Transcript Tackling Social Inequality. Will your vote make a difference?

Tackling social inequality.
Will your vote make a difference?
Danny Dorling
3 March 2010
Eila Campbell Lecture
Birkbeck University, London
A talk in three parts
Thanks to Ben Hennig for Slides,
John Pritchard for many of the later cartograms
and many others
For the data see last slide
http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/maps/elections/constituencies/dorling_animation.html
PART 1
1987 and all that:
winners
The first general election of
my adult life was held in
1987
What do you remember of
23 years ago? Were you
alive?
Are we returning to a picture
that looks like this…… ?
Image available at: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/thesis/print_display.php?print=83
What to expect
• Today I’m talking about a very contemporary
event, a general election about to take place, but
I want to put it in a geographical and historical
context.
• Partly because this lecture is titled with Eila
Campbell’s name I’ll show quite a few maps
covering some history, but (unfortunately) no
historical cartography (Eila’s specialism).
1987 2nd placed
• This map shows who
came second. Will the
Liberals again excell at
this?
• Will there be a green dot
in England for the first
time (in first place)?
• Will any second placed
dot need to be drawn in
black (for the BNP)?
Image available at: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/thesis/print_display.php?print=84
My central argument
In early 2010 we learnt that levels of social
inequality were at a 40 year high*. I suggest that
looking at the trend in various geographical and
social inequalities from around 1918 to the
present day it is very hard, initially, to notice
when the party of government changed.
However, closer inspection of the time series
suggests there were key times when the trends
changed direction, when the future was much
less like the past and when how people voted
and acted appeared to matter more than at other
times. Now may be such a time.
* The John Hills Enquiry (published in January 2010)
1987 vote mix
• In the era before 1918
two parties had
dominated
• After 1981 three parties
mattered most again
• But how different are
they?
Image available at: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/thesis/print_display.php?print=82
Think forward from 1987 to now
• With all three main parties offering apparently
very similar solutions to the issue of reducing
inequality it may appear unlikely that voting in
2010 will make much of a difference to future
trends – All three say there is no alternative to
cuts.
• However, inequalities are now so extreme that
concern has risen. Action has been taken such
that some inequality trends, especially in
education, have begun to change direction (things
did get better but who noticed*?).
• How divided is the country by political colour?
*http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2010/jan/28/labours-greatsuccesses-university-access-danny-dorling
1987 cartogram
Are we looking again at a
pink inner London, dark
blue suburbs, turquoise
home counties, jade
peninsula, purple north,
red metropolises: deep
geographical division?
Image available at: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/thesis/print_display.php?print=81
1987 was no key election
• The last two times that the direction of trends in
geographical inequalities changed there were
several general elections held within a relatively
short time period (1922/23/24, 1970/74/74).
• If your vote does not make a difference this time,
it may well matter sooner than you think.
Inequality is expensive and the United Kingdom
is not as well-off as it recently appeared to be.
Local votes
• Are often used today to
forecast votes at a
general election, but
they have been out of
sync before
• Only where local
elections are held can
votes be counted…
Image available at: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/thesis/print_display.php?print=86
We all have a different memory
In 1987 I moved to live for a year in a flat in
Benwell in Newcastle upon Tyne. Your
geography, the places you have been to,
change who you are.
In that same year a man twelve years older than
me took up a new job, at age 31, having already
spent several years in charge of monetary policy
at the Treasury and working in Margaret
Thatcher’s policy unit: in 1987 David Willets took
over running the Centre for Policy Studies.
Voting Space
• Sometimes it helps to
take the geography
out of the picture
• Here is how the votes
were shared out within
each constituency
back in 1987 –
position in the triangle
gives vote share
Image available at: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/thesis/print_display.php?print=86
Here is David’s view of 1906-1974
“What if instead of being born in 1956 I had
been born fifty years earlier in 1906? Then
a mother, depending of course on her
social class, might have felt things were
looking pretty good for her new born child.
Britain was rich and powerful, with social
reform on the way as well. She could not
have expected that her son’s father would
die in the trenches of the First World War..
The View continued
“…that then this young man would not be
able to find work in the Great Depression,
be conscripted in the Second World War
and endure austerity after it. He would
finally have retired in 1971 only to find his
modest savings then destroyed by the
worst ten years of inflation in our nation’s
history. It was an unlucky generation”.
