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.

"Too much" inequality? Yes!

How much inequality is too much? The range of income and wealth inequalities in the US has increased sharply in the past 20 years. The share of income flowing to the top 10% and 1% has increased significantly. And the level of income for the bottom 40% has slightly declined during these years. But to say whether that's a bad thing, we need first to think clearly about what inequality means for our society -- for the quality of life for people at the bottom end, for the strands of community that knit a society together, and for the idea that every member of society is equally worthy of respect and consideration. And we need to think about the mechanisms through which these inequalities are created in our economy -- and through which these inequalities have increased so sharply.

First, the effects. It appears also to be a fact that the symptoms of poverty are more extensive today than they were twenty years ago. The demands on food banks have increased; homelessness appears to be more extensive in many major cities; and of course the problem of lack of access to health insurance and affordable health care appears to be even more pressing. So it would appear that the increase in income inequality in the past 20 years has had a depressing effect on the lives of the least-well-off in our society. At least the economic processes that have improved the incomes to the rich and the super-rich have not also improved the incomes of the middle-income groups and the poor. So the philosophers' argument -- inequalities are not inherently bad if the bottom end is pretty well off -- doesn't apply to today's circumstances.

Second, there is some evidence that the social distance between the very-well-off and the not-well-off has increased, with fewer points of contact between social groups. This is sometimes described as the "disappearance of the middle class." The substantial transformation of the American economy that has occurred in manufacturing and the auto industry is emblematic: the jobs that created the possibility of a blue-collar, middle class life in Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois are disappearing, and the next generation of manufacturing jobs are creating incomes that are perhaps only 60% of the levels of the previous generation. So rising inequality is manifest, in part, in the loss of well-paying jobs in the middle -- producing a greater degree of social separation.

This brings us to respect and equality. It isn't too much of a stretch to infer that in a society increasingly separating into "affluent" and "poor", the idea of basic democratic equality -- that everyone is in the same boat; that everyone has an equally worthy life; that we all depend on each other; and that everyone is equally worthy of respect -- has less and less social reality. These widely separated groups have less and less lived experience that reinforces these ideas of connection and equality among all citizens.

So there are ample reasons for judging that the rising material inequality in America is a very bad thing. It is bad because of the consequences it has for people on the lower end of the spectrum; it is bad for the corrosive effects it has on basic democratic values of fundamental human equality; and ultimately it has to be bad for the civic values that undergird a peaceful and harmonious society. How much inequality can a community absorb before it begins to pull apart into mutually antagonistic groups? How many more gated communities will this society need if we continue to fail to achieve the kind of material fairness that allows every citizen to look the other in the eye and say, I respect you and I know that all our benefits depend upon our mutual contributions to society?

If our economy continues to separate our society into rich and poor -- if our largest cities continue to intensify the inequalities of access, opportunity, and quality of life between the urban poor and the suburban affluent -- then surely we have some seismic social conflicts brewing.

A progressive majority?

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.