Globalization and Inequalities

Complexity and Contested Modernities

Sylvia Walby, Author

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780803985186, 9780803985179
• eBook ISBN: 9781473903661
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

How has globalization changed social inequality? Why do Americans die younger than Europeans, despite larger incomes? Is there an alternative to neoliberalism? Who are the champions of social democracy? Why are some countries more violent than others?

In this groundbreaking book, Sylvia Walby examines the many changing forms of social inequality and their intersectionalities at both country and global levels. She shows how the contest between different modernities and conceptions of progress shape the present and future.

The book re-thinks the nature of economy, polity, civil society and violence. It places globalization and inequalities at the centre of an innovative new understanding of modernity and progress and demonstrates the power of these theoretical reformulations in practice, drawing on global data and in-depth analysis of the US and EU.

Walby analyses the tensions between the different forces that are shaping global futures. She examines the regulation and deregulation of employment and welfare; domestic and public gender regimes; secular and religious polities; path dependent trajectories and global political waves; and global inequalities and human rights.

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1	Introduction: Progress And Modernities

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Introduction

The future is contested. What are the implications of the different social models that might come into being? What is progress? Is it being richer, living longer, reduced inequality, or more human rights? What is modernity? Is modernity over, or is the project of modernity not yet completed? Social theory is challenged to take account of complex inequalities beyond class: how can they be included so that they are central, not marginal? Globalization challenges the notion of separate societies: how do global processes change social relations? What difference does the inclusion of complex inequalities and global processes make to the analysis and to social theory? What difference does the inclusion of complex inequalities make to our view as to what constitutes progress? The aim of this book is not only to produce better accounts of social change in a global era, but also to rethink core concepts and theories. A key aid here is the development of complexity theory.

‘Progress’ is an essentially contested project. There are vigorous disputes over what the proper goals of global policy should be, over the priorities for action by governments and international bodies. The meaning of ‘progress’ is far from obvious, ranging from economic development to human well-being, equality and human rights. Protagonists vigorously disagree about which is more important, with implications for the goals of global as well as national public policy. How are such contestations conducted? Are they so rooted in values that are so deeply held that to debate is a challenge to fundamental aspects of people and cultures, or are they amenable to rational scientific debate over priorities? In practice, even deeply held values are challenged by appeals to internal inconsistency and empirical evidence about their effects when implemented. This book aims to clarify the alternative framings of the notion of progress and to identify their implications. Does the evidence support or contradict deeply held convictions as to the best way forward? Which project emerges best, when subjected to social scientific Scrutiny?

Modernity has been a key concept in classic Sociology, used to address large-scale social transformation. The transition to modernity preoccupied many of the major social theorists, from Marx and Weber to Durkheim and Simmel. But is modernity still the best way to understand contemporary social relations? Or are we now living in a postmodern era? Challenges to the concept of modernity are aimed at its apparent assumption that there was a single unilinear process of development, and that it was good for everyone. Such a notion is clearly untenable, in view of the horrors of the descent into war and ‘ethnic cleansing’, the diversity of paths of development, and the uneven position of different social groups in the same country. Are we not yet modern, rather than postmodern, or are there multiple varieties of modernity?

Globalization is a challenge to social theory. It demands a re-thinking of the notion that there are societies constituted as separate bounded entities. It raises questions about the taken-for-granted equation of society and nation-state. Is globalization merely Westernization or Americanization, or does it hybridize all cultures, creating new commonalities? Is it eroding differences between cultures producing convergence? Globalization requires the analysis of new types of global processes, and the re-framing of many ostensibly local or national projects within a global landscape.

Social theory is challenged to address the multiplicity of social inequalities, not only that of class. The significance of diverse inequalities for social life is recognized, but building this insight into the core of social theory rather than remaining in specialist sub-fields has proved more difficult. Traditional social theory addressed class inequality, but had difficulty when trying simultaneously to address gender, ethnicity, age, religion, nation, sexual orientation, and disability, and even greater difficulty in addressing their mutual constitution at points of intersection. Further, these social relations are more complex than class in that they involve not only inequality but also difference, thereby problematizing notions of a single standard against which to judge inequality. The challenge then is to include intersecting complex inequalities within the core of social theory.

