scholarly journals The ‘Deserving’ Rich? Inequality, Morality and Social Policy

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
KAREN ROWLINGSON ◽  
STUART CONNOR

AbstractThere is a long tradition in social policy of discussing and critiquing the notion of ‘deservingness’ in relation to ‘the poor’. This paper will apply such debates to ‘the rich’ to consider the grounds on which this group might be considered ‘deserving’. The paper identifies three sets of arguments. The first set of arguments concerns the appropriateness of rewarding merit/hard work/effort/risk-taking etc. The second concerns more consequentialist/economic arguments about providing incentives for wealth creation. And the third considers the character and behaviour of the rich. As well as discussing the potential criteria for deservingness, the paper will also debate whether the degree of income and wealth gained by the rich is deserved. Finally, the paper will discuss the social policy implications, including taxation policies, which emerge from this debate.

Drawing together a mix of internationally renowned contributors, Social Policy Review 28 provides an up-to-date and diverse review of the best in social policy scholarship. This book contains three parts. The first part focuses on the state of affairs in each of the pillars of the welfare state. It assesses to what extent the traditional ‘evil giants’ have been defeated, which new problems and unintended consequences have emerged and how this affects the policies. The focus on four policy areas are: pension policies, health care, income benefits and housing. The second part draws together a selection of papers from the Social Policy Association’s Annual Conference. The social policy implications of the outcome of the 2015 UK General Election was a major issue facing delegates. Indeed, the final day of the conference coincided with the new government’s first budget, during which details of the £12 billion of ‘welfare’ cuts promised during the election campaign were outlined. The four chapters in Section Two offer insights into what this agenda might hold and how scholars might best interrogate it. The third part explores the shift to individualised funding in different international settings, and also explores the validity of the underlying assumptions, which have driven the shift towards greater use of individualised funding. This part also offers a range of empirical lenses through which to examine these debates. Together these chapters help to deepen an understanding of individualised approaches within social policy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 183449092110257
Author(s):  
Qiong Li ◽  
Chen Deng ◽  
Bin Zuo ◽  
Xiaobin Zhang

This study explored whether vertical position affects social categorization of the rich and the poor. Experiment 1 used high- and low-income occupations as stimuli, and found participants categorized high-income occupations faster when they were presented in the top vertical position compared to the bottom vertical position. In Experiment 2, participants responded using either the “up” or “down” key to categorize high- and low-income occupations, and responded faster to high-income occupations with the “up” key and low-income occupations with the “down” key. In Experiment 3, names identified as belonging to either rich or poor individuals were presented at the top or bottom of a screen, and the results were the same as in Experiments 1 and 2. These findings suggest that social categorization based on wealth involved perceptual simulations of vertical position, and that vertical position affects the social categorization of the rich and the poor.


1998 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lester ◽  
Antoon A Leenaars

A study in Canada of the accidental death rate from firearms, and of suicide and homicide rates by firearms and by all other methods, for the period 1975–85, indicated that the rates were positively associated with one another. The results were interpreted using a subcultural theory of violence, and the social policy implications of the results were discussed.


2002 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 647-663 ◽  
Author(s):  
GAIL WILSON

This paper discusses the material aspects of globalisation and the effects of the movements of trade, capital and people around the world on older men and women. While some older people have benefited, most notably where pensions and health care are well developed, the majority of older men and women are among the poor who have not. Free trade, economic restructuring, the globalisation of finance, and the surge in migration, have in most parts of the world tended to produce harmful consequences for older people. These developments have been overseen, and sometimes dictated, by inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) such as the International Monetary Foundation (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), while other IGOs with less power have been limited to anti-ageist exhortation. Globalisation transfers resources from the poor to the rich within and between countries. It therefore increases social problems while simultaneously diminishing the freedom and capacity of countries to make social policy. Nonetheless, the effects of globalisation, and particularly its financial dimensions, on a nation's capacity for making social policy can be exaggerated. Political will can combat international economic orthodoxy, but the evident cases are the exception rather than the rule.


