The Justice Divide Across the Atlantic

Living in England is a challenge.  There are no two ways about it.  Time and again I’ve been forced to re-evaluate what I think and why in ways that are often painful and hard to swallow.  One such case is the difference between what justice means in England verses what it means in America.  I should qualify this comparison by stating that it is more or less the West Coast of the US and Manchester in the North of England that I am comparing here.  Much of what I experience as odd in England would not necessarily be odd for an East Coast American.

Churches in England these days seem to talk a lot about justice.  Making poverty history, Aids in Africa, the war in Iraq  etc.  American foreign policy is often raised as an aggravation to these problems.  I recently saw Babel which is a brilliant film that adeptly raises the way US foreign policy aggravates cultural miscommunication.  Babel is a brilliant film all round.  Don’t believe the critique that the story doesn’t hold together.  The stories are simply the backdrop to an overwhelming emotional feeling of misunderstanding.  The director consistently forces the audience to read between the lines.  He gives us the feeling of alienation and being lost in translation in a way which is powerful and compelling.  It should win the Oscar to complement the Golden Globe it’s already received.

What also concerns me these days is how different conceptions of justice inform British and American domestic policy as well.

A classic example is basic government services.  In England, almost everyone I’ve ever talked to here believes that America is a fundamentally unjust society because health care is not universal.  They believe that health care, much like housing, is a fundamental right that all citizens deserve.  In America, this sentiment could be heard as well.  But the socialist impulse has never gained significant weight to become national policy.  The reason is that for many Americans, and I would argue the clear majority, it is positively unfair and unjust that people should get something for nothing.  

Why should I pay for the jobless slacker’s health care? is a common sentiment I often hear from Americans. 

In other words, the sense of justice is diametrically opposed between the two countries.  It is fundamentally unjust for one person to free load upon a society and not work for what they get in life.  That includes healthcare and certainly housing.

These differences mean that it is very difficult to even get a conversation started because the self-righteousness is so intense as each country looks down their noses at the other. 

David Brooks, recently posted an interesting article on just this issue in the NY Times. Brooks is the author of Bobos in Paradise, and On Paradise Drive and his work is often characterized by broad cultural analysis of American socio-political values.  In this recent article, he doesn’t talk about justice so much as equality and achievement.  He cites Symour Martin Lipset, an eminent sociologist who died just this New Year’s Eve.  Here’s an important excerpt:

Two great themes run through American history, Lipset wrote in his 1963 book ”The First New Nation”: achievement and equality. These are often in tension because when you leave unequally endowed people free to achieve, you get unequal results.

Though Lipset never quite put it this way, the clear message from his writings is that when achievement and equality clash in America, achievement wins. Or to be more precise, the achievement ethos reshapes the definition of equality. When Americans use the word ”equality,” they really mean ”fair opportunity.” When Americans use the word ”freedom,” they really mean ”opportunity.”

Lipset was relentlessly empirical, and rested his conclusions on data as well as history and philosophy. He found that Americans have for centuries embraced individualistic, meritocratic, antistatist values, even at times when income inequality was greater than it is today.

For the complete article see: http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F70611F638540C778DDDA80894DF404482

The point I want to highlight here, is the way in which equality and fairness are co-opted as “opportunity.”  Equality, economic or otherwise, is consistently transformed by the achievement ethos in the US such that to speak of a radical reconfiguration of social services will always be understood in terms of opportunity.  In the UK however, equality means radical redistribution of wealth, universal (even if far from perfect) health care, and the UK has one of the highest social housing networks in the world.  I was recently told that 10% of the total UK housing is social housing.

Brooks goes on to argue that this understanding of equality as “fair opportunity” is the reason why the recent proposals by the Democrats in the newly elected congress are so modest in comparison to what might be expected in a Left party in Europe.  If it is the case that Americans really do believe that fairness is directly linked to the provision of opportunity, not basic services like health and housing, then there will be little hope that the Democrats will ever be able to establish a national health service in the US.  This single fact is important for Democrats thinking of puting Hilary Clinton forward forward in 2008.  Whatever she is about, her past record on health care in the US seems to be well left of the basic American ethos towards social services.  

I understand the European critique of American domestic policiy. But, maybe if we could understand the differences between the two ways of thinking justice between the US and UK for instance, we might be able to address the problems more adequately.

I think most Americans want everyone to be healthy, safe and have a roof over their heads.  But their approach to achieving those goals is to provide fair opportunities rather than blanket coverage that may or may not work very well.  To many Americans, forcing them into universal coverage seems oppressive.  Is there a better way?

The recent legislation passed in Massachusettes may be the way forward. It’s not perfect but it is better suited to the US ethos of “fair opportunity.”  Their approach was to offer a range of incentives and options which would ensure that employers took responsibility for their employees, the state would provide coverage for the very poor, and then private individuals could also ensure that they could easily and cheaply get coverage even if they were self-employed or worked for smaller businesses.  It wasn’t a blanket one size fits all state service, but a diversity of approaches working in harmony and picking up eachother’s slack to sensure that everyone has healthcare.  It’s by far one of the better examples of government leadership in healthcare to date.  It’s also an example of something the Democratic party needs to have a close look at to understand why it succeeded in getting passed and why it resonated with people in Massachusetts.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401937.html  California is also considering similar legislation.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9A0CE6D61530F93AA35752C0A9619C8B63