According to: The Pinch: How the baby boomers took their children’s future –
and why they should give it back. David Willetts, 2010 (Atlantic Books,
London, pages xvi-xvii)
Voting spacetime
• Postwar voting swung,
from ‘left-right-classfight’ to sickle shaped
battles with a growing
vacuum at its centre:
created by having three
party politics under first
past the post elections.
Image available at: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/thesis/print_display.php?print=126
1987 and all that
• How you read history
depends on your
geographies.
• In 1974 both David
and I lived in Oxford.
He at Christ Church
and me in Cowley –
both in that happy
pink Oxford face
(in a sea of blue).
Image available at: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/thesis/print_display.php?print=152
My view of 1918-1986
“What if instead of being born in 1968 I had
been born fifty years earlier in 1918? Then
my mother (almost all were of a low social
class) would have known there was a
good chance her new born child would die
before she did. Britain was rich and
powerful, but almost none of that
benefitted her or her child… it was not the
great era David imagines…
My view continued
“…I would not have known that this young man
would be politically galvanised in the Great
Depression, have his life defined by the Second
World War and celebrate what came after it: the
NHS, secondary education for all, work in place
of fear. He would spend most of his working life
receiving a higher wage than anyone in his
family ever had and one more similar to his
neighbours than had been experienced for
centuries. He would retire in 1983 and watch a
country appear to be being ruined by the
Tories*”.
*See Patrick Wrights’ “A Journey Through the Ruins, Flamingo, New Edition, 1993.
Swinging in ‘87
• Most of Britain agreed
with me by the mid
1980s.
• Arrows pointing down
and to the left swung
towards Labour.
• Straight down was away
from the Liberal ‘Alliance’.
• Only a very few then
swung to the right.
Image available at: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/thesis/print_display.php?print=145
End of context
• However, while I was
drawing pictures like this
in Newcastle – not
realising that no one
understood them, Mr
Willetts was standing to be
a member of parliament
and then grew a second
brain (a tongue in cheek
complement he was given
by his ‘friends’).
• Mr Willetts’ thoughts help
explain where we are now.
Image available at: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/thesis/print_display.php?print=136
Part 2 – trends 1918-2010
What come next is series of pieces of new
evidence brought together in preparation for my
forthcoming book; Injustice: why social inequality
persists.
What would happen today if we chose to either
create greater or less inequality; and what is
different today that might make the difference as
to which way we turn?
Consider three time series
• Geographical Inequalities in Health
1918-2008
• Social Inequalities in Income and Wealth
1918- 2009
• Political Inequalities in the segregation of voters
1918-2010
Inequality: 1918 to 2008/9/10
20%
35%
18%
16%
30%
14%
12%
25%
10%
8%
20%
6%
4%
15%
191819221923192419291931193519451950195119551959196419661970197419741979198319871992199720012005
Conservative Votes
Pre-tax Income by the Richest 1%
Post-tax
Survival chances to age 65 of the Worse off 30%
Survival Chances of the Best off 10%
Inequalities in survival chances to age 65 by
area in Britain, 1920-2006 + 2007/8
32%
30%
28%
26%
24%
22%
20%
18%
16%
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Lines show excess mortality of the worse off 30% and fewer deaths to the best off 10%
Graph is figure 12 in “Injustice: why social inequality persists, published April 2010”
Share of all income received by the richest
1% in Britain, 1918–2009
20%
18%
16%
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Lines show pre- and post-tax shares (below). Note divergence again by 2009
Graph is figure 14 in “Injustice: why social inequality persists, published April 2010”
Concentration of Conservative votes, British
general elections, 1918–2010
20%
?
18%
16%
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Proportion of Conservative voters to move to spread them geographically equally
Graph is figure 14 in “Injustice: why social inequality persists, published April 2010”
Are times changing?
• When times are changing it is not evident to those on the
ground. You have to look for signs.
• I will take as a sign the latest publication from a middle of
the road highly respectable think tank and see what
three of the great and the good now say in “Jobs,
industry and opportunity: Growth strategies after the
crisis” (published 16/2/2010) and show you what they
say below.
• Policy Network’s president is Peter Mandelson.
Are we asking new questions?
“A key issue is the border between the market and the nonmarket, where that line should be drawn and what are
the consequences for drawing it in one place rather than
another. After three decades during which the market
sphere has expanded into more and more areas, there is
an urgent need for a fresh assessment of the ecology of
enterprises and organisations it is desirable to promote,
and how power is distributed within different sectors of
the economy.”
