposite of the “fair share” mythology. His business model relies on the state to preserve and augment Microsoft’s monopoly. Microsoft is a parasite off the public system, an example of private interest benefiting from public risk and investment, and those investors not getting a say in any of it. 

Tesla is similar, relying on the nanny state for subsidies and tax-breaks, along with selling carbon credits that make it possible to sell ginormous SUVs. Companies lower costs by externalizing them — that is, we, the public, pay for them, a form of reverse socialism. They jack profits by poisoning the world instead of converting to, or innovating cleaner but more costly manufacturing systems.

Start-ups create new tech, Gates swallows them, thereby thwarting a truly competitive market. Once competition is destroyed, innovative tech gets choked off because there’s no incentive. That is what monopolies do. That is the real story of “hard working” “fair share” Bill Gates.

Walter Schimeck
Walter Schimeck
29 days ago
Reply to  Andrew

Thanks for the detailed historical background on Gates. As for Musk, I read recently that one would have to drive a Tesla for about 7 years before it actually became carbon neutral. 3 years later the batteries will likely be exhausted and, because they are really too expensive to replace economically, the whole car will be trashed. By greenwashing the entire EV industry, and getting governments to subsidize it through tax-incentives, ( and also provide the energy-infrastructure needed to make it viable) Musk has enlisted the aid of the tax-base to enrich himself enormously. You have to stretch the definition of honestly-earned wealth to the breaking-point to think that Musk’s fortune qualifies.

Walter Schimeck
Walter Schimeck
29 days ago
Reply to  Terry M

Musk, Gates, Bezos et al all did, and are still doing, some pretty shady things in order to amass the wealth they have. When the wealth accumulated by the ultra-wealthy comes partially from them not paying anywhere near what they should be in taxes, then it most certainly does impact you. That revenue shortfall has to be made up by someone, and lately that someone has been the middle-class. That said, I do agree with you that we have a pandemic of envy. It’s not the MSM that’s responsible for it though. They are not generally in the habit of biting the hand of their corporate benefactors.

Neal Attermann
Neal Attermann
1 month ago

Does this book speak of practical, middle of the road steps, that can be taken to narrow the gap? Or define the gap globally and in specific countries?

Proper balance among economic/political freedoms and “fairness” of outcomes is skewed by some aiming at perfection instead of a more general sense of making things better. And even more ineffectual are all the ‘isms cast about over the centuries—and very loudly these days too—that denegrate practical approaches to lessen the divide as sell outs.

Narrowing the spread between the global north and south quickly and efficiently and even doing the same in developed and developing countries seems a bridge too far. The French and Russian Revolutions quickly led to repression and dictatorship, the Great Leap Forward was anything but. Would be great to see a survey of more limited, practical ideas for achieving this end that won’t lead to even greater disharmony.

Andrew R
Andrew R
1 month ago

The world is an inherently unfair place, you can’t bend reality to make it fair. Every time it’s been tried it has brought societal collapse and chaos.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew R

That’s the thing. The world is inherently unfair. We should all appreciate the privilege of being born in the west, try to improve our own lives, try to help others, show compassion for the disadvantaged, but also acknowledge that we can’t fix everyone’s problems.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 month ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Agreed. Yet some changeable policies—from both Left and Right—do exacerbate inherent inequalities.

RA Znayder
RA Znayder
1 month ago

Interesting article. I miss one name though: Keynes. Not precisely a leftist but this was really a central figure behind the (postwar) social democracies. Even the neoliberal turn didn’t completely reject Keynes, fiscal stimulation to produce supply-side growth remained part of the synthesis.

Keynes predicted a 15 hour work week by 2030 because of innovation. However, we are not exactly going in that direction.

A lack of growth and an aging population is supposedly not providing us with the wealth we need for this. Instead we get gilded age inequality and monopolies. But is all of this because of market forces or because of economic and industrial mismanagement? Is the supply-side philosophy completely outdated?

What can we actually not produce in abundance with a limited work force? Most luxery goods and services, as well as food, is really not a problem. Only energy is, but this is often ignored. Things that make people actually feel poor currently, such as a lack of affordable housing, is precisely because of that economic mismanagement.

David Morley
David Morley
1 month ago
Reply to  RA Znayder

And housing!

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
1 month ago

I firmly believe that a civic and state philosophy of multiculturalism has just been a tool of divide and rule.
The economic powers that be are overjoyed to see these conflicting identity groups emerged. It means that their friends in the corporations can enjoy record profits by offshoring production, while ethnic minority identity groups are fully supported by parties like the Democrats and Labour in attacking conservative attitudes in the post-industrial native population.

Steve Gwynne
Steve Gwynne
1 month ago

I guess part of the problem with discussions about inequality is that they are largely based on paper values which are rooted in the financial economy rather than the material economy which in turn are soft wired in fiscal policy and especially debt accumulation.

https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2024/11/02/292-fake-it-till-you-break-it/

However debt accumulation and the investment it affords is a net negative multiplier due to debt servicing payments and the losses incurred through transactional costs alongside the relentless increase in the cost of materials due to the increasing energy costs of energy production and the increasing material costs of producing goods and services.

This means, in the long term, debt liabilities cannot be honoured which will eventually cause dramatic asset devaluations, not just for the rich but the poor too in terms of housing assets.

Thus the number one problem regarding smoothing out inequalities is the debt liability problem with wealth taxes simply diminishing the ability to service debt leading to insolvency and bankruptcy.

