LECTURE Poverty and inequality
Anthony Giddens at the London School of Economics

Anthony Giddens is a world-renowned social theorist and proponent of Third Way politics, as well as being director of the LSE. He began his lecture by stressing the need for and the importance of social justice.

Indeed, legitimate redistribution is, he argues, imperative. Without legitimate redistribution Giddens believes that illegitimate redistribution will flourish, presumably by way of crime, a black economy and other such means.

For Giddens the issue of inequality is of fundamental importance today. He believes this to be the issue that most clearly separates the political left from the right.

Giddens makes it clear that when he talks about equality he does not mean formal equality in the liberal sense, but substantive equality. He argues strongly for wealth redistribution; the primary means of achieving this being, he believes, through the tax system. Using a relative rather than an absolute definition of poverty, Giddens argued that poverty and inequality are inextricably linked. So along with measures to reduce inequality, anti-poverty measures are also required. This is vital to prevent those at the bottom from being cut adrift and 'locked out' from mainstream society. Along with this conventionally understood form of 'social exclusion', Giddens is also concerned about exclusion at the top, and the possible growth of an elite class standing separate from the rest of society.

Giddens noted the tension between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. Clearly if there are social barriers to equality of outcome, equality of opportunity becomes a hollow concept.

Giddens remains upbeat about the possibilities of redistribution although he acknowledges problems. High taxes may encourage tax evasion. There is also a vicious circle when the rich abandon poor public services, thereby accelerating their decline. Whichever way you look at it, Giddens' approach involves taxation to redistribute wealth and maintain public services. But as he himself noted, it is often the middle class, not the wealthy, who find themselves at the sharp end of tax increases. And there is something troubling about a society that has to strongarm its citizens into handing over their cash out of fear of social exclusion - the state as protection racketeer perhaps.

Giddens recognises the need for aspiration and incentive. He would not like to see a society in which Bill Gates was not possible, but he is uneasy about inherited wealth and the entrenchment of a ruling elite.

Giddens seems to take issue with every aspect of the market but not the market itself. His is a world of increasing government intervention and regulation. Neither a free market nor a planned economy as traditionally understood, but a pragmatic make-do-and-mend economy. The future appears to be one in which sullen wealth creators prop up the welfare state and the rest of us earn a living by serving each other cappuccino.