On this episode of International Horizons, Francesco Duina, Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology at Bates College and Luca Storti, Associate Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Turin in Italy and a Research Fellow of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, discuss the rise of inequalities around the globe and the divergent attitudes towards them since 1970. How can those inequalities be broken down? 

In this week’s episode, Duina and Storti preview their book-in-progress on The Social Acceptance of Inequality, and they examine four types of logic leading us to accept inequalities in today’s world. Not surprisingly, the concept of meritocracy plays a major role in our thinking about contemporary inequality, although perhaps more so in the United States than in Europe.

TRANSCRIPT

John Torpey 

Ever since the publication of French economist Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the 21st Century, several years ago, we have seen much greater debate about the causes and consequences of inequality in the rich world.  One feature of this discussion has been the central role of the idea of “meritocracy” in the debate.  Some people object to inequality for various reasons, while others think inequality is a matter of people getting what they deserve based on the affort and talent that they demonstrate. So what’s going on?  My name is John Torpey, and I’m director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Welcome to International Horizons, a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute that brings scholarly and diplomatic expertise to bear on our understanding of a wide range of international issues. We’re fortunate to have with us today Francesco Duina, who is Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology at Bates College, and chair of the Social Sciences Division at Bates. Francesco has written or edited several books, including Institutions and the Economy by Polity Press in 2011. And more recently, a book called Broke but Patriotic: Why Poor Americans Love Their Country published by Stanford University Press in 2018. His most recent book is Standardizing the World: EU Trade Policy and the Road to Convergence published by Oxford University Press last year. His co-author is Luca Storti, who is Associate Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Turin in Italy. Luca has authored, co-authored and edited several books, including Ports, Crime and Security: Governing and Policing Seaports in a Changing World published by Bristol University Press in 2021, and Economies, Institutions and Territories: Dissecting Nexuses in a Changing World, published by Rutledge in 2022. Thanks for joining us today, Francesco Duina and Luca Storti.

Francesco Duina 

Thank you for having us.

Luca Storti 

Thanks, John, for having us.

John Torpey 

Great to have you. So first of all, since you’re working on a project, I guess it’s going to be a book on how people think about inequality, perhaps we could start by having you just tell us a little bit about what has happened in the world since around 1970 when it comes to economic inequality in the world. Not so long ago, commentators touted the reduction of global income inequality and the reduction of the size of the so called extremely poor in the world. So what has happened, and why should we be concerned?

Luca Storti 

Yeah, thanks so much, John, for having us. It’s a great pleasure to be here. As for your question, starting from the 70s, what has been defined as the “inequality turn” began, and the initial drivers of this shift were several economic policy choices made during the first wave of Neoconservatism under President Nixon in the US, for instance, Nixon’s decisions to end the Gold Standard monetary system led to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, altering the international economic landscape, and the strand, solidified during the second wave of Neoconservatism with Reagan in the US and Thatchter in the United Kingdom. In contrast, other European countries experienced a less linear path with an alternation between progressive and conservative governments, and political measures such as the reduction of the welfare state, decrease taxes on large wealth on corporations and on generational wealth transfer have increased economic inequalities. And this also shows how economic inequalities are not natural but rather politically constructed. Regarding the current situation, it is puzzling in three main respects. First, why there is a decrease in global inequalities has measured by the Gini index, predicting future trends is challenging, and depends on developments in countries such as China, India, and some South American and African nations. Second, inequalities between countries are decreasing but at the same time, internal inequalities within many countries are increasing. And third, there is a decrease in measures like absolute poverty but really often relative poverty increases, which means fewer people in some countries live below the subsistence thresholds than before, which is very significant, of course. However, the gap between social classes is widening. One of the most relevant phenomenon in this regard, is the growing concentration of private wealth  just to give you an example, with the 26 richest billionaires owning as much wealth in 2018, as the poorest half of the world’s population, around 4 billion people. And given this scenario, Francesco and I began to envision a project, which is going to be a book, we are editing a book, that would be that would precisely focus on the type and level of social acceptance of economic inequalities.

