Many think that income differentials are increasing in advanced industrial democracies, Canada included. Richard Ziegler calls upon the Canadian left to be true to its overarching founding goal: the attenuation, if not elimination, of economic inequalities. With the NDP avoiding such inequalities in its rhetoric and policies, Ziegler wants a new party, one committed single-mindedly to limiting income and wealth, both within Canada and between Canada and the world's poor nations. For Canada, very high taxes will handle the wealth issue and tight limits on income—four to one, top to bottom—will handle the income issue. Canada will redistribute its wealth to the poor of the world, again on a four-to-one basis.
Zeigler attacks many, but not the usual, targets—CEOs and corporations. Instead, he hits at leftish forces. The NDP is excoriated because it avoids divisiveness—that is, class issues—and accepts “the market intact” (4). Social movements (such as gays, lesbians, disabled persons, feminists, and ethnic minorities) are criticized because their focus on “democracy, personal autonomy, marginalization and challenging cultural norms” (17) has been overly influential in the NDP, to the detriment of economic equalization. Environmentalists fail to see that all people need to have a lower standard of living. Medicare supporters do not recognize that economic inequalities cause many of the health problems the poor experience. Unionized workers are interested in material improvements rather than eliminating economic stratification. And the anti-poverty movement is anti-egalitarian and reactionary: it seeks to ease the pain of the poor but avoids confronting the fundamental problem of what causes poverty.
Two components comprise the fundamental problem. First, is the widespread belief in the right to be rich; even leftists accept that people have the right to earn as much as they can and to accumulate as much wealth as possible. Second, people have more income and wealth than they need. Zeigler never explains how the needs of people are to be determined, but they seem to be at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy. Ziegler's differentiation between absolute poverty and relative poverty is not helpful. He claims that the former, “income below the threshold of the absolute poverty level … [that] … often results in an inability to provide for basic needs” (54), is easily addressed, but the latter is problematic. People, he argues, estimating their situation in light of the circumstances of others, are provoked by the wealthy to want more than they objectively need. Is envy the only motivator for human action?
Since for Ziegler no occupation is more valuable to society than another, one might presume that he would want equal rates of compensation. However, he argues that it “is almost unimaginable how strict uniformity of income could be introduced or sustained” (68). He opts for the four-to-one ratio because some professions “need to regard themselves as more deserving than others, that a minimal amount of stratification is required, that incentives may be necessary to choose certain careers, and that attempts to convince the majority to accept absolute equality would invariably fail” (68–69). Further, there must be a moderate reward for ability. A ten-to-one ratio, however, is too generous, allowing people to satisfy myriad wants.
Ziegler thinks that the left lost its way after the Second World War when it engaged in “intense reflection” (3) about its future. He does not cite anything about that debate or how the left developed new understandings—indeed, acceptance, if not appreciation—of the market. His book would have been better with a chapter on why economic equality should be our central (only?) political value.
A party committed to limiting wealth and incomes would run headfirst into the widespread acceptance of the right to be rich; many people, especially those in the middle class, would face sharp lowering of their living standards. Still, Ziegler is hopeful that the party would become competitive as the working-class allies with the middle class who see the justice of economic equalization.
Is there room in the political marketplace for such a party? Its project would be contrary to what most voters look for: materially better times. Zeigler hopes for a global commitment to economic egalitarianism. Until then, however, upon election the new party would face the same problem as the Saskatchewan CCF: the constraint of external forces and attractions, especially those coming from the United States. In order to prevent the southbound flight of capital and talent, Canada would have to become a closed society more akin to North Korea than anywhere else in the world.
This book might be useful in an introductory course on political ideas. Many students will easily dismiss Ziegler as utopian, but the thoughtful will appreciate that, writing in a tradition extending back to Plato, he speaks to a contemporary issue: What is the role of the left in a world of one economy (rather than many national ones) and with weaker national governments than in the left's early days?
