Mike Konczal (the indispensable Rortybomb) thinks that people need to think more about non-economic forms of inequality. (I happen to agree, but my college degree was in anthropology, so I might be biased; Konczal, on the other hand, is an economist and finance wonk.) He quotes Will Davies, who suggests using the theories of political philosopher Michael Walzer as a starting point:
Walzer's argument, very simply, is that there are multiple spheres of inequality in any society. The task is not to eradicate them, but to ensure that none trumps or determines all of the others. So, for example, political contests cannot become dictated by economic contests (which is where the US most conspicuously fails), or vice versa.
Theoretically, I get how this is appealing -- sort of a system of sociological checks and balances. But I just can't picture how Walzer (or Davies) imagines it working. The problem is that "social goods" (or, to put it another way, forms of social power) aren't as easy to separate as they might seem.
Let's look at the example above, regarding political versus economic contests, which Konczal rephrases as: "That one is successful in the economic realm shouldn't allow them to be successful in the political realm through their economic success." But what would it take, in 2011 America, to decouple those? McCain-Feingold would have to be reinstated and self-financed candidates banned, to tackle the most obvious intrusion of money into politics. And Richard Shelby wouldn't be able to write regulatory policies "to serve the banks."
But the power that comes with "economic success" extends beyond money. It includes a bundle of normative judgments about a person's strengths -- things like "leadership," "efficiency," "vision," etc. -- and the assumption that those must be more important than other strengths, like "diplomacy" or "humility." Cathie Black took the helm at New York City Public Schools without any background in education just because she was a "superstar manager." (Those were the words of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaking of turning economic success into political success.) In this case, turning "economic power" into "political power" doesn't involve the use of money: It involves creating a set of norms about whose experience should be valued (career executives who turn to civil service) and whose shouldn't (career civil servants, likely to be in public-sector unions). Those norms have influence far beyond New York City Public Schools.
I suspect the reason people don't talk about non-economic inequality is because it's difficult to isolate any single form of it. This doesn't mean it's unimportant, but it means it's difficult to change.
-- Dara Lind
