SO478 - week 20
« Back to SO478These are my notes from March 06 for SO478 at the London School of Economics for the 2017-2018 school year. I took this module as part of the one-year Inequalities and Social Science MSc program.
The usual disclaimer: all notes are my personal impressions and do not necessarily reflect the view of the lecturer.
Public Policy and Inequality
Readings
- Inequality: What can be done?
- Good Times, Bad Times
- Oxfam’s Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2016
Lecture
John Hills
- compensating for the market (ie taxes: progressive, wealth, avoidance, inheritance, etc. but also benefits, assistance)
- (an overview of existing policies, nothing really new)
- random thoughts from this lecture while looking at graphs showing effects of increasing benefits on poverty headcount
- using the wrong tool? so invested in the current system, constantly trying to work within the system
- when you really need is to reimagine it entirely
- on the tax-free allowance and problems with that
- basically useless since it’s above poverty line
- and other problem with that is that it’s essentially a gift to the rich (unless you make it progressive)
- it’s ideological, disguised as a progressive measure
- tilting the market
- education/training
- regulating things like finance (socially useless, tobin tax)
- thought here: obvs everyone is offended by the idea that you can make so much money through slightly faster algorithmic trading etc but where do you stop? surely you have to take that to its logical conclusion & see the problems inherent in finance as a whole. moderation and being reasonable/sensible is just being irrational and unwilling to see the bigger picture
- workers’ rights (collective bargaining, min wage)
- govt investment in tech (defense, etc). market regulations, trade unions, etc
- he said something about pensions & how if you are expected to live longer (gender etc) you should pay more
- i get that he’s trying to make a point about regulating away discriminating behaviour, but that is actually the worst logic & just highlights the ideological bankruptcy of current discussions around pensions etc
- replacing the market
- decommodification
- expropriation
- pooled resources (utopia)
- revolution
- looking at graph of how much they receive vs how much they pay in:
- you’re already making a mistake by accepting the idea that income is fairly earned
- framing mistake, buying into that narrative
- “implication: mitt romney was wrong?” which is already ceding ground in terms of the moral debate - people literally only make the incomes they do because of other people
- me: have to be careful about uncritically accepting what people “want” governments to do about inequality, when the whole point of capitalist realism is that the majority of people are meant to not understand how things work
- spending a lot of time looking at graphs (over time, across countries) measuring attitudes towards redistribution etc. most of this is explaining exactly why this is a waste of time so why are we doing it??
- reasons for UBI:
- ends poverty trap + welfare stigma
- can address inequalities in social secrity provision (gender)
- empowers people to find better jobs
- tax robots?
- supporters: MLK, charles murray (and more recently: Silicon valley overlords)
- obvs things to think about: citizenship/immigration and how that works globally
- list of potential problems
- philip van parijs: surfers