The pursuit of fiscal rectitude at the expense of health, education and welfare would be unjust, argues Vincent Browne
THERE WAS a desultory discussion among political commentators on an RTÉ radio show over the weekend about the fiscal position facing whoever is to be the next minister for finance.
The discussion went along the following lines: Mary Hanafin was out of favour with Brian Cowen because of her dogged opposition to the cuts he insisted on in education and the row-back on election commitments about investment and commitment in that sector; the next minister for finance will have further difficulty because of the collapse of the revenue base (taxes); and because of this fiscal difficulty there will have to be cuts in the big spending departments: education, health and social welfare.
The interviewer was happy with this evaluation of the position and they got on to discussing matters such as who would be the next minister for finance and what other changes Cowen might make to the Cabinet.
As a reflection of the prevailing political consensus this was a typical example. The only "common sense" option available to a minister for finance in circumstances in which there was fiscal stringency was to assail the "big spending departments". Indeed the criticism one can make of Cowen's tenure in the Department of Finance is that he let public spending "get out of control", especially in the big spending departments. Prudence and "sound management of the economy" will dictate that this trend will be reversed.
This is the Fine Gael view expressed by Richard Bruton in the last few days. The Labour view is unclear. Eamon Gilmore issued a statement on the emergence of Cowen as the new Fianna Fáil leader and taoiseach-elect, which identified Mary Harney as the major problem facing the country. And that alone.
But it is the media consensus, reflected most prominently in our public service broadcasting service, that the "sensible" response to fiscal difficulty is to institute cutbacks in the aforementioned departments. Nobody is challenging the assumptions underlying this view - the assumptions being that it is not "practicable" or "realistic" to adopt the obvious alternative approach: redistribute income more equitably and protect and reinforce the engines of equity, that is, the big spending departments.
All wealth is created by society. Without social co-operation there would be no wealth, apart from what one could generate for oneself to sustain life. How such wealth should be distributed is a matter for society to decide. This is the basis of the hypothetical social contract that underpins political societies and states. There is no reason to obey the state, aside from fear generated by tyranny, other than by a sense of a hypothetical social contract, to which we can all give free allegiance.
By hypothetical social contract I mean the agreement to which we would all sign up, were we to put our self-interest and particular circumstances aside (ie whether rich or poor, whether we had "marketable abilities", whether we were male or female, black or white, religious or non-religious).
How else are we to determine the principles of justice upon which society should be governed? Reliance on "natural law" is deficient for this introduces partisan allegiances to particular views of what constitutes the "good life" and the nature of humanity.
The idea of a hypothetical social contract has been around for a long time, arguably since the time of Plato (428-348BC). Others prominently associated with the idea are Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704) and Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The modern exponent of the social contract idea is John Rawls (1921-2002) who argued for the idea of the contract expressed above in relation to putting aside self-interest and particular circumstances.
This may appear pointlessly theoretical. But all our ideas are formed from some theoretical basis, whether we appreciate it or not. Moreover, the social contract ideas of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau had a profound impact on Europe and America and continue to do so.
The point I want to make here is that there is no sustainable rationale for an unregulated and arbitrary dispersal of wealth and power (a Harvard colleague of John Rawls, Robert Nozick, argued for such but I believe his ideas have been discredited by a variety of critiques).
However it is possible to argue plausibly that we would all agree to an unequal division of wealth on the basis, given human psychology, that some incentives were necessary to maximise wealth creation to the benefit of all. But is it likely we would agree to the scale of inequality that we have now?
Or is it plausible that we would agree that when it came to the necessity for stringency, the first targets should be those least advantaged? In other words that the "big spending departments" should be hit when there were fiscal constraints?
The easy acceptance of the idea that public expenditure is too high - ie, that the scale of redistribution in a grossly unequal society is too great - and that what is now needed is a further widening of inequalities is indicative of how the media here has become an agent for sectional interests, even though that is unwitting.
And moreover - of how the media is a major ideological force, again unwittingly.