In order to insert globalization and complex inequalities into the heart of social theory it is necessary to develop new concepts and to rethink how theories are put together. There is a need both to capture the distinctions, differentiations and nuances of complex inequalities that have been part of what has been driving the postmodern turn, and to simultaneously keep the global horizon in sight. There is also a need to retain the conception of inter-linkages so as to be able to analyse the global level, while not falling into the mistaken simplicities of over-generalization across cultures. Developments in complexity theory offer a new vocabulary on which social theory can usefully draw in developing concepts to meet these new analytic challenges. These offer the opportunity to build a more complex theoretical framework that enables the theorization of both large-scale connections and of sudden ruptures and non-linear processes. Complexity theory enables the re-thinking of the concept of social system to address, without reductionism, multiple systems of social relations.

This chapter addresses first, the contested issue of what progress might be; second, the challenge of theorizing multiple complex inequalities simultaneously; third, the conceptualization of plural forms of modernity; fourth, the challenge of theorizing global processes; and fifth, the usefulness of complexity theory in addressing these challenges in social theory.

What is Progress?

More money or a longer life?

Is it better to have more money or to live longer? People in the United States of America have more money but die sooner than those in the European Union. Americans have over 40 per cent more income than these Europeans, but live on average for two years less (World Bank 2006c).

Is increasing income a measure of progress? Or is living longer a better indicator? There are different ways of thinking about progress, so how should they be evaluated?

What kind of social arrangements produce progress, however it is defined? Is it the greater freedom of the market in the USA as compared with greater state regulation in Europe? Is it the greater inequality in the USA as compared with Europe? Or the more violent nature of the USA than Europe?

The two divergent goals of money and longevity are associated with two quite different conceptions of progress. The first takes the economic, especially money, as an effective summary indicator of progress and of what is good and desirable; it is often used by national and international bodies of financial governance. The second is focused on the outcome for human well-being, of our capacities and capabilities, of which longevity is an indicator. Further, framings of progress include ‘equality’ and ‘human rights’. Indeed many social and political projects have their own distinctive accounts of what constitutes the best social arrangements to produce the ‘good life’.

Different social systems have different levels of success in converting economic resources into human well-being. The EU social system is more effective in this than the USA. It is the differences in social systems that are crucial to understanding the implications for individuals. The EU and US social systems link economic resources to human well-being in different ways as a result of differences in how their social systems have developed.

Different cultures prioritize different values. What is meant by progress and what are the preferred goals of public policy? Can there be a single notion of progress in the context of varying values? What kinds of social arrangements achieve progress?

Progress as a contested project

There is no simple answer to the question of what is progress. Rather, it is an essentially contested concept. Indeed, so contested that some will give up all hope that it is a useful project to engage with.

There are three main approaches to the concept and project of progress. First, that modernity is progress. For classical sociologists, analysing the transformation of society that is associated with industrialization and urbanism, modernity was progress, but a development that many saw as double-edged, with a down side as well (as discussed in the next section). A second response is to deny the usefulness of the concept and project of progress: it is too simple, falsely universalistic, and ethnocentric. Rather than a universal ‘one size fits all’, there are a potentially infinite number of particular ways of thinking about what constitutes the ‘good life’ and how to get there that are rooted in different cultures. A third position sees progress as a contested project: there are alternative conceptions, but not an infinite number; it exists as a notion that is highly contested; it is argued over in politics and policy, philosophy and theory, data, and analysis.

Within this third approach four key alternative goals of progress can be identified – economic development, equality, human rights, and human well-being – though there are others, including a respect for traditional or fundamental practices. The first is that human welfare is best advanced by economic growth and high levels of economic development. The second prioritizes equality. The third is human rights. The fourth has a focus on human well-being, which is more than just a high standard of living but includes education, health, and longevity.

