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The Welfare State and Two Conflicting Ideals of Equality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Albert Weale
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Extract

THE WELFARE STATE IS WIDELY THOUGHT TO HAVE SOME connection with the ideal of equality. But what is the nature of that connection and what is the relevant sense of equality? The purpose of this paper is to identify two conflicting ideals of equality and to discuss their im lications for the political label these ideals ‘equality of welfare’ and ‘equality of resources’, though I shall define them somewhat differently from Dworkin. The conclusion I shall seek to establish is that both ideals have a place in our thinking about the welfare state, and that this is no accident. Both ideals may be traced back to competing conceptions of the person, each of which has a firm place in what may be broadly termed liberal thought.

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Articles
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Government and Opposition , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1985 , pp. 315 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1985

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References

1 See, inter alia, Crosland, C.A.R., The Future of Socialism, London, Jonathan Cape, 1964 ed., p. 85 Google Scholar; Le Grand, Julian, The Strategy of Equality, London, Allen & Unwin, 1982 Google Scholar; Tawney, R.H., Equality, London, Allen & Unwin, 1964 ed., ch. 4Google Scholar; Tobin, James, ‘On Limiting the Domain of Inequality’, Journal of Law and Economics, 13:2, 1970, pp. 263–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I have been encouraged to think about the different senses that the ideal of equality can take by the work of Rae, Douglas, in particular, ‘Two Contradictory Ideals of (Political) Equality’ Ethics, 91:3, 1981, pp. 451–56 and Equalities, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1981 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I should like to take this opportunity of acknowledging Rae’s work in revealing to me the one‐sidedness of my earlier monism in Equality and Social Policy, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978.

2 Dworkin, Ronald, ‘What is Equality? Part 1: Equality of Welfare’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10:3, 1981, pp. 185–246; ‘What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10:4, 1981, pp. 283–345Google Scholar.

3 Compare Goodin, Robert E., ‘Freedom and the Welfare State: Theoretical Foundations’, Journal of social Policy, 11:2, 1982, p. 151 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See, inter alia, Le Grand, Juhn, The Strategy of Equality and Wilensky, Harold L., The Welfare State and Equality, Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press, 1975 Google Scholar.

5 Varian, Hal, ‘Distributive Justice, Welfare Economics and The Theory of Fairness’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 4:3, 1975, pp. 223–47Google Scholar.

6 Compare Furniss, Norman and Tilton, Timothy, The Case for the Welfare State, Bloomington and London, Indiana University Press, 1979 Google Scholar; Reich, Charles, ‘The New Property’, Yale Law Journal, 73:5, 1964, pp. 733–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Weale, Albert, Political Theory and Social Policy, London, Macmillan, 1983, pp. 61–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Freeden, Michael, The New Liberalism, Clarendon, Oxford, 1978, pp. 143–45Google Scholar.

8 MacIntyre, Stuart, Social Justice in Australia, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, forthcomingGoogle Scholar. I am grateful to Stuart MacIntyre for allowing me to see this work in typescript.

9 Coleman, J.S. et al Equality of Educational Opportunity, Washington D.C., US Dept of Health Education and Welfare, 1966 Google Scholar.

10 For a discussion of these difficulties, and others, see: Mosteller, Frederick and Moynihan, Patrick Daniel (eds), On Equality of Educational Opportunity, New York, Random House, 1972 Google Scholar; Madaus, George et al., ‘The Sensitivity of Measures of School Effectiveness’, Harvard Educational Review, 49:2, 1979, pp. 207–30Google Scholar.

11 See the ‘Black Report’ as published in Townsend, Peter and Davidson, Nick, Inequalities in Health, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1982 Google ScholarPubMed.

12 See Maynard, Alan, ‘The Inefficiencies and Inequalities of the Health Systems of Western Europe’ in Loney, Martin et al, Social Policy and Social Welfare, Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1983, pp. 197–212 Google Scholar.

13 See Halsey, A.H. , Origins and Destinations, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1980 Google Scholar.

14 blonde, Marc, A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians, Ottawa, Information Canada, 1975 Google Scholar; McKeown, T., The Modem Rise of Population, London, Edward Arnold, 1976 Google Scholar.

15 Locke, John, The Second Treatise of Government, in Locke, John, Treatises of Government, ed., Laslett, Peter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963, sect. 27Google Scholar.

16 I borrow the example from Rae, , ‘Two Contradictory Ideals of (Political) Equality’, p. 451 Google Scholar.

17 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, London, Oxford University Press, 1972, p. 312 Google Scholar.

18 I should like to thank participants at the Government and Opposition conference on the welfare state for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. Revisions were made during my period as Visiting Fellow at the Social Justice Project in the Research School of the Social Sciences, Australian National University. I am grateful to members of the Project, and also to Philip Pettit, for comments on the argument.