Thursday 5 February 2015

Inequality is Not the Issue



In my recent post Minimum Wage: Good or Bad?, I concluded that “increased minimum wages will, no doubt, benefit those who remain employed, these benefits come at the cost of putting people out of work”. That post generated a number of questions concerning wage determination e.g. “why, biblically, is it fair for persons in certain professions to end up earning twice as much as those in other professions that work just as hard and require the same amount of education?” In this post, I begin to examine a few biblical givens concerning income determination[1] and hope, in the future, to draw on that to say a few words about wage determination. I’ll start with looking at the issue of equality/ inequality—an issue that seems to be at the forefront of discussion again. In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama, for example, signaled that income inequality will be his domestic focus during the remainder of his term in office.

Distributive Justice

Income inequality is, in fact, a matter of distributive justice--how society's benefits and burdens are to be fairly divided. That, at least according to some, is what economic justice is all about[2]. A Lutheran Church statement, for example, states:

Economic justice denotes the fair apportioning of resources and products, of opportunities and responsibilities, of burdens and benefits among the members of a community. It includes the provision for basic human need, fair compensation for work done, and the opportunity for the full utilization of personal gifts in productive living[3] .

The fundamental principle of distributive justice, according to Velasquez[4], is that equals should be treated equally and unequals, unequally. Or, more formally:

Individuals who are similar in all respects relevant to the kind of treatment in question should be given similar benefits and burdens, even if they are dissimilar in other irrelevant respects; and individuals who are dissimilar in a relevant respect ought to be treated dissimilarly. 

This principle is similar to the apostle Paul's exhortation in Romans 13:7 to "render to all what is due them" (RSV)[5]. The question is, however, "what is due to each person?" In terms of Velasquez definition, "what are the relevant respects, the criteria that must be considered?" There are several different views as to which criterion should be employed. In the future I hope to deal with the concepts of contribution, need and opportunity. In this post, I begin with considering economic equality.

Equality

 One view of distributive justice, egalitarianism, stresses equality. It holds that every person should be given exactly equal shares of society's benefits and burdens. That is, there are no relevant respects that would justify different income distributions. In today's society there may be few who would hold to strict egalitarianism. However, the focus on inequality between the top and bottom segments of society does have strong egalitarian tendencies--a striving towards income-levelling--"a lawnmower that ensures that incomes become as equal as pos­sible so that no blade of grass can continue to exalt itself above the others"[6]. Is such striving a matter of biblical justice?

I recognize, of course, that all people are, in principle, of equal worth or value as image-bearers of God. Relating equal worth to the concept of image-bearer makes this point of departure fundamentally different from the sociali­stic equality concept which focuses only on people and their inter-relationships[7]. The implication of this "image-bearer" principle is that:

No one has, on the basis of "natural status" (race, sex, birth), special privileges over another. Therefore, income differences that are based only on differences in sex, race, nationality, birth, tradition, power, respect, relationship or age should be rejected.

While being of equal worth before God implies equal access to the law, it does not, necessarily, lead to economic equality, equality of outcome--as, for instance, in equal net income after tax. In fact, we must recognize that God has created people different and unequal. Inequality in aptitude and performance results in different distributions. As Douma has noted[8]:

Just as there are differences in the splendour of the sun, moon and stars (1 Cor. 15: 41ff), so there are differences among people, even when they will live on a new world with God. Also there, the one will show more lustre than another (Dan. 12:3) and the reward of one will be greater than the other (Luke 19:16ff; 1 Cor. 3:12ff). Why then would it--speaking generally--be wrong that in our existing relationships there are differences in income?

Griffiths[9], similarly, points to "the basic differences that exist in creation" as the Christian starting point:

One person differs from another in appearance, personality, energy, temperament and ability. The fact of economic differences between people is not defended but assumed in the New Testament. In the parable of the talents...our Lord makes no attempt to justify the initial unequal distribution of talents.

He quite rightly notes, however, that not all inequalities are just. "Inequality which results from exploitation, violence and corruption is inimical to a Christian world-view".

Advocates of equality sometimes refer to 2 Cor. 8:13,14:


Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality.

Grudem[10], however, notes that the word translated here as equality (isotes) is better translated as "fairness". It is used in that sense in the only other time it is used in the New Testament (Col. 4:1). In addition, Grudem argues that Paul was not here asking the wealthy Corinthians to divide their possessions equally with the poor Jerusalem Christians. Rather, the focus appears to be on meeting need rather than on equality. Moreover, Vickers has noted[11] that in 2 Corinthians we find a directive to the church as church--not to society at large.

