ABSTRACT
The analysis of the 1999 International Social Survey Programme opinion polls in eight of the participating countries shows that the judgments made by the respondents about the justice or injustice of their own economic position are not strictly a personal matter. Relative deprivation, rather than an absolute one, is responsible for a feeling of personal injustice. Moreover, as far as its effect on this feeling of justice is concerned, this deprivation turns out to be more “solidaristic” than egocentric. From this standpoint, individuals are already enlarging their judgment. However, they take this enlargement even further, also linking their feeling of micro justice to the extent of the macro-inequalities they perceive in their society. Although not in a strict or absolute sense, they adopt a principle of equalization. This does not mean that they reject the principle of equity. They rather try to achieve a “reflective equilibrium” between these two principles of social justice. For them, macro-inequalities are too important to speak of a strict application of equity. Individual merits are not correctly rewarded in their country and in their own case. Therefore, any improvement in this domain of equity seems to require a better application of the principle of equality.
When people think that there are excessive economic inequalities in their country, they also tend to think that the country suffers from an unjust distribution of wealth. This link between the perception of macro-inequalities and the feeling of macro justice is fairly familiar and well established. But what about when individuals make a judgment about the justice or injustice of their personal economic position, that is to say micro justice? 1 Should we consider that any reference to the overall framework of inequalities is in this case invalid or, on the contrary, do individuals possess some ability to widen their judgment?
Traditionally, in the social sciences the desire to reduce macro-inequalities has been linked with the personal sentiment of relative deprivation. The mechanism involved was already very clearly observed by Alexis de Tocqueville (1835–40), and W. Garry Runciman (1966) has emphasized the connection 92with feelings of micro justice. Sure enough, it is quite easy to understand that relative deprivation leads individuals to consider their situation to be unjust. But, by establishing this link, Runciman attempted to show that this deprivation should not be considered as being solely “egoistical”, involving a comparison between an individual's own situation and that of a reference group (Stouffer et al. 1949), but also “fraternal”, in so far as the situation of this group in society as a whole may influence the feeling of deprivation and hence injustice (in this chapter, when we explore this issue, we shall just change the terminology in order to talk about egocentric relative deprivation in the first case and solidaristic relative deprivation in the second). Runciman, however, went even further in the attempt to find a more generalized explanation for feelings of justice, and devoted a chapter at the end of his book to John Rawls's theory of justice (1971). In particular, he applied the idea that only those inequalities which cannot be publicly justified are unjust. This makes it possible to include in a “realistic” manner the use of the principle of equality in order to explain feelings of justice, while it would be very difficult to do this if one maintained that in the area of distributive justice application of this principle must always and necessarily lead to total and absolute equality.
This theory is in line with the general hypothesis suggested above. According to it, an “enlarged thought” is involved even when individuals evaluate the justice or injustice of their own economic position. More specifically, a verification of this hypothesis can be reached through the responses to three questions: (1) Is the feeling of micro justice more based on relative than on absolute deprivation? (2) Is this deprivation more solidaristic than simply egocentric? (3) Do individuals also make use of the principle of macro-equality to express their feeling of micro justice?
A positive answer to this last question would nevertheless lead to a fourth problem. The principle of equality is obviously not the only one to which individuals adhere. There may be a great many such principles of social justice, and the difficulty is that they may conflict with each other when applied. The principle of equity, in particular, which attempts to give rewards in proportion to unequal deserts, leads to de facto inequality which is contrary to absolute equality which aims to achieve a strict application of the principle of equality. So: (4) If individuals do not reject these two principles, how do they link them? We can assume that individuals justify the dividing line which they draw between what they consider to be just inequalities and unjust inequalities by achieving a “reflective equilibrium” (Rawls 1971, 9) between the two principles. But what is empirically the nature of this equilibrium?
In order to find what responses can be given to these four questions, we shall refer to representative surveys conducted in the framework of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) in 1999. That year the ISSP focused on inequalities, and several questions allow us to see how the respondents formed a judgment about the justice of the general economic situation and, more specifically, of their own. Our analyses will deal with eight countries taking part in the ISSP. Six of these represent the large geographical areas of 93Europe: in the north, Sweden (number of surveyed individuals, n = 1,150), Germany (n =1,432), the United Kingdom (n =1,634) and France (n =1,889); in the south, Spain (n = 1,211); and, in the east, Poland (n = 1,135). To make the comparison more varied still, our investigations will also be extended to the United States (n = 1,272) and Japan (n = 1,325). In all, 11,048 persons were surveyed. In each country, these individuals formed a random sample of the population aged 18 and over.
Concerning the issue of income or salaries on which we shall focus here, the ISSP survey included a question which deals directly with feelings about micro justice (on the basis of equity): “Would you say that you earn (1) much less than you deserve, (2) less than you deserve, (3) what you deserve, (4) more than you deserve, (5) much more than you deserve?” Very few individuals considered that they earn more or much more than they deserve (between 1 and 3 percent depending on the country). This result has been observed and explained elsewhere (Shepelak and Alwin 1986). In order to return to the simple case of one alternative, we shall not retain these opinions and shall group together those who stated that they earn much less or simply less than they deserve and consider that they are treated unjustly (responses coded as 1), opposing them to those who stated that they have what they deserve, and therefore consider that they are treated justly (responses coded as 2). The second group accounted for 21 percent of responses in Poland, 28 percent in Sweden, 29 percent in Japan, 33 percent in Spain, 38 percent in the United States, 40 percent in the United Kingdom, 43 percent in France and 53 percent in Germany.