Andrew Gamble: professor and head of the politics
department at the University of Cambridge in “Jobs,
industry and opportunity: Growth strategies after the crisis”
Are we suggesting new possibilities?
“…the UK must at least work towards:
• The immediate development of a publicly-owned
industrial bank, charged with facilitating balanced
regional growth by small and medium sized companies.
• The rapid and extensive public provision of social
housing, to ease rental and mortgage burdens on
working and middle class families.
• An active extension of individual and collective worker
rights, to build a rising wage floor and a new social
contract underneath industrial growth”
David Coates: Professor of Anglo-American Studies at
Wake Forest University in “Jobs, industry and opportunity:
Growth strategies after the crisis”
And, as before, are allegations of direct
self-interest being made?
“The Fed’s loose monetary policy almost certainly was
designed to help get Alan Greenspan reappointed in
May 2004, and to help get George W. Bush reelected in
November 2004; interest rates began rising within weeks
of the election. The regulatory laxity of the nation’s
ostensible financial guardians was enabled and
encouraged by the undue influence of banks and other
financial institutions on the agencies that were supposed
to be regulating them.”
Jeffry Frieden: professor of government at Harvard
University in “Jobs, industry and opportunity: Growth strategies
after the crisis”
Part 3 – what about your vote?
• So, will your vote
count?
• Try to think about
more than just the
next election
• You get to vote in
about 18 general
elections if you live a
long life
http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/maps/elections/elections.htm
Local and General Elections
http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/maps/elections/local/hex_control_74to08_variable.html
http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/maps/elections/elections.htm
Conclusion: I would say
Voting is not an end in itself. But it makes it possible to
achieve other important objectives of individuals and
societies. It can spare people en masse from poverty
and drudgery. Nothing else but cooperation ever has.
Democracy also creates the resources to support health
care, education…We do not know if limits to democracy
exist, or how generous those limits will be. The answer
will depend on our ingenuity and technology, on finding
new ways to work together in ways we value on an
uncertain foundation of mutual respect. This is likely to
be the ultimate challenge of the coming century.
Democracy and inequality reduction in the future will
depend on our ability to meet it…
But I stole over half these words from others...
Others obsessed with growth
“Growth is not an end in itself. But it makes it possible to
achieve other important objectives of individuals and
societies. It can spare people en masse from poverty
and drudgery. Nothing else ever has. It also creates the
resources to support health care, education…We do not
know if limits to growth exist, or how generous those
limits will be. The answer will depend on our ingenuity
and technology, on finding new ways to create goods
and services that people value on a finite foundation of
natural resources. This is likely to be the ultimate
challenge of the coming century. Growth and poverty
reduction in the future will depend on our ability to meet
it…” CGD (2008).
The Growth Report 2008: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development.
Washington D.C., The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development , and
The World Bank, on behalf of the Commission on Growth and Development (CGD).
Could we come to think that?:
Worldwide it has been the very opposite of what World
Bankers say that has spared people from poverty and
drudgery. It has been through curtailing growth and
greed that most people who have been spared from
poverty have mostly seen their parents brought out of it.
Trade unions curtailed profiteering by bosses and
argued wages up. Governments nationalized health
services and freed their citizens from fear by curtailing
the greed of private physicians. Americans had a
revolution to overcome the greed of the English; the
English reduced poverty at home by exploiting others
abroad, but also partly by occasionally voting down the
power of the aristocracy, most obviously between 1906
and 1974 to distribute wealth better across Britain.
How many brains do you need to understand this?
Final thanks to:
Tackling social inequality.
Who’s vote
makes the most difference?
Votes in the IMF (2006)
Local election data supplied by Michael
Thrasher, Colin Rallings and their team at
the Local Government Chronicle Elections
Centre at the University of Plymouth
General election data by of Bruce Tether and
James Cornford (when at Newcastle) Kevin
Holohan, David Cutts, and Ron Johnston (at
Bristol), Heather Eyre (at Leeds), John
Pritchard (at Sheffield), William Field (who
supplied the raw 1885-1951 data), Ron
Johnston (who found the source for the data
from 1832-1885), and Michael Thrasher
Cartogram algorithms by Bethan Thomas, Mark
Newman and Michael Gastner.
http://www.worldmapper.org/images/largepng/365.png
The fully animated version of this slideshow is available as a PowerPoint document on
http://sheffield.ac.uk/geography/staff/dorling_danny/lectures.html