1. Politics, Power & Resistance Week 9: Citizenship & Inequality I A/Prof Alana Lentin a.lentin@uws.edu.au

2. Overview Classical ideas of citizenship Critiquing citizenship The myth of the classless society Capital and Inequality: Wilkinson and Piketty Redressing inequality 3. Classical views of citizenship T.H. Marshall: Civil rights Political rights Social rights 4. Critiquing citizenship We may all be human, but humanity has always excluded, despised and degraded some of its parts. Humanity is not one... Human rights... do not belong to humans; they help us construct who and how one becomes human Costas Douzinas (2009) 5. Australia:The Great Classless Society Citizenship based on displacement & dispossession The fair go Challenging the egalitarian myth Inequality and federation 6. Capital & Inequality [W]hen people in the same social class, at the same level of income or education, are compared across countries, those in more equal societies do better. So, at any given level of personal income or education, someone's quality of life will be higher if he or she has the same level of income or education but lives in a more equal society. The conclusion is that greater equality usually makes most difference to the least well off, but still produces some benefits for the well off. Wilkinson and Pickett (2011) Thomas Piketty (2014) 1. The rich get richer faster than the economy can grow 2. Income inequality is likely to get worse 3. Inequality will not self-correct 4. Top managers: No evidence that higher wages lead to more productivity 5. Balancing the books makes matters worse 7. Redressing inequality Who does poverty and inequality benefit? Is inequality a matter of personal responsibility? What role, if any, should be played by the state? What measures should be taken to alleviate poverty and inequality? 8. Limits of rights-based citizenship? Which groups/individuals gets left out? Is this always obvious? What about non-citizens?