These goals of progress are embedded in projects that are rooted in civil society. Sometimes these projects will become the foundation of governmental programmes. Finally, they may become embedded in practices in social formations. Today, two major competing projects claim in quite different ways to take forward some of these goals: neoliberalism and social democracy. They claim in varying ways to produce economic development, aspects of equality, human rights, and human well-being.

Economic development

The first framing of progress focuses on economic development and economic growth. Economic development is expected to increase the average income of a person and thereby their standard of living. While this approach appears to treat economic development as an end in itself, it usually rests on the implicit assumption that economic development is a means to the delivery of an improved standard of living and a further additional assumption that this is a popular policy goal. The higher the rate of economic growth, the faster will the standard of living increase. Improved economic performance is assumed to mean a more effective utilization of resources to deliver goods and services. The approach claims to be neutral as to the way in which this income is spent by people and regards this neutrality as positive. Economic growth and development is defended as the best approach to progress, on the basis that this constitutes an indication of the average standard of living of people in a country and that this is what people want because governments are repeatedly democratically elected on a mandate that prioritizes economic growth.

This approach to progress is embodied in many national finance ministries and in some parts of the global institutions of financial governance, such as the International Monetary Fund. It underpins the ‘Washington consensus’ on economic policy (Stiglitz 2002).

Within social science there is much debate as to the type of social arrangements that best deliver economic growth. A major focus of the discussion has been as to whether countries with the markets that are most ‘free’, or where markets are carefully regulated and subordinated to other social institutions, actually deliver on this. In particular, this involves analysing the contrasting nature and implications of different types of production, welfare, and regulatory regimes (Barro 1998; Hall and Soskice 2001; Kenworthy 2004). However, there are several challenges to this conceptualization of progress. These include whether untrammelled competition has social costs that need to be set against the benefits of rapid economic growth, and whether it leads to happiness (Oswald 1997; Layard 2005). Is human well-being, equality, or human rights more important?

Equality

An alternative approach to progress is viewed through the lens of justice. This approach prioritizes justice, equality, and human rights rather than material improvements in living conditions and welfare. Various traditions articulate this issue in slightly different ways, including: justice (Sandel 1998; Rawls 1999); equality (Phillips 1995; Holli 1997); rights (Paine 1984; Kymlicka 1991, 1995); human rights (Peters and Wolper 1995; Woodiwiss 1998); citizenship (Marshall 1950); equal opportunities and equity (Acker 1989; Shaw and Perrons 1995); freedom and capabilities (Sen 1999; Nussbaum 2000); democracy, political rights and civil liberties (Gastil 1982); and recognition (Taylor et al. 1994; Honneth 1996; Fraser 1997). While there are many approaches to the notion of progress that have a justice framing, it is possible to group many of them into two categories – equality and rights.

The framing of progress as equality is a key part of the socialist and social democratic tradition (Bobbio 1997). This is a more collective and less individualist framing of justice than the others, according less priority to the individual and more to groups and collectivities. There are variations within this frame including: whether equality is conceptualized as an opportunity or an outcome; which domains and practices are included; whether it is limited to ‘excessive’ inequality; and how difference is addressed.

Equality may be understood either as an outcome or as an opportunity. Equality of outcomes is the stronger programme; equality of opportunities addresses processes and procedures which may possibly, but not necessarily, lead to greater equality in outcomes. For example, the attempt to increase equality of opportunity by equal treatment laws may reduce discrimination but may also be insufficient to produce an equality of outcome in the absence of structural change (Hoskyns 1996). This equality of outcome usually requires the transformation of both social systems and legal processes.

The principle of equality is often selectively applied. This equality may be regarded as a legitimate outcome in matters of longevity, where class and ethnic differences are often considered unjust. It is more commonly discussed in the economic domain (for example, in the debates over narrowing the gender and ethnic pay gaps) than in civil society where diversity is more often preferred. Further, there are some issues for which equality is considered marginal rather than important (Phillips 1999). Some forms of inequality are regarded as illegitimate because they are ‘excessive’. For example, social exclusion and poverty may be regarded as unjust because they are extreme or ‘excessive’, but not inequality in all its forms; social exclusion is a weaker understanding of inequality (Lister 1998).

