Legitimating Inequality: Fooling Most of the People All of the Time

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. (Marx 1846: 172) A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind. (Keynes 1926: 11) Introduction Over the three decades leading up to the crisis of 2008, inequality significantly increased in most countries, and did so dramatically in the United States and Great Britain. (1) What stands out, but is seldom noted, is that this occurred within democracies where the relative losers--the overwhelming majority--could in principle have used the political system to block or reverse rising inequality. Why did they not do so? Two ready hypotheses are: Heightened inequality is in fact in the majority's best interest and this is well understood. Or, the majority is being hoodwinked. The first hypothesis is difficult to defend. Research demonstrates that beyond some level necessary to bring forth economic incentives, greater inequality correlates with lessened economic dynamism (Alesina and Rodrik 1994: Easterly 2002; Persson and Tabellini 1992; Garrison and Lee 1992); with poorer public health and shortened longevity (Marmot 2004; Wilkinson and Pickett 2006, 2007; Subramanian and Kawachi 2004); with greater racial and ethnic tensions and higher crime rates (Kelly 2000; Fajnzylber, Lederman, and Loayza 2002); with lessened social mobility (Jantti et al. 2006; d'Addio 2007); and with a weakening of democracy (Bostany 2006; Phillips 2002; Wolin 2008). As for the second hypothesis, that people are hoodwinked, a glance at history reveals that peoples have only very infrequently contested inequality. And when they have done so, it was generally in the wake of dramatically worsened conditions for the less-privileged. Class or other group-based inequality can be maintained by either physical or ideological force. (2) Physical force has often been necessary for initially establishing and solidifying a hierarchical social structure. However, brute force is relatively inefficient in that it generates strong resentment and-the constant threat of insurrection. It is also costly in terms of policing resources. A far more efficient and effective long-run strategy is for the elites to generate an ideological system that convinces "both themselves--and more important, members of subordinate groups--of the moral and intellectual legitimacy of the existing social order" (Sidanius et al. 2001: 309). (3) Subordinates must be led to believe that their inferior status in terms of income, wealth, and privilege is as it must be. Since the rise of civilization, such ideological systems have legitimated societies' distribution of income, wealth, and privilege. (4) This hoodwinking concerning inequality has been a major sub-story of human history. During most of this history, religion played the major role in legitimating inequality. With the rise of capitalism, and secular society generally, economics, wearing the mantle of science, came to do so.s This article surveys the manner in which inequality historically has been legitimated, first by religion, then by economic science. The argument is not that all legitimation of inequality has been by religion and economic science, but that these two thought domains have been predominant. Arguments grounded in race, ethnicity, and gender have also been common. The article concludes with a reflection on what might be necessary for inequality to be seriously put into question, on what would delegitimate the legitimation of inequality. Traditional Societies and Religious Legitimation During over 95 percent of our species' existence, when humans survived as hunters and gatherers and then early agriculturalists, there was relative equality in material and social terms. …