On The Shelf

Well into Blair’s third term in office, Giddens now argues that New Labour’s quest for equality needs fresh changes in policy. In a book just out, The New Egalitarianism, he teams up with Patrick Diamond to chart the terrain that must be negotiated. For politics to change lives for the better, they argue, the rich have to commit themselves to a new social contract.

The New Statesman carries extracts from the book. “This Labour government has devoted enormous amounts of energy to tackling inequality through helping the poor,” they write. “Addressing the needs of the most disadvantaged people has been given priority over tackling overall levels of income inequality. The rich are largely left alone. It is far more important to concentrate on raising the floor: improving the economic and social position of the poor both in absolute terms and relative to median income.

“But what about those at the top? A mass of information is available in the social sciences concerning the poor and underprivileged but we have surprisingly little reliable data about high-earning professionals, and even less about the tiny minority of the rich. Yet these people are a part of the whole: the strategies used by the affluent in gaining concentrated access to the best housing, health , education plainly have their effect upon the life chances of poorer groups.

“New Labour sought to break away from the traditional theme of the left: that the rich must have become so by exploiting others. Those who are economically successful often bring benefits to wider society as a condition of their drive, initiative or creativity. A prosperous economy requires these qualities; an aspirational society cannot be one in which success is heavily penalised…

Yet a fairer society cannot be built from the bottom up alone.”