Overall then, Biblical distributive justice does not mean an equal sharing of all goods. In fact, a striving for economic equality may well be anti-scriptural--motivated by the sin of envy, of jealousy[12]. When the landowner in the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matth. 20:1:16) chooses to pay all his workers equally, he responds to the complaints of those who worked longest with "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?".

Justice and the Poor


That is not to say that Christians should not be concerned for the poor or that government should not be.  Biblical texts such as Jer. 22:3,15; Ps. 82, make clear that caring for the "weak"--the poor, the widow, the stranger--is an important aspect of biblical justice[13]. As the Oxford Declaration notes:

(Par. 38) In Biblical passages which deal with the distribution of the benefits of social life in the context of social conflict and social wrong, justice is related particularly to what is due to groups such as the poor, widows, orphans, resident aliens, wage earners and slaves...One essential characteristic of Biblical justice is the meeting of basic needs that have been denied in contradiction to the standards of scripture.
Biblical justice is very closely related to Neighbour-love as Deut. 10:17-19, for example, makes explicit:

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords..He defends the cause of [executes justice for] the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. 

Showing concern for the poor should not, however, be confused with seeking equality. David Brooks, in an article entitled “Don’t call it ‘income inequality’”, argued that so-called ‘inequality’ is caused by two different “constellations of problems.”[14]  In the U.S., at least, the growing wealth of top 5 percent of workers is, according to him, “linked to things like perverse compensation schemes on Wall Street, assertive mating (highly educated people are more likely to marry each other and pas down their advantages to their children), and the superstar effect (a few superstars in each industry can reap global gains while the average person cannot). At the bottom, on the other hand, there is “a growing class of people stuck on the margins, generation after generation. This is caused by high dropout rates, the disappearance of low-skill jobs, breakdown in family structures and so on.” 

However, the growing affluence of the rich is not related to the marginalization of the poor[15]. Reducing inequality by taxing the rich does not automatically help the poor. The economy is not a pie of fixed size so that someone can get a bigger slice only if someone else gets a smaller one. The economy, unlike the pie, can grow. Focussing on inequality introduces class conflict. Instead, Brooks argues, we should all focus on creating opportunity and social mobility; on individual and family aspiration, not class-consciousness.

A lot more needs to be said on the causes and solutions of the poverty problem. Let us, as Christians, focus on that instead of reinforcing the focus on inequality. Inequality is not the issue; poverty is!

Related Posts

Minimum Wage: Good or Bad?


[1]. We are concerned here with the general notion of income distribution. That is not the same as income determination. Income distribution refers to the allocation of net income received by everyone after taking account of all taxes and transfers from others including the government. Wage determination deals with establishing the gross payment to be made between employers and employees. We hope to deal with wage determination in the future.

[2]. For example, Beversluis in Bernbaum, p.26: "I use economic justice and distributive justice as synonyms".  
[3]. In Stackhouse, ed. p. 433. See also CPJ, Guidelines for Public Justice, which define Economic equity as "the right of all persons and communities to adequate access to the resources necessary for a full life, including access to worthwhile work, fair employment conditions and income-security provisions, and our communal responsibility to use such resources responsibly". 
[4]. Manuel G. Velasquez, Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases, Third Ed. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1992, p.91
[5].See Beisner, Prosperity, p.44,50 and in Schlossberg et. al. p.68
[6]. Douma, Vrede, p.149
[7]. See also Griffiths, 1989, p.37
[8]. ibid. p.142
[9]. 1984, p.78.79
[10]. in Chewning, Vol. 2, p.47
[11]. 1982, p.152; see also Beisner, 1988, p.69 for a detailed discussion
[12]. Douma, 1985, p.149; Beisner, 1988, 173
[13]. Cf. Pierard, in Chewning V.2, p.68 and Richard Chewning, John W. Eby, Shirley J. Roels, Business Through the Eyes of Faith, Christian College Coalition & Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1990, p.28ff
[14]  David Brooks, “Don’t call it ‘income inequality’”, National Post, Jan. 18, 2014, p. A22-reprint from the New York Times. 

[15] See also, Joe Carter, “What Every Christian Should Know About Income Inequality”, http://blog.acton.org/archives/65172-every-christian-know-income-inequality.html

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