Oligarchs and Democrats, page 17
on desert. They think some people deserve higher incomes, even if they are less convinced that
higher incomes always go to the right people.
If my first hypothesis is correct, Russians will
use the same standards even if they come to different conclusions about the justice of their own
markets.
I asked the Russian respondents to choose between two abstract alternatives: a society
characterized by material equality or one in which there are rich and poor people. Answers to
this question and the explanations that accompanied them can help us extract the
understandings of social justice that underpin attitudes toward markets. At first glance, it
appears that Russia’s market doubters apply different standards of justice than do market
proponents. In particular, we can see different principles of distribution at work among skeptics
compared to liberal democrats. Valya, for instance, a skeptic, clearly preferred equality to
differentiation. She said, “When there is money, it is easy, nose in the air, not to notice even
other people. To think the whole time that this is a lower rung, well, lower than me on the ladder.
It seems to me it is better if people are identical, if there is material equality.” Elena added that a
more equal society was preferable because then she would not need to feel embarrassed about
her un-remodeled home. Equality was not the preference of the majority in the skeptical corner,
but people in this group were more likely to express preferences for equality than were people in
any other group. Even when they accepted the justice of inequality, they tended to favor a
relatively small gap between rich and the poor. Nadia, for instance, defended a relatively equal
society with some opportunity to accumulate wealth. She said, “I consider that there should not
be poor people. There should be wealthy people. Equality, also. All the same, many of the
wealthy help, undertake philanthropy. They help orphanages. It is necessary to have such
wealthy people, who don’t send their capital abroad but keep it here, who invest in Russia.”
At the other end of the spectrum, liberal democrats clearly applied a principle of desert to
evaluations of income distribution. They tended to think that an equal society is impossible to
accomplish because it is unnatural: it fails to recognize the distinctions that exist between
people. Oleg felt equality was an offense against those who work hard. Vitya focused on the
injustice of rewarding a slacker the same as someone who put in more effort. Raisa added,
“Whoever works more, who is more knowledgeable, brighter, should live better.” Misha
commented on the inevitability of inequality. He said, “Historically, it turns out that in society
there exists both poor and rich. It’s clear this will always be. Everyone has different wants,
different desires. Everyone strives for something. Equality did not exist even under socialism. It
Inequality: Occupational Earnings in Nine Nations,” American Journal of Sociology 99, no. 1 (July 1993):
75-125.
65
Miller, Social Justice, pp. 71-72, 83.
Convention