John Torpey 

I see. Okay, well, thanks for that background. So I want to hear more about this book and particularly, of course, about this issue that there are more inequalities in the recent past as you’ve described, but some people seem to like them, and others dislike them. So some even embrace these inequalities thinking they’re justified. And so that’s something I’d really be interested in hearing you talk more about. So I guess, Francesco wanted to answer the next question. So can you explain what’s going on in these divergent attitudes towards inequality?

Francesco Duina 

Yes, thank you. Thank you for having us. And indeed, the book, which we have titled, The Social Acceptance of Inequality… hopefully it comes out in 2025, starts from the assumption that not everyone dislikes these inequalities, the ones that look and described, and others as well economic inequalities. In fact, there are people, or groups of people, or sections of the population that are positively inclined towards these inequalities. So the number of these people isn’t huge but it is significant. So we have chapters to begin with that try to offer data in terms of who are they and how big is the slice of the population. So for instance, Lucy Barnes has the chapter where she examines data from 29 countries across the globe, and shows that about 10% of the population accepts or welcomes income inequalities. And 10% may not sound like a lot, but it is a significant amount but perhaps more importantly, she shows that the makeup of these people is rather varied whether you look at age, educational level, gender, or income groups even, in certain countries, it’s very high 60% of Chinese people by one measure, Cary Wu’s chapter is positively inclined. And in places like Sweden and Finland and the Scandinavian countries there too you see some relatively significant numbers. Now, what we do in the volume, we talked about four dominant ways in which this acceptance is constructed, if you will, four logics of acceptance. So, I just want to go through them a little bit, just to answer your question. And the first one is “the market economic logic”, that’s what we call it. And this these kinds of logics, see people accept or even approve of inequalities because of the positive material outcomes for societies or significant things, segments of the population with which they’re associated. So, this logic, you see actors accepts inequalities not because they’re necessarily good in themselves, but because they’re seen as externalities that result from dynamics that are deemed to be beneficial at large. The second set of logics, we call them “moral logics” is a broad umbrella. This would include meritocracy, for example. And this sees people positively inclined toward economic inequalities because they perceive them to be fair. So, such fairness is rooted in higher or ethical principles such as meritocracy, or for example, in a one’s willingness to apply oneself to certain ends. The third set of logics that we look at, again, this is across many countries, the chapters cover the whole world and different kinds of people, are cultural institutional logics, this one is maybe a little bit harder to understand at first, when you first think about it. But this one sees actors viewing economic inequalities as consistent with established or emerging outlooks, conventions or expectations of policies, organizational arrangements. And so, what they see is that they see these inequalities as fitting or as resonating with cultural and institutional materials in the United States, the American dream. So, they see a correspondence with what they know, inequalities makes sense. The last one is what we call “group and ethnic logics”. And here, people justify inequalities on the basis of hierachical distinctions between collectivities, those that are seen as superior and those that are seen as inferior, think of for instance, native people versus migrants, for example. And the distinction serves as the basis for acceptance, the superior groups by virtue of who they are entitled to better economic conditions, while the inferior groups by virtue of who they are are not.

John Torpey 

So very interesting. I want to get to the issue of meritocracy in a second. But these ethnic logics thing strikes me as very interesting. And I’m curious if you can tell us a little bit about what the data indicate in regard to who thinks that which groups are better or worse, I mean, I assume this is, you’re talking about US data, but maybe you can also know, this is also European. Okay, I’d be very interested to hear a little bit more detail about this.

Francesco Duina 

Sure, I can offer a couple of points. And if Luca wants to add, you can do so as well. So we have a chapter on India, for example, by Priya Chacko, and her chapter considers, you know, the current situation there with Modi. And the Hindu Nationalism, and the distinction between that part of the population and the rest, right, and what that has translated into with regards to policies acceptance of discriminatory attitudes and ultimately outcomes. So there will be one example. We have other examples when it comes to Europe, for example, in regards to say, Sweden, and there the difference is between the nativist attitudes versus migrants and the acceptance of discriminatory policies, welfare oriented policies, between the migrants and the native population, we all know those dynamics, and those definitely are a work, you know, in all of the Scandinavian countries. Those are the two examples.

