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Opponents to the project fail to stop the plan near New York's Ground Zero.

At least two Lebanese and one Israeli soldier killed in exchange of gunfire along tense border.

If you want a primer on Wilkinson and Pickett's joint book The Spirit Level, then the pieces here are worth a look (one by me). And for a comprehensive set of responses to their critics, including a pre-emptive strike against Gerry Hassan’s recent piece on OK this is all you need. (It is worth noting too that Wilkinson and Pickett’s work is peer-reviewed; that of their critics isn’t.)

For me as a philosopher, the thing about The Spirit Level that is most exciting is that as a study of the pervasive harms of inequality it strongly suggests that John Rawls's 'difference principle', which says that inequalities are OK provided that they materially benefit the worst off, a principle that has dominated political philosophy for 40 years, is simply wrong. Empirically wrong.

Which means that put into action ‘the difference principle’ will create a worse society, across a whole index of measures. Perhaps surprisingly, it will make virtually everybody, and certainly the worst off, worse off. (Or at least: worse off than they could be if an alternative way of ‘organising inequalities’ – a more egalitarian way - were settled upon.)  Even if they have more money or more things (are ‘materially better-off’), this will not translate into an improved quality of life: on the contrary.

In sum: it is now possible for the first time to show that the difference principle (and, by extension, liberal political philosophy whether or not of the ‘trickle-down’ variety) makes the worst-off on balance worse off, and this can I think reasonably be taken to constitute an empirical refutation of the claim that it could possibly be just. (We philosophers don’t often get to make empirical refutations of others’ claims, so this is quite exciting!) Wilkinson has said to me, by the way, that he agrees with this reading of mine, that his and Pickett’s work has a devestating impact  upon the centrepiece of Rawls’s liberal political philosophy.

For me as a Green, what is so welcome about this book is that it provides a powerful way (additional to our standard points about sustainability) to argue back against those who claim that the answer to the problem of poverty is always economic growth. For economic growth that grows inequality will only increase relative poverty. And this brings out once more the truth in an old idea that should never have gone away. That the main reason that the poor are poor is nothing to do with their own alleged inadequacies. The main reason that the poor are poor is simply that the rich are rich.

The Spirit Level is reviving egalitarianism powerfully at a time when neoliberalism had had its way for too long. With the vast financial and ecological crises of recent years neoliberalism was almost asking to be replaced. I can’t help but see the book in this light, as a hugely valuable contribution to our political culture. This little kingdom is offering something of value moreover to the whole world, by virtue of being the intellectual home of Wilkinson and Pickett.

Country:  UK Topics:  Democracy and government Economics Equality Ideas

China has since 1979 been developing at breakneck speed. During this thirty-year period, the growth in government revenues has far outstripped increases in everyday people's incomes. Moreover, political reform has never really made it out of the starting-blocks. This has left China's rigid and deeply traditional political system unable to manage an increasingly complicated set of social transformations (see "Beijing's credibility crisis", 25 September 2009).

The nationwide political opposition in 1989 was a new experience for the authorities. With little idea of how to defuse the situation, they eventually resorted to violence. Since then, China's leaders have been gripped by an almost pathological fixation: maintaining stability. Deng Xiaoping, the architect of reform, rarely missed an opportunity to stress that “stability is everything” “stability comes first”, and that “without stability, we can achieve nothing". The notion has evolved to become one of the highest administrative tenets at every level of government.

The preparedness to use violence has become an increasingly explicit part of the state’s security mechanisms. The military reaction to the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989 is the most vivid example, but it is illustrated since then in less dramatic ways - for example, the huge growth of China’s security services and the rapid advances in the equipment they use, to the extent that China's paramilitary police are among the most advanced in the world. In several cities, the new-year “festivities” now consist of a street-parade of armed-police vehicles and other marvels of law-enforcement technology (see "Tiananmen: the legacy of 1989", 4 June 2009).

Such ritual displays of power turn real when, in Beijing and elsewhere, large squads of riot-police are deployed to support the demolition of people's homes to make way for redevelopment. And when local governments are faced with one of the tens of thousands of “mass incidents” that emerge in China each year, their first response is to send in the troops. A substantial proportion of these incidents now involves vigorous (sometimes violent) resistance by citizens to the the riot-squads’ depredations.

All these facilities are part of the internal-security budget - which increased by 16% in 2009, and will jump by another 8.9% in 2010. This “stability fund”  is second in size only to military spending in the government’s accounts, but - at 514 billion renminbi (RMB) ($76 bn) - fast approaching parity with it in absolute terms. It is also the twisted offspring of a backward and opaque political system (see Kerry Brown, "China and America: the uses of vulnerability", 8 June 2010).

The cost of control

The distortion reaches to the lowest rung of the social ladder. I know a woman who has petitioned for years to report the corruption of an official, a man from Guizhou who headed the city of Zunyi's representative office in Beijing. She had solid evidence which was confirmed by a Beijing court, so her claim already carried legal weight - yet what should have been a clear case has dragged on for a decade without any conclusion in sight. She told me recently that another Guizhou official offered her 800,000 RMB ($120,000) to drop her suit.

Indeed, the phenomenon of a tide of petitioners converging on Beijing from all corners of the country is one of the most worrisome forms of “instability” for China's local governments. The vast majority is turning to the central government in final hope after exhausting all local avenues. But the state agency responsible for “letters and calls” has no real power to solve problems at the grassroots; the posting of strongly-worded messages, or - at the limit - of administrative inspections to exert pressure on local officials is as much as Beijing can do. The counterproductive effect is to encourage local officials to block would-be petitioners from ever submitting their requests (see Kerry Brown, "China's shadow sector: power in pieces", 17 September 2009).

