Inequality: Is the gap between rich and poor in the UK fair?

Moral Maze

BBC

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.4 • 623 Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2022

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

Is the gap between rich and poor in the UK fair? The soaring cost of living is raising questions about the gap between rich and poor. As prices have been forced up by global events, including the war in Ukraine, families on low incomes, who spend most of their money on basics, have been hit hard. In the last year, more than two million people in the UK turned to food banks. Stories of parents forced to choose between food and warmth, or skipping meals so their children can eat, have become common. Can the UK, one of the richest countries in the world, morally justify millions of its people relying on charity just to keep their children warm and fed?

The wealthiest ten per cent of households own 43% of the country’s wealth, so is it naïve to suggest that the poorest should get more help and the richest should pay for it? The recently announced windfall tax on energy companies was an extraordinary moment: cash taken from big companies and handed to their customers. Is it time for more of this? Or are Robin Hood taxes, taking money from people who have earned it and handing it to people who haven’t, essentially unfair? Isn't wealth inequality the very driver of human effort? We work, so we can become better off. Remove that incentive, and what happens to economic growth, on which we all rely? What is the case for redistributing the nation’s wealth? Is it immoral to accumulate enormous personal wealth? Or is it acceptable for some people to become fantastically rich, provided that nobody is truly poor?

Producers: Jonathan Hallewell and Peter Everett Presenter: Michael Buerk

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:05.0	Good evening, if you're into horror movies, get yourself a smart metre.
0:08.8	We've just had one installed and it sits in the corner of the kitchen,
0:12.2	ticking up our gas and electricity bills in real time.
0:16.1	It's horrifying in what amounts to a heat wave.
0:18.6	Just wait for the winter.
0:20.3	Life suddenly got much more expensive,
0:22.6	not just energy, but food, transport, pretty much everything really. It's hitting the poor
0:27.6	hardest, not just because they've got less money, obviously, but because a bigger proportion
0:32.6	of what they do have goes on these increasingly costly essentials. It's all sharpened the arguments about inequality in our society.
0:40.9	The richest fifth of our population have five times the disposable income of the poorest fifth.
0:46.8	Actual wealth is more uneven.
0:49.0	The 10% richest have more than 40% of it.
0:53.1	One side of the argument is that such extreme disparities are not just unfair but unacceptable,
1:00.0	that much more money should be taken from wealthy individuals and companies and given to those more needy,
1:05.7	that there's not just a political case, but a moral imperative to strive for equality of outcome, not just of opportunity.
1:13.1	The other side says equality is an unattainable illusion. We're not born equal, we're not
1:18.3	equally talented or work equally hard. Penalising achievement and success will end up with
1:23.6	everybody worse off. What matters is the standard of living of the poor, not how wealthy
1:29.2	the rich are. How equal should we want to be? That's our moral maze tonight. The panel and McClevoy,
1:35.8	senior editor at The Economist, the historian Tim Stanley, Ash Sarker, the Libertarian Marxist and editor
1:41.2	at the Navarra Media Group, and the priest and polemicist at Giles Fraser.
	...

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