Jafnrétti - What is Social Democracy II

Social democratic value terms:
Equality
The demand for equality is central to socialism. At the same time it is a demand which is often misinterpreted, not only by its opponents. On the conservative side, the demand for equality is often dismissed with a reference to the fact that people are different; the demand for equality is interpreted in the sense that everyone must be treated in exactly the same way and live their lives in exactly the same way. At the same time there are also tendencies among those who defend equality to interpret equality in the sense that everyone must live under exactly the same terms. This is of course wrong; equality does not mean the same as uniformity. People are, as has been said, quite different. But in some respects we are all alike.

Everyone has a value of his or her own as an individual; everyone has his or her conditions and predisposition for development; everyone has his or her dreams and hopes about life and about the future. And we are all members of society. The formation and development of society determines the opportunities we as individuals have when it comes to realising our potential and our dreams about the future. In this regard the demand for equality is a demand for uniformity – the same opportunity to develop one’s own character and to rule over one’s own life.

The English sociologist Richard Titmuss, has described welfare as the resources which the individual has at his/her disposal and with whose help he or she can manage and determine their living conditions, such as health, knowledge, physical and psychological energy, social relationships, social security and so on. This says something about what equality means, namely the same opportunities to control one’s own living conditions. It says something as well about what the politics of equality must focus on: to create such equal power resources.

Basic to all of this is of course political democracy, which can also be described as the equal opportunities to influence the decisions which determine social development and which in their turn determine the conditions for one’s own life. A universal and equal right to vote is not only a demand of freedom, it is also just as much a demand of equality. But this formal equality is not enough to create real and equal resources to influence either society or one’s own situation.

Knowledge belongs to the most important individual power resources, both on the labour market and for personal development. For this reason education – of good quality and sufficient volume – must be a right for all regardless of the individual’s economic resources. Health is also an important individual resource. For this reason, health care – of good quality and of sufficient volume – must be a right for all. For this reason people must be able to influence their own workplaces so that the work they do, does not damage their health. Economic and social security are also a power resource. People who find themselves in the position of being dependent economically on others are unable to promote their own interests. Those who have hardly enough to live on and are continually worried about illness or unemployment have little or no room for personal development. What is fundamental to social security is of course that people have a job with a wage that they can live on. Economic protection in the event of unemployment and in old age is important in giving people power over their own lives. Equal opportunities or equal outcomes? What a policy of equality can create is equal opportunities for people; how people make the most of these opportunities is their own business. A policy of equality neither can nor should force everyone to move in the same direction in order to achieve the same goals.

In political philosophy the distinction is very often drawn between equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes. It is the latter definition, equality of outcomes, which the critics normally use when they maintain that equality is the same thing as uniformity. If one interprets the demand for equality as meaning that everyone should have the same outcomes in every situation that would mean forcing everyone to be exactly alike. But this interpretation of equality conflicts with what is the innermost core of the idea of equality: people’s equal right to run their own lives. If we force everyone to live their lives according to the same pattern, no matter how ”equal” this may appear to be, then people do not in fact have any opportunity to run their own lives. Some supporters of equality do the concept of equality a disservice when they interpret it as meaning that everyone must have equally much of everything.

However, even if the basic principle is ”equality of opportunity” (in running one’s own life), one cannot completely dismiss the demand for ”equality of outcomes”. We can take the school as one example: everyone must have certain basic skills if they are to manage as citizens and to fend for themselves on the labour market. In this respect the school must achieve ”equal outcomes”. This in its turn can in reality entail ”different opportunities”, i.e. that schools work with different pedagogical methods since all methods don’t suit all pupils equally well. Or it can mean that one invests greater resources in helping some students who have greater difficulties than others.

But over and above the basic skills which everyone must have, one can obviously not demand that everyone must reach the same level. Someone who is good at music has the right to develop their skills just as much as someone who is especially gifted at mathematics or at woodwork or in dealing with people should have the right to develop their skills. The fact is that equality also involves the right to be different – without this meaning that the one or the other should be seen to be more important or in any way superior to others. It is only in the truly equal societies that the right to be different exists. In the unequal society there will always be some who will be sorted out, pushed aside and thus never allowed the opportunity to develop their own special talents and character.

Freedom and equality
It is very often stated, at least among conservative debaters, that freedom and equality are – generally speaking – opposites. This thesis is based on the mistaken interpretation of the demand for equality as one involving identical outcomes. The fact is that if everyone is forced into one and the same mould this would be in conflict with the individual’s freedom to decide how he or she wishes to shape their own lives and everyday situation. But the definition of equality is not one which holds that everyone must be exactly the same. Equality entails being the same only in one very special regard: the equal right to determine one’s own conditions in life. Or, to put it in another way, the equal right to freedom. If we are serious when we talk about the demand for freedom we must of course mean that freedom is something which is a right for everyone. It is absurd then to talk of a conflict between freedom and equality. Equality is, on the contrary, the very precondition for freedom: only in an equal society does everyone have the opportunity to be free. In an unequal society, where the stronger are allowed take what they want at the expense of the weaker, some people will have fewer opportunities than others to run their own lives. The strong will dictate living conditions for those who are less strong and in this way their freedom will be curtailed.