John Torpey 

I see. So, I mean, the fact that you mentioned India is interesting to me, at least in the sense that before I asked my question about meritocracy, as a system of inequality I was thinking about the fact that Max Weber’s, that she will surely recall, discusses the way in which he thinks the caste system was the most effective system of inequality and subordination that he ever seen on the planet and people have these ideas about their rebirth and essentially disciplines them in this life, tells them they have to behave in certain ways in order to have a better life when they’re reborn. I think part of what’s interesting is that in post colonial India they have a measure for affirmative action essential, but we would call affirmative action in their constitution, that seems, at least based on the work that’s my now colleague, Ajantha Subramanian has done on Indian IT engineers, and that sort of thing suggests that it’s having a real impact and the so called scheduled castes, the lower castes are really putting serious pressure on the upper caste, the Brahmins in particular, and it’s having the consequence that some of these people are actually moving to the United States to escape competition from lower caste people who have benefited from affirmative action and are getting advanced education so that they wouldn’t have gotten previously. So I don’t know if you have a comment on that. But it does strike me as an interesting contrast to the meritocratic story.

Francesco Duina 

I mean, I would only say that we were expecting when we invited Priya to write a chapter about the caste system in India and instead we got a chapter on what I just described, which I think is consistent with what you just said. So caste may make a little bit less of a difference now than it used to and some other things have come up, but they’re still group and ethnic based, but just a different axis.

John Torpey 

Right. Okay, so on to meritocracy, which strikes me in some ways similarly, I mean, it’s now the term meritocracy is now basically used as a term to describe a good thing, which is to say, a system of rewards that reward people who are work hard and are talented and make valuable contributions to the society are seen as so doing. And Mike, Michael Young, the creator, at least the popularizer of the term, if he wasn’t that its creator, basically saw it as a system in a way not unlike the caste system in the sense that it persuades everybody that wherever they land in the system of inequality is what they deserve, right? And in that sense, is a kind of a very effective way to persuade people that the system of inequalities is just, and I wonder what you may have found about the meritocratic idea as a kind of system of inequality. And I guess maybe Luca was going to speak to this. I’m not sure.

Luca Storti 

Yeah, I mean, as you said, we can actually pose it that the idea of merit and meritocracy stems from a critical view of all patient societies where resources were inherited rather than earned and passed down through aristocratic dynamics in Europe and elite closure dynamics in the US. However, meritocracy, ultimately led to very problematic issues outcomes. What we have nowadays is a highly active economic elite, exposed to international competition, much of the wealth of this elite has grown in recent years, not only through labor and productive activity activities, but also through capital gains. And once such an elite is consolidated it tends to close itself off and transmit privileges through generations creating new elites who enjoy immense benefits but are also attracted by hyper competitive dynamics. At the same time, meritocracy created and is still creating, a sort of coherent narrative, supporting the acceptance of economic inequalities by focusing exclusively on individual merits or demerits, making, as you said, success or failures appear solely based on personal choices. And if wealth and poverty are seen as the result of individual choices, we are more inclined to accept them as legitimate. And thus, the meritocracy narrative makes poverty acceptable or more acceptable than if we follow other types of narratives. And moreover, meritocracy, helps somehow elites reproduce their power, reducing also opportunities for the middle class and compromising intergenerational social mobility. There is a famous book about the so called trap of meritocracy by Markovitz and this marks to some extent, let’s say, the end of the American dream, in the book that Francesco and I are editing, there is an insightful chapter by Robert Howard  that delves into these aspects. On one hand, the mythical and realistic aspects of the American dreams and on the other how the American dream becomes a powerful means to reproduce social inequalities and promote support. Somehow, they are acceptance. In terms of international comparison between US and Europe we might say that regarding Europe, meritocracy is we can still say I mean, it’s less entrenched in European societies. In Europe, the tradition of viewing inequalities based on social class differences is much stronger than conceiving inequalities as the outcomes of individual capabilities. Thus, the narrative of meritocracy had more difficulties establishing itself in Europe. However, what we have noticed and a few chapters of our book are also focusing on that, things have been changing during the last decades in Europe. They increase in instability and individualization in the job market, changes in political parties, the crisis of democratic representation, and the decrease in institutional trust, have created space for narratives, emphasizing individual traits more than collective belonging, such as meritocracy. And this theme, the idea the narrative of meritocracy, in several European countries, both in Northern Europe and in southern Europe, has been embraced by both conservative parties seeking to modernize, and center left parties searching for new slogans after the crisis of the classic socialist and social democratic models.

