commensurating distributive and relational egalitarianism

Egalitarianism is a type of political theory focused on equality. Distributive egalitarian theory states that people should get the same amount of some specific thing(s), because everyone is equal. Relational egalitarian theory states that people should get the same amount of respect and ability to participate in democratic society as everyone else, again because everyone is equal. I will argue that these two theories are complementary theories, and that some versions of relational and distributive egalitarianism can be true accounts of justice at the same time.

Distributive egalitarianism itself has many forms, including John Rawls’ principles of justice as fairness, and luck egalitarianism. Proponents of both believe that people do not deserve their natural talents, the family they are born into, or genetic endowments, because it is sheer luck that they were born with them. Luck egalitarians specifically say that the primary goods attained by the lucky through these arbitrary factors should be distributed to the less lucky through some scheme. They specifically differentiate between brute luck, which is arbitrary luck that people were born with, and option luck, which are outcomes that are the result of people’s own choices. The former is compensated for, while the latter is not. Rawls’ principles, on the other hand, do allow for differences based on brute luck. His difference principle states that inequality which serves to benefit the least advantaged in society should be rewarded. In this case, well-being is defined as the amount of primary goods (rights, liberties, opportunities or wealth) one has. In general, this form of egalitarianism tries to end injustice created by nature, which is seen as undeserved and arbitrary.

Relational egalitarianism as defined by Elizabeth Anderson aims to equalize the relationships between individuals and to provide the basic capabilities necessary to avoid oppression and to function as equal citizens. Functioning as an equal citizen involves being able to engage in political society through voting or petitioning as well as being able to engage in civil society by attending schools, visiting parks, and generally being able to use other public facilities. Relational egalitarianism, unlike luck egalitarianism, does not discriminate against imprudent individuals. That is, people who make poor or rash decisions will be compensated. Anderson also encourages viewing the economy under relational egalitarianism as workers participating as equals under a system of cooperative production: every product of the economy is jointly produced by everyone working together.

Anderson gives us four features that define democratic equality. A society that can be said to be relationally egalitarian must not conflict with these features:

1. We must guarantee some goods that people should be able to access throughout their lives.
2. We must not use paternalism to justify the access to these goods, because it is insulting to citizens.
3. A solution for an injustice should match the type of injustice.
4. We should not discriminate against the imprudent or those with bad option luck.

It is easy to see that relational egalitarianism directly comes into conflict with luck egalitarianism. By definition, luck egalitarianism discriminates against those with bad option luck by not compensating them. This goes against (4). Other schemes of distributive justice, such as starting-gate theories, oppose (1). Starting-gate theories provide an initially equal distribution of resources to all citizens, but do not ensure this equal distribution over the course of their lives. We must create a distributive theory that is not founded on the basis of luck egalitarianism or starting-gate theories.

In order to prove that we can have a society that is both distributively and relationally egalitarian, we can come up with a scheme of distribution on top of the relational egalitarian principles that Anderson has outlined for us. If we can show that this scheme of distributive justice is truly a distributive egalitarian theory, and that it does not conflict with any of Anderson’s principles, we have shown that the theories are compatible.

Let us define a scheme of redistribution of wealth somewhat similar to Rawls’ difference principle. Let’s say that excess money refers to the amount of money greater than that which they need to pursue their basic capabilities on some basis (we can arbitrarily say monthly). If I have $1000 to spend this month, and I need to spend $800 of it on food, water, electricity, gas, and other absolute necessities, then I can say I have $200 of excess money for this month. Now imagine a metric that defines the amount of happiness one can attain solely from the amount of excess money they have, and call this the happiness from excess. I will state without further argument that someone with $1000 will attain considerably less happiness from excess than someone with $1M, because the former only has $200 to spend on lavish expenses, other hobbies, and a safety net of emergency money while the latter has much more, which brings happiness in the form of being able to pursue more hobbies and have some amount of monetary security. On another note, someone with $1B will probably have about the same amount of happiness from excess than someone with $2B. This is because there are diminishing returns with the amount of money you can reasonably spend and derive happiness from in a given time period (in this case, one month). My system of distributive justice involves the redistribution of excess money to those with the lowest happiness from excess. This is clearly a distributive egalitarian theory because it seeks to equalize something on the basis that everyone has equal moral worth.

There is one big possible objection to the scheme itself: what if the person with $200 excess money has very low cost hobbies while the person with much more excess money has expensive hobbies? Wouldn’t this mean that the person with less can derive more happiness? This may be true, however, my response to this is similar to Anderson’s response to the question of what to do if someone does not want to be taxed for healthcare. She says that everyone will be taxed for it because the government sees it as a citizens’ moral right to receive aid in an emergency. Similarly, everyone’s excess money may be redistributed because the government sees it as a moral right to have a certain amount of excess money, regardless of whether an individual sees it as increasing their happiness from excess.

Now that we have shown that my happiness from excess redistribution scheme is a distributive theory, we must show that it does not conflict with Anderson’s four features of relational egalitarianism. It is compatible with (1) because it doesn’t impede the ability to access goods throughout one’s life, and we can include happiness from excess as one of these goods. (2) implies that the government cannot value happiness from excess due to paternalistic reasons. As I have defined it, happiness from excess can be seen as a necessary good to achieve the basic capability to pursue hobbies and interests that can bring you closer to people in civil society. This is not paternalistic. Rather, it hinges on the belief that as relational equals, we deserve the moral right to pursue our hobbies. Both (3) and (4) are unrelated with my scheme of distribution, so they are compatible with it as well. So, it is possible to impose redistribution according to happiness from excess on top of Anderson’s society of democratic equality, meaning that distributive and relational egalitarianism can both define a just society at the same time.

If we assume that relational and distributive egalitarianism are always in conflict, we can always only have one or the other, which is unproductive. If we decide upon solely a relational egalitarian society, we rely on widespread education that teaches people to view each other as equals, and erecting structures that incentivize abolishing oppression or hierarchy. This takes time and resources to do, and while necessary, there are people suffering from the effects of oppression right now. For example, Black folks suffer from structural oppression which leads to unemployment and an overall lack of resources. If distributive egalitarianism is not in conflict with relational egalitarianism, we could distribute and equalize resources so that people who suffer from this oppression can be helped right now while also striving for a world with relational equality. On the other hand if we decide on a solely distributive egalitarian society, we can redistribute resources, but we will not be able to address the underlying social causes of inequality and oppression. Only with both can we help individuals get by in the present day as well as abolish oppression in the future.