Equality and Well-being: Distribution, Recognition and Contribution Andrew Sayer Lancaster University UCD Equality Studies 20 th Anniversary Conference, 5-7 th May 2010, Dublin

Beyond distribution... Recognition – equality of standing Capabilities approach – about what people are able to have and do or be Both suffer from disregard of the processes which produce inequality – of all kinds Divorce of normative political philosophy from social science >> Political philosophy focuses on symptoms and how to remove/alleviate them – e.g. redistribution

Basics: Recognition is... 1.important for well-being; 2.can be unconditional or conditiona l; 3.is of some person/group, and can be more or less appropriate to them; 4.is a matter of deeds and circumstances as well as words.

Relations Between Recognition and Distribution Recognition confirmed or contradicted through distribution Struggles over distribution often about recognition But - In capitalism, distribution is largely independent of recognition – yet income and wealth often taken as a reflection of worth

‘Structural’ condescension and disrespect Attempts at equal recognition and treatment of others in the context of structural inequalities risk being seen as condescending downwards and disrespectful upwards Misrecognition and spurious egalitarianism Equal recognition requires equality of standing – in what people are able to do and be

Beyond Recognition and Distributive Justice ‘Contributive justice’*: What we are able/required/expected to contribute Work as a source of fulfilment, identity, satisfaction, recognition (or not!) *after Paul Gomberg (2007) How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell

Contributive Justice What we are allowed/required to do, rather than what we get Teams – everyone pulling their weight, no-one hogging the nice work (quantitative and qualitative) Housework: lacking in gendered division of domestic labour (and labour market) Not noticed in wider division of labour in employment except in terms of gender dimension

Contributive Justice Quantitative - everyone should contribute what they can, without unwarranted free- riding on others’ labour (unearned income) Qualitative – good and bad kinds of work should be shared out equally – no-one should be allowed to hog all the best work

Contributive Injustice (qualitative) Product of unequal division of labour Naturalised, or legitimised as economically efficient, or as response to inequalities of intelligence and ability The unequal division of labour itself frames how people (mis)judge contributive justice

The ‘Contributive Justice’ Argument 1.Many job seekers, few ‘good’ jobs Intergenerational transmission of inequalities >>habitus, adaptive aspirations 3.>>No genuine equality of opportunity>> for many, not worth competing for good jobs. 4.Good and bad quality tasks/jobs have to be shared by all to achieve equality of opportunity and contributive justice.

Popular attitudes to class inequality Need Desert Pro- greater equality but concern about contributive justice (while seeing unequal division of labour as natural) Naturalization/legitimation of unequal division of labour leads to support for unequal distribution

The return of the rentier class Able to draw unearned income on the basis of position or ownership without a contribution or function - from rent, interest, dividends – and capital ’functionless investor’ (Keynes), ‘class of parasites’ (Marx), ‘improperty’ (Tawney), ‘value-skimming’ (Williams et al) Value extraction by rentiers expanded under neoliberalism i.e. yet presented as ‘investment’ and ‘wealth creation’ >> i.e. undeserved distribution and undeserved recognition

Distributive justice again Arguments for distributive equality in the absence of contributive justice (I.e. unequal job quality) are unconvincing - invite objections of unfairness on desert grounds - the more skilled and responsible occupations should get more... The unequal division of labour as an engine of inequality – implications too idealistic?

Conclusions Equality of recognition (equal chances of conditional recognition, no structural supports for misrecognition) requires not only distributive justice, but contributive justice. Contributive injustice is a major source of inequality – legitimizes unequal distribution and recognition Neoliberal rentier as beneficiary of quantitative contributive injustice Idealised? Yes and no - contributive justice already a criterion in some spheres Important part of explanation of economic inequalities

Recognition Recognition important in relation to class as well as gender, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. Subtext of many distributional struggles Recognition, especially conditional recognition (i.e. for performance, contributions, skill, etc), as a class/gender/etc mediated response to the actual qualities of performance, etc. i.e. response to objective differences but distorted by social field

The Unequal Social Division of Labour* 1.‘Technical division of labour’ - Division of tasks within particular kinds of work producing goods, providing services 2.‘Social division of labour’ allocation of workers to tasks 3.‘Unequal social division of labour’ - good and bad tasks unequally distributed among workers * James B. Murphy 1993 The Moral Economy of Labour, Yale UP

Equality, Distribution and Recognition “equality is not, in the first instance, a distributive ideal [...] It is, instead, a moral ideal governing the relations in which people stand to one another.” (Scheffler, S.)

Gomberg’s basic argument (cont’d) 1.Many job seekers, few ‘good’ jobs >> complex work only possible for a minority 2.>>No genuine equality of opportunity, only ‘competitive equality of opportunity’ 3.Responses to this: For many, not worth competing for good jobs. Not worth training many for them. Intergenerational transmission of inequalities >>habitus, adaptive aspirations 4.Persistent class inequalities partly a product of scarcity of good jobs 5.Good, middling and poor quality work has to be shared by all to achieve equality of opportunity and contributive justice.