John Torpey 

Interesting. So can you comment a little bit more on the question of the impact of these ideas in sort of politics and party politics? I’m reminded of the fact that Michael Sandel apparently influenced, Michael Sandel and other commentator, on the idea of meritocracy in a book called The Tyranny of Merit is a Harvard political theorist, political philosopher, I guess, who advised Olaf Schultz, who eventually became the Social Democratic chancellor of Germany a couple of years ago, advised his campaign and as a result of that advising, apparently went with this campaign slogan “Respekt für Dich”,  “Respect for you”, basically, the idea of you are good and valuable, however you might be, no matter what contributions you might or might not have made to the society. And so it was seen anyway, or it was portrayed, at least by Sandel, as a kind of anti-meritocratic approach to thinking about these things. I mean, is that something that’s happening more broadly in Europe?

Luca Storti 

I would say, I would say yes, of course, there are a lot of differences between European countries and even within each country, things have changed over time. At the same time, there is a sort of common trend between European countries going actually in line with what you are saying, and the idea, I mean, if you look at center left parties, so old Socialist Party or social democratic parties, the idea is that traditionally, these parties were focused on defining political measure in order to support economic resources and social public services. So redistributive measure and this idea has changed, moving towards the idea of creating opportunities for all and not concentrating anymore, as strong as they were used to do in the past, on redistribution of money. And so creating opportunities to be what you would like to be. And this is somehow an idea which is consistent with the idea of meritocracy and problematic issue, according to the scholars that assume that meritocracy has several dark sides, is that if inequalities are too high, it’s not enough to concentrate of opening opportunities, since basically, people not having economic resources cannot enter the job market in a proper way, so you still have to support the welfare state and to support redistributive measures. But it’s something that several center left parties stopped to do and started to propose cutting taxes in order to give people more opportunities to invest and to do business and assuming this way, several topics, several themes that are part of the idea of meritocracy. So yes, I mean, this is something that is happening, has been happening in Europe during the last decades. And we have seen several examples of this kind. In my country, in Europe, in Italy, concerning the trajectory of several center left parties, but we have experienced the same thing in France, in Germany, and in even in Northern Europe, which has been, of course, the place in which social democratic models established.

John Torpey 

Right. So I mean, just to kind of follow up on this a little bit. I recently was reading an article by Tom Edsall in the New York Times he does these sort of weekly columns, on debates in social science, essentially, their consequences for politics and part of what was being argued in this piece was the idea that conservatives have a stronger what psychologists call “internal locus of control”, and liberals have a more stronger, more strongly pronounced extra so called “external locus of control”. And I mean, in effect, this kind of fits this contrast between a kind of conservative if you like, United States, and let’s say social democratic Europe. I mean, does that make sense to you? I mean, given the decline the difficulties, shall we say that left wing parties have had in Europe of late?

Luca Storti 

I think so. Yeah. It’s, it’s an intriguing way to underline the differences between conservative parties and progressive parties or liberal orientation, as you might say, in the US and it’s also actually an intriguing way to understand why for center left parties have been difficult to redefine their model during the cries of the old social democratic models. Yeah. And why they basically took on some of the ideas and some of the topics that were in line with the Neoliberal orientation.

John Torpey 

All right, very interesting. Well, thanks very much. That’s it for today’s episode, I want to thank Francesco Duina and Luca Storti, for their insights about inequality in today’s world. I also want to thank Oswaldo Mena Aguilar for his technical assistance and to acknowledge Duncan Mackay for letting us use his song International Horizons as the theme music for this for the show. This is John Torpey, saying thanks for joining us, and we look forward to having you with us for the next episode of International Horizons.