How big is the budget for blocking petitions? In October 2007, the month of the seventeenth Communist Party congress in Beijing, the province of Hebei sent 5,000 “anti-petition” officials to Beijing in pursuit of its “zero-petition” target. In total, provincial governments sent as many as 100,000 agents to the capital with the express task of keeping petitioners out. A lower-level official from Shandong explains how it works: “When the higher-ups want us to intercept a petitioner, they'll immediately send two or three people to track the person down. It costs about 10,000-20,000 RMB a time because they pay for everything - food, living expenses, even petrol.”

But forcibly returning people home doesn't solve the problem - many make a fresh dash for Beijing the moment their supervision is lifted. This leaves the last-resort solution of throwing money at the problem and hoping it will go away - hence “spending for stability”.

And what spending! The snatch-and-return policy is just one part of a wider public-security effort which (according to publicly available statistics) cost Guangzhou 4.4 billion renminbi alone in 2007 - against a welfare-and-jobs fund its authorities spent 3.5 billion RMB on.

The end of the road

The spectral terror of “instability” has long created administrative distortions at every level of China's government. But here there is a key difference between China and elsewhere. The administration in a normal country has to deal with different sets of competing interests; for a government to survive, it must make sure that constitutional and legal mechanisms are able to handle any clashes between different interest-groups. Thus, the existence of a robust legal system reassures people that in pressing circumstances they have the means to argue their case and receive an impartial ruling.

In China. however, state agencies continue to struggle on in precisely the opposite direction (see Minxin Pei, China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy, Harvard University Press, 2008). If a a single area begins to experience a glut of similar cases - say, inadequate compensation-payments for house-relocation - the government will routinely order district-courts to stop hearing that kind of case. The inevitable result is to force people onto the much more arduous path of seeking redress for their grievances on their own initiative and outside formal legal channels.

The imposition of stability via a combination of violence and money creates a vicious cycle, well conveyed in a Tsinghua University report: “People end up with a misguided set of expectations. To resolve a problem, you need to kick up the kind of fuss that's going to 'upset stability’; if you can't threaten stability, then forget about finding any solutions to your troubles” (see New thinking on stability maintenance: long-term social stability via institutionalised expression of interests, Social Development Research Group, Tsinghua University, April 2010).

Again, both groups and individuals are left with no choice but to rely on extra-legal measures - including violence - to vent their frustrations. They translate the official line of “paying for stability” into a straightforward calculus: “cause a riot, problem solved; cause a disturbance, problem partially solved; keep quiet, no solution at all.”

The government is close to spending as much on maintaining stability as on its standing army. The result is a deep black hole. But more than money is being thrown away - so is the Beijing government’s moral capital. China's political way of doing business has reached a dead end.

This article was translated from Chinese by Oliver Lough

Sideboxes 'Read On' Sidebox: 

China Digital Times

chinadialogue

China Labour Bulletin

China Elections and Governance

China Leadership Monitor

EastSouthWestNorth

The China Beat

Richard McGregor, The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers (Harper Collins, 2010)

Sang Ye, China Candid: The People on the People's Republic (University of California Press, 2006)

Kerry Brown, Friends and Enemies: The Past, Present and Future of the Communist Party of China (Anthem Press, 2009)

Sidebox: 

Li Datong is a Chinese journalist and former editor of Bingdian (Freezing Point), a weekly supplement of the China Youth Daily newspaper. In 2006 he was the recipient of a Lettre Ulysses award for reportage on his experience at Bingdian:

“As a professional journalist, I am completely incapable of understanding or accepting the suspension of ‘Freezing Point’ … To those who made this decision, what do the readers count for? What does the prestige of a large mainstream newspaper count for? What do the laws of the country and the party constitution count for? What does the reform and the opening up of China count for? They see this public instrument as their own property, thinking they can dispose of it as they please.”

Also by Li Datong in openDemocracy:

"China's leaders, the media and the internet" (8 July 2008)

"China's digital nationalism: Kung Fu Panda under fire" (16 July 2008)

"The Weng'an model: China's fix-it governance" (30 July 2008)

"Death in Shanghai, law in China" (15 September 2008)

"China's power, China's people: towards acountability" (29 September 2008)

"China's stalled transition" (19 February 2009)

"China: democracy in action" (19 March 2009)

"China's Tibet: question with no answer" (16 April 2009)

"Tiananmen: the legacy of 1989" (4 June 1989)

"China's civil society: breaching the Green Dam" (17 July 2009)

"Beijing's credibility crisis" (25 September 2009)

Related stories:  China’s seasonal politics China’s shadow sector: power in pieces Google vs China: capitalist model, virtual wall China: inside strain, outside spleen Xinjiang, Tibet, beyond: China's ethnic relations Charter 08: a blueprint for China Gao Zhisheng and China's question Tiananmen, 1989-2009 China and Liu Xiaobo: the weakness of strength A new approach to human rights (and China) Tiananmen’s shifting legacy Kashgar’s old city: landscape of loss Xinjiang: China’s security high-alert China and America: the uses of vulnerability China's freedom test Mao Zedong in video-history's gaze China’s political tunnel Country:  China Topics:  Civil society Democracy and government International politics

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I had the pleasure of sitting down with Joel, Ian McGettigan, and Rob Benvie at a tea shop in Ottawa before they did their soundcheck during their quickie reunion tour in March 2010.

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Firefighters and troops battle more than 500 fires as temperatures continue to soar.

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The same conservatives who spent the past year senselessly screaming about the U.S. budget deficit are now demanding an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich. The extension simply doesn’t make sense, and the policies implied are a recipe for massive job loss in the middle of the worst employment crisis in 75 years.

Deflation nation

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Jackie Selebi sentenced to 15 years in jail for accepting bribes from organised crime.