Consequently, any strategy to smooth inequalities must be done with care and focus primarily on the material economy rather than the financial economy. One possibility is to institute a tiered pricing system for essential goods and services in terms of ability to pay. This is being experimented with in terms of “social tariffs” but could be extended to all essential goods and services provided by government (national and local) and corporate institutions with the rich paying above the median price and the poor paying below the median price.

This could be extended to essential-discretionary goods and services if it can be shown that a particular good or service is demanded by the rich and poor alike such as festival tickets, vehicles, smartphones, etc.

Overall, I think we have to look at more bottom up holistic solutions rather than top down partial solutions and ones which focus predominantly on the material economy rather than the financial economy.

This type of strategy I think means building up a grand cultural narrative that is able to firstly be truthful about the post growth predicament we find ourselves in, especially in the UK, and secondly, one that can build up a sense of national solidarity between the rich and the poor. This means the end of polarising narratives whether based on wealth, class, race, gender, etc which means a paradigm shift for the Left.

Andrew
Andrew
1 month ago
Reply to  Steve Gwynne

“building up a grand cultural narrative that is able to firstly be truthful about the post growth predicament we find ourselves in, especially in the UK, and secondly, that can build up a sense of national solidarity between the rich and the poor.”

But that narrative would not be truthful, for the rich and the poor do not have actual solidarity. We are already told similar stories to encourage solidarity with the rich, and we see the result everywhere (including in the Unherd comments section), where people have been induced by grand narratives (hagiographies of the rich, “trickle-down economics,” and the like) to campaign against their own interests. We should acknowledge the truth that class war waged by the rich is fundamental to capitalism. All this grand narrative would do is add yet another pleasant myth about an exploitative system to keep people in line. Such a narrative would benefit the rich, not the poor.

A key quality of capitalism is enclosure and false scarcity. Today, that false scarcity manifests in essentials like housing, healthcare, education, transit, etc. It’s not hard to provide universal access to all these essentials, at first-rate quality. However, where we do find these essentials provided universally, overwhelmingly they’ve been gained only after very long hard fights by labour and other movements. There is no actual solidarity with rich elites.

The aim of increasing production under capitalism isn’t chiefly to fulfill human needs, but to extract and amass profit. To keep that process of ever-increasing surplus going means a constant need to increase the amount of labour and natural resource inputs; but crucially, these must be got as cheap as possible. Thus there is continual demand to lower real wages and dismantle protections for nature. 

It’s a system that inherently creates inequality and ecological degradation. It is by nature polarizing. Grand narratives that try to “end polarising narratives” related to this exploitative system are effectively trying to hide the truth and bolster the status quo. A “paradigm shift for the Left” of this kind would mean abandoning reality.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 month ago

The poison is in the dose. Too much inequality is arguably a bad thing – but too little inequality is also arguably a bad thing. Unfortunately politics seems immune to nuance and seizes upon absolutist goals which are necessarily not optimal.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

The flawed assumption is that we, for some reason, need to address inequality versus inequity.

Once we start seeing people as being complementary and not competitive on every metric we might make some progress.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

Very important review of the issues.
But no clear answers because it addresses the issues in a purely materialistic way.
History and nature show that a purely materialistic approach inevitably results in competition for resources at the individual, enterprise and state level. Any attempt to create a more just society will come up against this reality, very quickly given how egocentric human beings have become.
The idea of individual equality had its origins in Christianity and gained traction by appeal to the transcendent and the development of a non-material ethical and moral code. The advance of scientific knowledge and our physical well-being make it hard to see how we can repeat that, but it might work if only our religious leaders would lead the way instead of falling into the same materialistic dialogue.
It seems to me that the caring side of the vast majority of us are looking for that.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 month ago

As a kind-of revisionist, anti-Western outlook pervades the Left, it would appear many activists do not want to conserve much of anything

All too true. It’s also fair, if obvious, to note that burn-it-down populism is not conservative in any coherent sense, let alone much concerned with conservation.

I hope the more-or-less-sane, middle 70-90% of the sociopolitical range will find a way to unite against extreme inequality—I acknowledge that some inequality is both natural and unavoidable—in some kind of gradual, nonviolent movement. Otherwise, we’ll only become more subject to the overreach of the warring extremes, and things will almost certainly get bloody, or bloodier. And the bloody mornings after won’t lead to any conclusive victory, either for the extreme we’d choose (at gunpoint) or the other one. A few weeks or months after this election, whoever wins, I hope more us can get started on building consensus for a viable third party.

If [JS Mill] was immensely sceptical of private charity, regarding the Victorian economy as one based on “conquest and violence”, it is doubtful he would have endorsed state socialism of the kind experienced in Eastern Europe.

Quite an understatement, I think.

I found this to be an excellent and searching essay, in a book-review jacket that makes me want to read The Greatest of All Plagues. I look forward to reading a worthwhile, mostly civil discussion BTL this weekend.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

The politics of “inequality” is more accurately labeled the politics of “envy”.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

More conveniently maybe.

Oliver Williamson
Oliver Williamson
1 month ago

The Left has not forgotten anything. The Left is ultimately about death. First, death for you and me and then death for the leftists themselves by slow, subconscious process of civilizational suicide.

Oliver Williamson
Oliver Williamson
1 month ago

The faults of leftism are a feature, not a bug.