This debate on inequality as a human rights issue has so far focused on the instrumental importance of human rights to inequality and vice versa, rather than on the intrinsic value of equality as a human rights norm. While Samuel Moyn argues that the human rights regime and movement have little to contribute as means to combat inequality, Philip Alston, Juan Pablo Jiménez, Radhika Balakrishnan and James Heinz argue that inequality obstructs the realization of human rights. Yet it is in articulating equality as a valuable social norm—and inequality as an injustice—that human rights theorists and practitioners can make a vital contribution to these contemporary social and political debates.
Social attitudes on inequality are a critical factor in the politics of change. Unless inequality is seen as a problem, there would be no support for redistributive measures. Is inequality bad? How much inequality is acceptable? Few would argue for a completely egalitarian society. Inequality that results from differences in effort and ability is just reward, and provides necessary incentive for hard work. At what point does public opinion turn to find inequality “excessive” or “extreme”? Surveys show wide variation across countries and individuals on attitudes towards inequality as a problem.
Research on tolerance for inequality has approached the issue as individual grievances over one’s relative income position in the framework of Rational Choice Theory and not as an ethical issue and a social concern. Key economic theories (e.g., the median voter theorem, or Hirschman’s “tunnel effect”), built on the assumption of the self-interested individual, theorize that attitudes towards inequality and support for redistribution depend on an individual’s position in the overall income/wealth distribution, and tolerance depends on whether s/he feels aggrieved by this position, either at a given point of time or in terms of future mobility. Intolerance for inequality would likely rise with increase in the level of inequality. Yet research has not found much empirical evidence to support these propositions.
