Abstract
James Midgley is regarded as a pioneer in the field of international social work as well as social welfare and social policy. He wrote a book 1 on a similar subject 37 years ago. It is particularly interesting to read his observations on this topic now from both a new and a long-term global perspective.
This book is an original contribution to a worldwide research agenda on social protection and egalitarian policies in light of social justice, connecting different disciplines and perspectives in a multidimensional approach. This is not a simple task to tackle in almost 200 pages, but the author manages to reflect on inequality, social protection and social justice in a transparent and rigorous manner, reviewing the relevant literature in different disciplines, predominantly using literature from economics. A central argument of the book is that income differences are a useful proxy for different types of inequality since they are closely correlated with gender as well as ethnic and other disparities (p. 16).
The book is divided in three parts: inequality; social protection and its global impact; and social protection and social justice. To provide a background to the debate of the role of social protection in tackling inequality, in the first part the author suggests that ‘inequality can best be understood as a social condition of hierarchical differentiation in which people are ranked in terms of their income, wealth, status, gender, ethnicity, age, nationality, location, the ability to exercise power and other attributes’ (p. 20).
The first chapter sets the scene and discusses the definition of inequality and the degree to which it is well approximated by income inequality, as well as the relationship between equality and social justice. The second chapter provides a concise historical review of economic literature on income inequality (from Ancient China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Rome, through feudalism and the Second World War to the present day), and it also discusses the key drivers of inequality. The author argues that inequality can be primarily attributed to government policy. He also implicates factors such as technological change, migration, globalisation, epidemics, natural disasters and wars as drivers for income inequality.
According to the author, an egalitarian agenda includes the enforcement of legal rights, the promotion of opportunities and measures that foster equity by advocating for ‘predistribution’, aiming to strengthen the unions and implementing higher minimum wages. ‘Predistribution’ refers to interventions that do not require the distribution of income and wealth through high levels of taxation (p. 63). These proposals do not avoid the use of taxation, which is still necessary for funding government revenues for social programmes.
The second part concerns social protection and its global impact. Social protection has largely replaced older terms like ‘social security’, ‘income security’ and ‘income protection’. The author’s definition of social protection includes well-established schemes such as social insurance, employer mandates and social allowance as well as innovative poverty alleviation programmes or schemes. The author considers that the term ‘scheme’ can be used interchangeably with the following terms: ‘project’, ‘program’ or ‘cash transfers’. This idea is further developed in chapter four.
Chapter five deals with the historical evolution of social protection. The sixth chapter is about social protection goals and its impact. The studies of the redistributive impact of social protection on inequality discussed in this chapter do not provide clear evidence to support the main thesis. For example, while some of these studies identify schemes that promote gender equality, other studies show that these schemes produce the opposite effect (p.124). Nevertheless, in the next part, the author strongly argues the central idea of the book, which is that in a pluralistic framework that implements schemes available to all as a right of citizenship, social justice can still be realised. The state takes on a role of coordination of a right that should already be recognised.
The third part of the book establishes the link between social protection and social justice, illustrating redistribution measures with examples from Brazil, South Africa and the USA. Chapter seven is about social protection and redistribution. It explains how the schemes are funded and administered and who benefits from them in order to examine the logic behind redistribution. Finally, the eighth chapter focuses on eliminating discriminatory practices against women, ethnic minorities, immigrants and others, and advocates for extending coverage and universal schemes rather than only implementing selective schemes. The author considers that although scholarship has contributed to a considerable production of knowledge on these issues, these diverse academic perspectives have not been integrated into a holistic interpretation that offers a comprehensive understanding of inequality. This is partially true, and it would be great to see more studies that try to tackle this topic as comprehensively as Midgley does. One example is a recent project in Germany 2 that has addressed this holistic approach to inequalities, although perhaps these projects connect with social protection and social justice to a lesser extent than the author does and are embedded only in a specific region of the world, nonetheless with a deep analysis of the interdisciplinary research on inequalities.
This text is central to understanding how social protection can promote equality by using the intervention of the state in designing egalitarian policies as well as by international organisations reflecting on their own impact on inequality. This book is aimed at academics, policymakers and professionals looking for viable strategies connecting power and resources of the state to promote social justice in western countries and the Global South.
