Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
questioned, at least not effectively. Occasionally, the elite in such societies were
overthrown by internal revolt or external conquest, but some form of the hierarchi-
cal pattern, if not the same families, remerged and repeated itself through time, with
a belief that such inequalities of possessions and power were some sort of natural
order.
The growth of Enlightenment ideas in Europe from the late eighteenth century
began the process of dissolving the assumptions of the inevitability of these status
differences as some sort of inevitable, foundational nature of society, which led to
the emergence of new political and human rights ideas. Older state and religious
beliefs were increasingly questioned and the focus of debate returned to discovering
and justifying principles with which to order society, principles that were based on
human, rational thought. Increasingly, people began to believe that status differ-
ences in society were man-made, not ordained by God, or by previous traditions. So
relationships between people began to be regarded as social contracts based on our
common humanity, in which each individual had inalienable rights. Yet as Shklar
(
1986
, p. 25) has reminded us:
rights have never been demands only for more shares of whatever pie was available, nor
are they hostile to social conscience. Rights are demanded first and foremost out of fear of
cruelty and injury from agents of governments, but also from private magnates…….rights
are asserted against power abused.
The rights that were sought initially were workplace and political rights, which led
to emerging democracies, although it took time to include all adult males, and even
longer to apply to women. Only relatively recently have these human rights be-
come accepted as a basis for the redistribution of goods and opportunity, especially
at a state and municipal level, to improve the life of the impoverished majority in
order to reduce inequality and increase opportunity. Fraser (
2003
) has suggested
that the various movements designed to achieve these objectives can be grouped
into two major alternatives: 'transformational and affirmative' approaches to redis-
tribution. The first requires a complete transformation of societal relationships to
achieve its goals. The later focuses on creating small changes that produce enough
alterations through time to resolve the problems of the disadvantaged. This leads
to an incremental progress, such as providing greater democracy and economic
equality in western societies, in order to create a redistribution of political influ-
ence, opportunity and wealth.
One of the most fundamental and influential examples of
transformationalist
policies are seen in the communist ideas of Marx and Engels (
1848
) who developed
a materialist critique of capitalist society. They argued that it would eventually col-
lapse under its own contradictions, leading to a societal struggle which would phase
in the dictatorship of the proletariat, who would take over the means of production
and eradicate private enterprise. This change would completely alter the distribu-
tion of work and rewards through the creation of a new society, one that would
lead to a distribution of goods under the principle of 'each according to his need',
an egalitarian aim which would obviate the need for redistributive justice, since
all would be equal. There is little doubt that Marxist views provided a penetrating
view of the societal imperatives that lay behind the hidden workings of capital-
ism and raised the hopes of many that it would create a better and more just future
