Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
1988
, p. 3). The reason is that most of the changes they envisaged were based on a
society of voluntary co-operation in self-governing entities. In addition, the plan-
ners focused on new physical designs, rather than on the procedures and methods
used to achieve these ends. Recognition of these problems in planning has led to
increasing demands for greater transparency in decision-making, as well as for
greater input from those excluded and affected by the planning decisions—espe-
cially from the disadvantaged in cities.
These dissatisfactions with the current state of affairs developed at a time in
which the western world became described as an affluent society (Galbraith
1958
).
The fact that the majority of the population became more wealthy than before meant
that the old income pyramid of pre-industrial and industrial society—with a few at
the top and the majority at the bottom—had changed in shape to a spinning top-like
pattern in the late twentieth century, with an increasingly disadvantaged, but still
small group at the bottom, paralleled by a small elite at the top, and a very large
middle. Unfortunately, the affluence of the middle led to what has been described
as a 'culture of contentment' (Galbraith
1992
). Popular support for progressive re-
distributive policies declined as a more individualistic, atomist society emerged,
in which increasing numbers of people adhered to what Taylor (
1986, 1991
) de-
scribed as 'contributionist' ideas—namely, that it was only fair for people to get
more returns based on their expertise, enterprise, and ability to work harder. Hence
increased redistributive measures were seen as unfair, or even unjust, by such peo-
ple. Indeed, the idea of the meritocracy that emerged in the late 1950s focused on
these contributionist qualities as being necessary for future progress, whereas others
drew the implicit assumption that those who did not have these aspirations—the
poor—would remain in their situation because of a lack of drive, laziness or lack
of knowledge, showing the persistence of the older historical belief that the reason
for poverty was a personal failing. Interest in justice among these growing middle
income groups that probably became a majority in society, increasingly focused
on individual rights, which led to a justification of differential incomes. It led one
prominent Canadian philosopher to observe the following:
outside of society….the rules of justice that prevail are not those of distributive justice
but those of independent possession. Consequently, an atomist view gives one the basis to
argue that what we have a right to under these original rules cannot be abrogated, since the
purpose of entering society cannot be to jeopardize these rules but rather to protect them.
(Taylor
1986
, p. 38)
Obviously, these contributionist views had always been present in capitalist society,
and were influential in the conservative movements that tried to restrict redistribu-
tive policies from the nineteenth century onwards. Yet the grossly unequal rewards
in early industrial society and the squalor in which so many people lived, the poverty
experienced in the Depression of the 1930s, as well as the deaths and deprivations
that occurred during two world wars, provided the impetus for policies creating
greater equality, at least until the late 1960s.
The societal tendencies that reduced interest in new progressive policies were
enhanced by the ideological implementation of the so-called neo-liberal policies
