The extent of inequality in contemporary South Africa is immoral

South Africa’s inequality is a particular, political issue embedded and entrenched deeply within the country’s history and has permeated through time from when the Dutch settlers first set foot in the Cape in 1652, all the way through to apartheid in 1948 and even in the post-democratic era we find ourselves in today (Dollery, 2003). This essay will focus on the extent of this historically founded inequality in contemporary South Africa, by first looking at the root causes which have led to these inherited imbalances in equity, and then objectively determining the extent of this inequality in recent times by analysing statistical indicators like the Gini-coefficient. This essay will then tackle the moral debate surrounding South Africa’s inequality, unpacking two opposing theoretical perspectives on distributive justice to show the arguments for and against the central issue of whether the extent of the inequality in present South Africa is immoral. These arguments are namely Utilitarianism, which, this essay will show, supports the notion that the extent of inequality in South Africa is immoral, as well as Rawls’ Principles of Justice, which, this essay will illustrate, is against the above notion of an immoral extent of inequality in South Africa’s contemporary context. This essay, from evaluating these arguments, will show why the Utilitarian approach at dealing with this issue is superior to viewing things from the Rawls’ Principles of Justice perspective.

As aforementioned, South Africa’s inequality has its roots deeply implanted in its history. As at 1989, near the end of apartheid, about 50% of South Africa’s general population lived below the poverty level, the numbers having been higher for [non-white] Africans on reserves and although the economy then allowed for an agricultural reserve that could feed the population a diet of 6,000 calories a day, there was widespread hunger and malnutrition (Wilson, 1989). Moreover, anywhere from 1 to 2/3 of all black children grew up underweight and undernourished and despite South Africa's access to electricity and good medical facilities, the infant mortality rate (per 1,000 infants born) was between 94 and 125 (African children were 9 to 10 times less likely to see their 1st birthday than white children) and 2/3 of the population did not have electricity (op cit). Furthermore, other gross inequalities existed in education and income, severely limiting the health and growth potential of South Africa's Black population - the forced removals of portions of the population, the prohibition of portions of the population, the prohibition of black urbanization and the preclusion of black organizations all blocked the path of socioeconomic progress and equality in South Africa (op cit).

This inequality from the past is still present in South Africa today, and this can be objectively supported by data expressed in the form of the Gini-coefficient. The Gini-coefficient or Gini index is ‘a statistical measure of distribution often used as a gauge of economic inequality, measuring income distribution or, less commonly, wealth distribution among a population’ and is the best way to measure the extent of inequality in a country (Investopedia, 2018). About 25 years later from when the aforementioned statistics were researched and found, the Gini-coefficient, according to Statistics South Africa, measuring relative wealth reached 0.65 in 2014 based on expenditure data (excluding taxes), and 0.69 based on income data (including salaries, wages, and social grants); these results mean that the poorest 20% of the South African population consumed, at this point in time, less than 3% of total expenditure, while the wealthiest 20% consumed 65% (Bank, The World, 2017). Although things have remained the same in principle, they have also improved in some ways; according to the South Africa Survey 2016, South Africa has shown improvement since the fall of apartheid, as all possible measures of access to housing, electricity, clean water, and sanitation services were much higher than two decades former to when the report was made (op cit). This improvement, paired with conditions having remained the same in principle, therefore makes it difficult to ascertain whether the extent of inequality in contemporary South Africa is immoral and so it is necessary to look at theoretical perspectives on distributive justice to find a resolution as distributive principles are designed and assessed according to how they affect welfare, its maximization and distribution (Stanford Department of Philosophy, 1996).

Utilitarianism is a theoretical perspective on distributive justice ‘to which an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness—not just the happiness of the performer of the action but also that of everyone affected by it’ (Duignan, 1999). Furthermore, utilitarianism argues that the happiness is the only thing with intrinsic value, and all other things have instrumental value as long as they contribute to the experience of happiness or the avoidance of pain (Stanford Department of Philosophy, 1996). One of the most important principles under utilitarianism is the ‘greatest happiness’ principle. This principle is concerned with distributing economic benefits so as to maximize preference-satisfaction; the welfare function for such a principle has a relatively simple theoretical form requiring the distribution maximizing the arithmetic sum of all satisfied preferences (unsatisfied preferences being negative), weighted for the intensity of those preferences (op cit). The abovementioned Gini-coefficient findings on contemporary South Africa are sufficient evidence to show that South Africa is not meeting this utilitarian principle; that is, our country is not at its ‘greatest happiness’, which, according to utilitarian theory, means the extent of inequality in South Africa is immoral. For this reason, this essay, too, argues that the extent of inequality in contemporary South Africa is immoral, as there is evidence of dissatisfaction in society not only in the theory, but also in practical examples.

