| Daniel Dorling, The Policy Press, 2010, 400 pages, £19.99. |
| Daniel Dorling’s Injustice aims to ‘re-define’ our understanding of
why injustice exists and how it is reinforced over time. The book is
passionate and written as a rallying cry to the masses to agitate for
greater redistribution of power and resources in society. The question
of course is why the masses don’t do that already, but that brings us to
Dorling’s central argument. |
| According to Dorling, although the developed world has become
richer, people continue to live in unjust world largely due to ignorance
rather than conspiracy by the rich. At the heart of this new injustice
is extreme social inequality, with the rich (supported by a band of
economists) continuing to propagate social inequality through state
machinery. They are able to get away with this because society at large
continues to hold certain sets of beliefs that are aligned against
positive social change. Over the ages these beliefs have taken many
forms but in the modern era they have evolved into five new ‘modern
evils’ of elitism, exclusion, prejudice, greed and despair. Crush these
beliefs through books like his and we are on our way to a fairer and
more just world. |
| The evidence presented is undoubtedly weighty. On every page
statistic after statistic shows just how unequal society is, or more
specifically the UK and USA. Through the unfolding pages we learn that a
seventh of children today are unfairly labelled as delinquents. We also
discover that a sixth of households are excluded from social norms. As
if that’s not enough there’s the shocking revelation that a fifth of
people find it difficult or very difficult to get by due to prejudice.
Equally worrying is that in rich countries where there’s clearly enough
for all, a quarter of people in these societies still do not possess the
essentials. We also learn that despite the opulence of ‘western’
economies, a third of people are now living in families where someone is
suffering from mental ill-health. |
| Such inequality of course matters and it is necessary to question
whether it is acceptable let alone sustainable. Unfortunately, the
question of sustainability is not explicitly discussed and when it comes
to the issue of acceptability, this is where Injustice is weakest. The
book is missing a clear analytical framework that properly anchors
‘social inequality’ to ‘injustice’. The author takes it for granted that
where deep social inequality exists there must be injustice. This is a
poor foundation for social change, especially in a field where much of
the literature already demonstrates that justice does not necessarily
imply equality. There are many outcomes which involve unequal outcomes
in terms of distribution that are morally considered just. The absence
of ‘injustice’(or existence of justice) must consider other aspects such
as exogenous rights, rewards and compensation. Injustice does not
sufficiently engage with alternative ideas or even contrasting evidence.
|
| Equally worrying is that even accepting the central argument of the
book, there remains the vital question of how one begins to bring about
meaningful equality, and indeed whether it is sustainable. Injustice’s
answer is that we need to educate the masses on the evils of injustice
through small steps. There are also suggestions that we should live more
in villages and other strange notions. |
| One is left to conclude that although Injustice paints an
informative picture of the level of social inequality in the developed
world, the lack of a coherent philosophical framework and insufficient
balance in the book’s critique mean it does not offer anything new
beyond interesting statistics. |
Chola Mukanga
Founder, The Zambian Economist,
http://www.zambian-economist.com |