If the thesis that freedom and equality are in conflict with one another is to have any validity, then freedom must be defined as the right to take what you like at the expense of others. Such freedoms, freedoms which can only be enjoyed by a few while the rest are left without, are of course in conflict with the demand for equality. However, if freedom is defined in such a way that it leads in practice to subordination and lack of freedom for many people, then the question is if we really are discussing freedom at all? Is it not much more a question of privileges for a limited group of people?

Equality and efficiency
A discussion which keeps popping up at regular intervals is one which maintains that ”too much” equality is damaging to the efficiency of the economy. Economic differences are needed according to some conservative debaters; the possibility of becoming rich, of making more money than others is one of the factors which they claim promotes economic development. Naturally, the reward for effort – as for example a wage for work done – is important for the will to work and to achieve. Social Democracy has never held the view that all work should be paid exactly the same wage, but has always accepted that jobs which demand a higher level of education or which place a greater burden of responsibility on the employees should also pay a little better.

But the idea that competence and responsibility must be rewarded is naturally something which applies to every area of professional work! One cannot just pick out some branches and say that in just this branch the higher level of ambition and competence must be especially rewarded, while other professions must exercise economic restraint quite simply because the others must be so much more worthwhile. But the ”opportunity to get rich”, which the conservatives claim is an important driving force, very often turns out, on closer inspection, to be something which applies only to certain jobs and to certain positions. Other professional groups and sometimes even whole branches are expected to accept that their efforts are not worth particularly much in wage terms no matter how competently they are carried out – but they are nevertheless expected to do a good job.

It is, however, not enough that highly educated specialists and business leaders achieve good results if the economy is to grow. It is just as important for example, that a building worker and a hospital auxiliary do their jobs well, just as the architect and the doctor should do their jobs well; and what use do we have for competent business leaders if those who are to carry out their directions in practical work lack the motivation for the task in hand?

When large economic differences are described as positive, it is the high wage groups that are often in focus: the opportunity to reward certain achievements markedly. The other side of the coin is something which is not discussed: that some jobs must systematically be downgraded. There is otherwise no way in which to achieve wage differences. But if one is to evaluate the efficiency of large economic differences then one cannot only look at what happens at the upper levels of the income ladder; one must also observe the effects at the lower end. It is then that one can see that a society with large differences is not economically efficient. Large differences in education mean that there will be many people with a low level of education, and many people with a low education means a low level of competence and thus a lower level of productivity in working life. Large differences in health because hospital care, for example, is too expensive or because many working environments are dangerous to health, mean that many people will not be able to work at full capacity.

Moreover if we have large wage differences this is the same as having many low paid groups. But many low paid means that total demand in the economy will be lower and that there will be fewer opportunities for companies to grow and ”make money”.

There are many examples which vividly illustrate this. The USA is the industrial country with the biggest income differentials and this means that there is a large number of ”working poor”, people with a job which they cannot live on. In the USA there is deep concern at the low level of productivity in industry, something which makes it difficult for American industries to hold their own in the world of international competition, not least in the face of the developing industrial nations of South East Asia. This low level of productivity can be explained, to a very large extent, by the many low paid jobs.

The United States has a lower level of unemployment than Western Europe, something which is sometimes claimed as positive proof we could also get rid of unemployment with the help of increased wage differences. The low figure has, however, been criticised by many economists who point out that it conceals a high level of part-time unemployment; if one measures the level of marginalisation on the labour market rather than the number of persons with a job, then the American figure ends up on roughly the same level as the European. Nor has the USA not had a better long-term average rate of growth than Western Europe has, despite the lower level of unemployment. This is something that should have been the case, since lower unemployment should mean that capacity is more fully utilised. The explanation is the many low paid jobs, which do not create very much new demand which in its turn can create new jobs.

An OECD report from the mid-1990s provides no confirmation of the theory that increased wage differences by themselves create new jobs. Research on developing economies demonstrates that economic equality, contrary to many critics, benefits economic growth. Those countries which have succeeded in achieving a sustainable level of economic growth – mainly the countries of South East Asia – are characterised, contrary to conser- vative theories, by a certain degree of equality. A relatively large proportion of the population have had the opportunity to participate in production and to receive a reasonable economic reward for their efforts; for this reason domestic demand has grown continuously and this in its turn has created new jobs and continued growth. In countries which have failed to promote growth there is, on the contrary, a large proportion of the population which is not involved in production or who have had such meager wages\incomes that they have been unable to support a growing domestic market.

Inequality entails everywhere and in every situation that some people’s capacities cannot or quite simply are not used to the full. This, from a human point of view, involves a powerful limitation on people’s opportunities in life and on their opportunities for development. Such limitations are in fact not particularly efficient.