Constructiing inequalities

In addition to constructing sources of power, discourses can also construct inequalities. A lot of people see the world as an unequal place in one manner or another, or that it is not inherently fair (sometimes as a justification of inequalities, and sometimes as the reasoning that we should work to improve conditions to increase fairness). However, concepts like "inequality" and "fairness" are also the constructions of various discourses, and I want to examine that idea here.

Difference

People in the world have differences to each other. This seems relatively straightforward. Some people are taller and others shorter, some have a higher pain tolerance than others, some have fewer arms or legs, some are better at maths or drawing, people are born in different locations around the world, and so on. Sometimes this means that some people are better at performing particular tasks than other people are.

I want to emphasise here that what I've described is difference, and not inequality. This is just a note that we really have to admit that not everyone is the same, but it in-and-of-itself does not carry a further implication than that. However, we often construct inequalities out of these differences, and I'll try and explain how.

Applying a standard or measure

First we pick something to be a standard or a measure. For example, we could pick a sport like the 100m sprint. In this sprint, everyone who is participating starts at the starting line, starts running at the same time, and aims to cross the 100m mark. The measure we use for success in the 100m sprint is speed: how fast can someone get over the line, and who can get over the line the fastest?

Alternatively, we can imagine a standard for writing English that includes various spelling and grammar rules. When a student submits an assessment or someone applies for a job, this standard is used to gain an understanding of their proficiency in something like clear communication.

I'm not here suggesting that these things are necessarily arbitrary - there are contexts where there is a distinct benefit in running fast, and there are contexts where everyone agreeing on the same rules for written communication can make life much easier, and these measures and standards are in some way drawn from these ideas. On the other hand, there are probably some arbitrary aspects to each. Why 100m and not 110m? Why is the 100m more famous than the 200m? Why is "mirror" and not "mirrer" or "mirreur"? But in any case, in the context of a competition or clear communication, it can be helpful to have some distinct standards and measures.

These standards and measures are then used to justify different treatment of different people. For example, people who cross the 100m mark the fastest out of a given group are given a reward, while people who don't spell things according to the standard are perhaps rejected from a job or denied a certificate. And there is some utility for this, because perhaps the job is about clear communication and this process allows us to select people for that job who can use this standard of clear communication.

Consequences of applying a standard or measure

However, once we apply these standards and measures to some group of people to treat them differently, we've constructed an inequality. The different treatment of people in relation to the standard or measure is what constitutes the inequality. So, some people are faster than others, which is a difference, but some people can win more prizes than others, which is an inequality. Some people are better communicators than others, which is a difference, but some people are more employable than others, which becomes an inequality.

This isn't to say that all inequalities are bad. Whether something is bad or not is the subject of some discourse about what we should value. For example, a democratic discourse might ideally say that all votes should be counted equally and that it would be bad otherwise, but might also say that every candidate getting an equal number of votes would be bad, because it stops people from expressing their preferences and doesn't choose the most appropriate person for the job.

Constructing inequalities from "equality"

Some inequalities are constructed from discourses that specifically focus on equality. In these cases, there is a measure that is applied with an assumption that the people or things to which it applies are all the same in some aspect. However, if that assumption is wrong - and it almost always is - then the result is an inequality. Here are three examples: one democratic, where people are given equal voting power despite having fundamentally different issues and contexts; one legal, where the law applies equally despite different contexts; and one economic, where there is an assumption that people should be able to labour.

Democracy and equality

In a democracy, the idea is that every person has equal voting power - that is, that each vote counts the same. The logic of this equality is that no one has any more right to make decisions about society than anyone else, and to prevent things like tyrannies and hierarchies and oppression.

One common objection to this democratic logic is the idea of "the tyranny of the majority", which is when a majority of people get to make decisions that affect a minority of people who disagree. For example, if more people live in big cities than rural areas, and everyone gets one vote, then city people will get to make decisions for people in rural areas because they'll always form the majority. In addition to geographical minorities, there can also be ethnic minorities, and minorities of people who experience particular disadvantages, whether to do with history or health. There also people who fall at the intersections of various issues or various disadvantages, who might be a minority within a minority.

There are already a lot of strategies that respond to this. Sometimes electoral districts are carved up in particular ways to offset geographic issues. Think about the US Senate, which has an equal number of representatives from each state, regardless of population; the people in lower population states effectively have votes that count "more" than those of higher population states. There are countries which have specially allocated seats for ethnic minorities, or other forms of recognition that these groups would otherwise never have the voting power to influence decisions over their conditions. There are also more radical proposals, such as to give equal votes to different worldviews or issues rather than equal votes to people.

Law and equality

The "rule of law" is an idea that no one should be exempt from the law, and that it should apply to everyone the same, regardless of status, wealth or position. Everyone should be treated equally by the law. One of the primary assumptions here is that everyone is roughly equally capable of exercising personal responsibility to understand and comply with the law.

There are at least two issues that cause inequalities here. The first is that some laws, when applied equally, affect people in certain contexts more than others. The other is that not everyone is able to be equally responsible about complying with the law.

The first is well-expressed by Anatole France:

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.

Someone without a house is going to have a difficult time complying with a law about homelessness, whereas someone with a house (or with multiple houses) is going to have a much easier time, despite the fact that the law treats them "equally". There are also issues with the difference of motivations (such as lacking food). Moreover, some laws have fines as their consequence, which is not an issue for wealthy people but can be devastating for poor people, meaning that wealthier people are able to break the law with fewer real consequences and might be more likely to feel that they can do it. They are also able to engage expert lawyers and tie up court cases for long periods of time.

For the second, while it might be a convenient assumption that everyone is equally capable of exercising moral agency, there is a lot of evidence that this isn't the case - that different people have different cognitive abilities, impulse control, responses to addiction, mental health contexts, education and upbringing, and so on. Where the law assumes that there is a standard level of agency that people are able to exercise, people are far more varied.

Legal systems and legislation do, in many cases, account for these factors. There is the ability for judges to apply discretion, there are carve-outs in legislation for people in certain circumstances, and there is, in the extreme cases, recognition of a lack of agency due to insanity. There are also ways to account for wealth inequality affecting legal equality, such as fines that scale in relation to income.

Economics and inequality

The main assumption in economic equality is that people have equal ability to work and roughly equal personal conditions, and therefore it is a matter of their personal decision-making about where and when they will work and what they will spend their money on. This is the basis of any thinking about the market system being fair (though, to be fair to market advocates, this is not always the reason for supporting such a system).

This obviously isn't the case, however. Some people cannot work, or cannot work as much as others. Different people excel at different types of work, which will not always necesarily be in demand. And different people have different needs, such as the need for particular medication.

Again, as with the other constructed inequalities, there is some recognition of this, which is why governments often provide welfare to various classes of people who cannot work or subsidise particular goods such as medicine. Market systems construct inequalities that mean not all people can have their needs attended to, whereas other systems (and I propose a type of non-reciprocal gifting economy), would not construct such inequalities, which is suggestive of the idea that they are optional.

In fact, each of these inequalities is recognised in some manner, and "patched up" in some way, existing in tension with the over-arching discourse of equality that constructed them in the first place.