Author(s):  
Huck-ju Kwon

One of the biggest challenges for developing a new more productivist social policy approach has been the apparent absence of a new, post-neoliberal, economic model even after the global financial crisis. This chapter explores the social policy implications of the official ‘pragmatism’ of the new economic model with its ‘institutionalist’ emphases on nation states finding what works best in their own contexts rather than looking to the one size fits all approach of recent decades.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Azwar Azwar Azwar ◽  
Emeraldy Chatra ◽  
Zuldesni Zuldesni

Poverty is one of the social problems that the government can never completely solve. As a result, other, more significant social issues arise and cause social vulnerability, such as conflict and crime. As a province that is experiencing rapid growth in the last ten years, the West Sumatra find difficulty to overcome the number of poor people in several districts and cities.  The research outcomes are the models and forms of social policy made by West Sumatra regencies and cities governments in improving the welfare of poor communities. It is also covering the constraints or obstacles to the implementation of social policy and the selection of welfare state models for the poor in some districts and municipalities of West Sumatra. This research is conducted qualitatively with a sociological approach that uses social perspective on searching and explaining social facts that happened to needy groups. Based on research conducted that the social policy model adopted by the government in responding to social problems in the districts and cities of West Sumatra reflects the welfare state model given to the poor. There is a strong relationship between the welfare state model and the form of social policy made by the government.


Author(s):  
Stephen Mutula

The debate about whether the digital divide between Africa and the developed world is narrowing or widening has intensified over the last five years. Some believe that access to technology is positively correlated to economic development and wealth creation, however, since the dawn of the last century, the gap between the rich and the poor within and between developed and developing countries has continued to grow. The protagonists in this debate do not seem to appreciate the notion that the digital divide is not about a single technology, and is driven by a complex set of factors that exist beyond wires. This paper attempts to deconstruct the concept of the digital divide beyond access to PCs, telephones, Internet, cable TV, etc… The authors argue that the phenomenon as currently conceived is misleading and flawed, and so are the indices for its measurement. Suggestions that a new model for mapping the phenomenon is made in order to bridge the divide between developed and developing countries. In deconstructing the digital divide, the authors use the Declaration of Principles of the World Summit on Information Society and the indices used to measure e-readiness, information society, digital opportunity, and e-government.


2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter H. Reinstorf

This article explores the social and religious dynamics of parables of Jesus in which “rich” and “poor” are juxtaposed. It focuses on Luke 16:19-31 (the parable of the rich man and the poor beggar Lazarus) and on Luke 18:9-14 (the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector). The core of the exploration relates to questions concerning “wealth” and “poverty” in a limited-good society such as first-century Palestine. The article aims to expose the legitimisation provided by the Israelite elite to ensure the collection of taxes placed on the peasant population by the Roman Empire.


1978 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-160
Author(s):  
Javed A. Ansari

THE United Nations Conference on Trade and Development came nto existence in 1964. Its creation was viewed with a degree of cautious enthusiasm by the Third World and with a certain amount of apprehension by the rich countries. Its performance has dampened the enthusiasm and heightened the apprehension. Its contribution to substantive changes in trade policies has not been spectacular. Whatever improvement in commodity prices and hence in the terms of trade of the poor countries that occurred in the early 1970s was attributable to fortuitous circumstances – not to a negotiated settlement between the rich and poor countries, enabling the latter to retain a larger portion of the gains from trade. Can we3 therefore3 say that UNGTAD has been ineffective? That it has failed to perform its global task? And if so, what is the cause of this failure? Is the organizational ideology unsuitable in the sense that it is not representative of the national objectives of viable coalitions among UNGTAD constituents? Or has the leadership failed to evolve a strategy which links the pursuit of specific sub-goals to the transformation of the system in accordance with the organizational ideology? This present paper attempts to look at the first question and to venture an opinion on the effectiveness of UNGTAD in the light of these findings.


2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 613-637
Author(s):  
CYNTHIA LEE PATTERSON

Recirculating the assertion of magazine historian Frank Luther Mott, subsequent generations of scholars maintained that Godey's Lady's Magazine eschewed content treating the social, political, and economic issues of the day. This article challenges that nearly universal reading of Godey's by arguing for the importance of a close reading of the “match plates” commissioned by Godey for his magazine. Appearing between 1840 and 1860, these plates, many engraved from pendant paintings created expressly for Godey, draw on the popularity of stage melodrama, dramatic tableau, and tableaux vivants to enact a performative morality addressing major social, economic, and political issues. Early match plates contrast virtue and vice, capitalizing on the enormous popularity of William Hogarth's engraving series Industry and Idleness. Match plates appear also in the popular fashion plates of the magazine – echoing the city mystery novels, plays, and prints first popularized by Eugene Sue – in Christmas for the Rich/Christmas for the Poor and Dress the Maker/Dress the Wearer. By 1860, even the magazine's “useful” contents, such as the pattern work prized by Godey's readers, echo the popularity of match plates: hence Fruit for Working/Flowers for Working. Closer attention to Godey's engravings calls for a reassessment of Mott's assertion.


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