‘Fairness gurus’ Professor Richard Wilkinson and Will Hutton go head to head

Published: 28th January, 2011
by TOM FOOT

THE country’s leading “fairness gurus” clashed at London Metropolitan University on Tuesday.

Professor Richard Wilkinson, chairman of Islington’s Fairness Commission, and Will Hutton, writer and government advisor, spoke to about 200 students in a lively exchange at the Old Castle Street campus in Aldgate.

Prof Wilkinson, co-author of the acclaimed The Spirit Level, presented meticulously research­ed evidence showing that the wider the pay gap between rich and poor the worse-off society is as a whole.

Rates of life expectancy, mental illness and murder in countries around the world are all inextricably linked to the breadth of income inequality, he maintains. The Spirit Level argues that it is in everyone’s interest to narrow the gap.

Prof Wilkinson said: “Violence, for example, is more common in unequal societies not because people are attacking the rich but because there is more insecurity. It is the relative poverty that is important.” One way of keeping the peace would be through “food sharing” as it was “essential not to disrupt access to basic necessities”.

Mr Hutton, who has written a book about fairness, Them and Us, described Prof Wilkinson’s ideas as “pretty plausible”, but felt that “flat-earth egalitarianism” was a socialist fantasy.

He described billing for the event – “Hutton and Wilkinson” – as “sounding like the name of a Savile Row tailor”.

“Well, you would know more about that than me,” said Prof Wilkinson. “It’s true I have been more exposed to capitalism than you have been,” Mr Hutton replied. “All the countries in my book are capitalist,” said Prof Wilkinson.

Mr Hutton – who is conducting a fair pay review on behalf of the government – said only “good capitalism” – where everyone gets their just desserts – can create a fair society. He unleashed a “battery of ideas”, including proposals to tax rich property owners and to create a one-off £50,000 payment for all young people on their 21st birthday.

Mr Hutton believed we are all born with a “fairness gene” and that fairness is a “fundamental human instinct”. Attacks on the NHS were “profound barbarism” and an offence to that fundamental instinct, he added.

Mr Hutton blamed super-rich oligarchs for crushing the aspirations of young entrepreneurs and causing markets to crash, an example of “bad capitalism”.

The next meeting of the Fairness Commission will debate health inequalities at the Jean Stokes Community Centre on the Bemerton estate, off Caledonian Road, on February 15.

• The Spirit Level by Prof Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett is published by Penguin at £10.99.