One of such examples is the #FeesMustFall movement, popularised by (social) media in 2015. These protests at South Africa’s universities didn’t suddenly start in 2015 with the #FeesMustFall movement; students at poorer institutions that cater almost exclusively for black students such as the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Fort Hare University and the Tshwane University of Technology have been protesting routinely against rising fees and the cost of higher education since 1994. (Davids, 2016). This shows thus shows that a utilitarian argument is very valid in a contemporary South African context – students have been protesting for decades for the just and constitutionally enshrined right to education and are only being heard in more recent times. The extent of inequality in today’s South Africa is clearly immoral.

Another argument as to why this utilitarian argument is valid in determining the immoral extent of inequality in South Africa is the law of diminishing marginal utility. This law states that ‘as a person increases consumption of a product while keeping consumption of other products constant, there is a decline in the marginal utility that person derives from consuming each additional unit of that product’ (Investopedia, 2018). This law, although economic in its origin, applies to ethical issues as well, especially under utilitarianism. For example: ‘Imagine that you have two people, poor man Paul and rich man Richard. In the village in which Paul and Richard live, Paul receives $10,000 a year, while Richard receives $90,000 out of a $100,000 output pool. The aggregate happiness of the society is not smaller if you pay Paul $20,000 per year and Richard $80,000, even though that results in a 100% income gain for Paul and a mere 11% drop for Richard. Richard may very well be less happy in the latter scenario, but Paul is much, much happier. Richard may even end up happier too–perhaps previously, Paul felt a sense of injustice and was hostile to Richard, stole from him, or was less sociable with him.’ (Studebaker, 2012)

This example thus proves that giving the poorer man a marginal amount can make a big difference to his quality of life and welfare while giving the richer man a little less does not (op cit).

Conversely, Rawls’ Principles of Justice, would suggest that South Africa, although unequal, is not necessarily unequal to a moral extent. The first of these is ‘the equality’ principle which says inequalities are permitted by the overall theory only if justified by the premise that people have the relevant kind of equal opportunity to achieve greater or lesser amounts of goods (Stanford Department of Philosophy, 1996). This theory holds, even in a practical sense in South Africa – for instance, the Black Economic Empowerment policy passed in 2001 which says policy all businesses with a turnover of R5 million and more, have to adhere to a BEE scorecard of equitable representation, to enable them to achieve a BEE certification which would in turn allow business to qualify for tax reliefs and subsidies (Preez, 2017). Although the intention of implementing this policy was to perhaps make the extent of inequality in South Africa less immoral, it was made to benefit only one specific group (the growing Black middle class) while the unemployed and poor stayed in the same apartheid-inherited conditions and thus it is clear that the New South Africa and BEE (the original) made little difference to their quality of life. Hence this theory applies, at least in contemporary South Africa, only theoretically as there are yet to be practical, viable policies passed that ensure all members of society are given equal opportunities.

The second of Rawls’ Principles of Justice would also suggest that South Africa is not necessarily unequal to a moral extent. This principle is essentially a hypothetical compensation scheme which says that those with unequal natural endowments should receive compensation (Stanford Department of Philosophy, 1996). For instance, people born with disabilities, or ill-health, who have not brought these circumstances upon themselves, can be explicitly compensated so that they are not disadvantaged in their economic prospects, if those who are willing and able to help the less well-off, are rewarded more in society (op cit). South Africa attempts to fulfil this principle, in an economic sense, through its progressive tax system which taxes imposes a higher tax rate on those who are able to afford it, so as to help the less well-off members of society through government grants. Once again, this theoretical application fails in practice – as government grants are not a sustainable solution to maintaining a moral extent of equality – the grants themselves are merely a remedy for this underlying issue.

Moreover, the well-off members of society may be compelled to adhere to this system by law – but are incentivised to take part in tax evasion and avoidance if this is to be a perpetual solution to the problem. Thus, the utilitarian approach at dealing with the morality of the equality in South Africa is superior to that of Rawls’ Principles of Justice as it has successful theoretical and practical application.

Therefore, this essay has outlined the extent of this historically founded inequality in contemporary South Africa, by looking at the root causes which have led to these inherited imbalances in equity and has objectively determined the extent of this inequality in recent times by analysing statistical indicators like the Gini-coefficient. Moreover, this essay has tackled the moral debate surrounding South Africa’s inequality, unpacking two opposing theoretical perspectives on distributive justice to show the arguments for and against the central issue of whether the extent of the inequality in present South Africa is immoral, concluding that utilitarianism is superior on the grounds of its successful theoretical and practical application.

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