Book Review: Inequality, Social Protection and Social Justice, by James Midgley
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| Author | Lorena Ossio Bustillos |
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/13882627211008597 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
James Midgley, Inequality, Social Protection and Social Justice, E. Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK,
Northampton, MA USA, 188 pages, 2020, ISBN: 978 178990 557 1
Reviewed by: Lorena Ossio Bustillos , German Research Institute for Public Administration (FO
¨V), Speyer,
Germany
DOI: 10.1177/13882627211008597
James Midgley is regarded as a pioneer in the field of international social work as well as social
welfare and social policy. He wrote a book
1
on a similar subject 37 years ago. It is particularly
interesting to read his observations on this topic now from both a new and a long-term global
perspective.
This book is an original contribution to a worldwide research agenda on social protection and
egalitarian policies in light of social justice, connecting different disciplines and perspectives in a
multidimensional approach. This is not a simple task to tackle in almost 200 pages, but the author
manages to reflect on inequality, social protection and social justice in a transparent and rigorous
manner, reviewing the relevant literature in different disciplines, predominantly using literature
from economics. A central argument of the book is that income differences are a useful proxy for
different types of inequality since they are closely correlated with gender as well as ethnic and
other disparities (p. 16).
The book is divided in three parts: inequality; social protection and its global impact; and social
protection and social justice. To provide a background to the debate of the role of social protection
in tackling inequality, in the first part the author suggests that ‘inequality can best be understood as
a social condition of hierarchical differentiation in which peo ple are ranked in terms of their
income, wealth, status, gender, ethnicity, age, nationality, location, the ability to exercise power
and other attributes’ (p. 20).
The first chapter sets the scene and discusses the definition of inequality and the degree to which
it is well approximated by income inequality, as well as the relationship between equality and
social justice. The second chapter provides a concise historical review of economic literature on
income inequality (from Ancient China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Rome, through feudalism and
the Second World War to the present day), and it also discusses the key drivers of inequality. The
author argues that inequality can be primarily attributed to government policy. He also implicates
factors such as technological change, migration, globalisation, epidemics, natural disasters and
wars as drivers for income inequality.
According to the author, an egalitarian agenda includes the enforcement of legal rights, the
promotion of opportunities and measures that foster equity by advocating for ‘predistribution’,
aiming to strengthen the unions and implementing higher minimum wages. ‘Predistribution’ refers
to interventions that do not require the distribution of income and wealth through high levels of
taxation (p. 63). These proposals do not avoid the use of taxation, which is still necessary for
funding government revenues for social programmes.
The second part concerns social protection and its global impact. Social protection has largely
replaced older terms like ‘social security’, ‘income security’ and ‘income protection’. The author’s
definition of social protection includes well-established schemes such as social insurance,
employer mandates and social allowance as well as innovative poverty alleviation programmes
1. James Midgley, Social Security, Inequality and the Third World (John Wiley & Sons 1984).
Book Reviews 183
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