Inequalities are often complexly entwined with differences. There is a question as to whether equality requires sameness and the use of a single standard, or equal recognition and the valuation of different contributions, or a larger and more profound transformation (Fraser 1997; Rees 1998). The equal valuation of different contributions is a step away from traditional interpretations of equality that involve a single universal standard. The notion of cosmopolitanism requires mutual respect for different ways of life rather than the adoption of a single universal standard as to what is best (Held 2004; Beck 2006).

Equality is potentially the most radical of the framings of progress. In practice, its application as a principle is often hedged with caveats and limited to specific processes, domains, and practices.

Human rights

In the rights-based approach to justice, every individual is regarded as having inviolable rights, the realization of which constitutes a just society. Each person has an equal entitlement to a specific set of rights. The tradition is predominantly individualist, with the valuation of the rights of individuals positioned as more important than the average welfare of the society as a whole. It ranges from a relatively narrow focus on civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, and political rights, such as free elections (Gastil 1982), to a wider concept of citizenship, which involves socio-economic as well as political and civil rights (Marshall 1950). In its privileging of the individual over society, rights can be interpreted as representing a Western, rather than a universal or global, approach to justice, although this is contested (Woodiwiss 1998).

The notion of rights itself has several variants, including human rights and civil rights (Ferree et al. 2002a), though today human rights predominate in political discourse. There are many theoretical and philosophical interpretations of the longstanding rights-based tradition of justice (Banks 1981; Paine 1984; Wollstonecraft 1992 [1790]). According to Rawls (1999), justice is the overarching framework for all conceptions of progress and the first virtue of social institutions. He considers that each individual has an inviolability that overrides everything else, including the average welfare of the rest of society. Rawls’s approach to justice involves a rejection of utilitarian theory in which the justice of a larger number of people can outweigh the injustice and disadvantage of a few individuals. His approach requires that every individual receives the basics as an underpinning of justice. In this way Rawls’s ‘social contract’ approach to justice prioritizes an equal minimum level for all over the welfare of a whole society.

In the current wave of globalization, the human rights interpretation of justice is becoming increasingly important. This draws on a longstanding rights tradition (Banks 1981; Paine 1984; Wollstonecraft 1992 [1790]; Berkovitch 1999) as well as on some components of the equality framework (Peters and Wolper 1995; Woodiwiss 1998). The most important current statement on human rights is that issued by the UN after the end of the Second World War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948). This claim, endorsed by all governments in the world, states that these rights are in principle universal and not particular. However, this early UN statement on human rights has since been reinterpreted, extending and clarifying its content. The implementation of a rights-based (especially a human rights) approach to justice and progress is often made via a juridical framework. It is through the law, courts and lawyers that human rights are made available to individuals and groups of individuals.

Although there is a component of equality within the human rights approach, not least equality in accessing these rights since they are regarded as universal, this is a limited conception of equality. It is a minimalist and threshold conception – a relatively low threshold is set and must be passed. Beyond that, the framework has nothing to say.

However, the framing of human rights as universal and measured against a single standard is contested by notions of group rights, the equal valuation of different contributions, and by cosmopolitanism. Rights are not always and only linked to individuals: they may also be constituted as group rights, or as the right to a way of life, which intrinsically involves a group or community (Kymlicka 1991, 1995). This implicitly recognizes that the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Tables and Figures
• 1 Introduction: progress and modernities
• 2 Theorizing multiple social systems
• 3 Economies
• 4 Polities
• 5 Violence
• 6 Civil societies
• 7 Regimes of complex inequality
• 8 Varieties of modernity
• 9 Measuring progress
• 10 Comparative paths through modernity: neoliberalism and social democracy
• 11 Contested futures
• 12 Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index