Why are we so indifferent to Inequality?

It was Michael Robert’s post on Branko Milanovic’s latest book – “Visions of Inequality – from the French Revolution to the end of the Cold War” which spurred me to make some observations about inequality – a subject, I realised, I hadn’t really posted explicitly about, although it had absorbed a couple of decades of my life in Scotland between 1968 and 1990

Roberts, as befits a Marxist, is fixated on Marx whereas Milanovic focuses on 6 classical writers on the subject – Quesnay, Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Pareto and Kuznets – with more recent researchers on the subject such as Tony Atkinson and Thomas Pikety relegated to.a chapter, given the book’s curious ending in 1989

My own commitment to equality was sparked by RH Tawney and Tony Crosland – Tawney for the almost religious tone of his support for the idea and Crosland for the libertarian force of his arguments against the Conservative Enemy

This tantalising introduction to Ben Jackson’s book on “Equality and the British Left – a study in progressive political thought 1900-64” sets the scene for the power of the idea in the first part of the century in the UK. But it was The Spirit Level – why greater equality makes societies stronger by Wilkinson and Pickett in 2010 which really impacted on people. More recently Danny Dorling’s “Injustice – why social inequality persists” (2011 edition) was and remains for me a powerful and unique exploration of the reasons for our indifference to the inequalities which disfigure so many societies.

These days, everyone talks about inequality – it has become the go-to descriptor of “western civilisation” but that civilisation remains a gilded one, with few politicians daring to take serious action against the plutocrats. I’m not sure if anyone has given a satisfactory answer to the indifference – sure, since Johnson’s War on Poverty in the 1960s, we have become inured to the rhetoric about inequalities. And some progress has been made on righting racial and gender inequalities. But there is a long way to go

Further Reading

Two Nations – the state of poverty in the UK CSJ 2023

What we owe each other – a new social contract for a better society Minouche Safik 2021

Capital and Ideology Thomas Pikety 2020

Inequality – a short history M Alacevich and A Soci 2018

Inequality – what can be done? Tony Atkinson 2015

Inequality Matters UN 2013

The Spirit Level – why greater equality makes societies stronger Wilkinson and Pickett 2010

Equality RH Tawney 1931