Maureen Ramsay

A modest proposal: the case for a maximum wage

New Labour’s approach to inequality stresses equal opportunities and personal responsibility. The state ensures that all citizens have access to a wide range of basic goods and services to put a floor under rising inequality and to prevent social exclusion. The emphasis on personal responsibility makes clear that the benefits and rewards of the opportunities offered must in some way be earned or deserved. Those in receipt of them have a parallel responsibility to that of the state to give something back in return. The doctrine of rights and responsibilities implies that those who remain economically and socially disadvantaged deserve their plight, if they have not taken the opportunities offered to escape it. Government action to address inequality has concentrated on the poor and it seems that judgements about benefits conditional on personal desert and responsibility apply only to those at the bottom of society’s pile. There is no equivalent reciprocal responsibility demanded from those in receipt of society’s highest rewards. There is no similar judgement made about high earners’ worth, nor any insinuation that some people are the undeserving rich. The government recognizes the need to intervene in the operations of the market to counter its anti-egalitarian effects for those who would otherwise lose out. It recognizes no similar need to tackle inequality by intervening to impose limits on individual rewards for those who are able to take full advantage of market freedoms. In a Newsnight interview with Jeremy Paxman in June 2001, Blair stated that it was unacceptable that people were not given opportunities, but ruled out any state intervention to set boundaries on how much people earned. He simply couldn’t understand why it mattered, insisting that ‘if you end up going after those people who are the most wealthy in society, what you actually do is in fact not even helping those at the bottom end’. This response suggests that the government is concerned only with improving the situation of the poorest by providing opportunities through a ‘trickle-down’ effect, which by making the rich richer will make the poor richer too. But New Labour’s faith in trickle down together with the provision of opportunities such as the minimum wage, Sure Start programmes, New Deal schemes and Family Tax Credits have not reversed the dramatic growth in income inequality over the last 25 years. The top 1% of the population increased its share of overall income from 6.5% in 1980 to 13% in 1999. The top 0.1% doubled its share over a similar period. At the end of the seventies the richest 10% of the population received 21% of disposable income. This had risen to 29% by 2002–3. The poorest 10%

Can the torture of terrorist suspects be justified

Abstract This article discusses allegations of the widespread use of torture on terrorist suspects and evidence that the US administration authorised and condoned its use. Its main focus is the subsequent and misplaced academic debate which concedes that torture in certain catastrophic circumstances is morally permissible in order to prevent a greater evil. It challenges arguments for ‘principled’ torture, whether by juridical warrant or by advocating retaining an absolute ban while excusing extra legal torture and finds them equally flawed. It disputes the general acceptance by both that if the stakes are high enough, torture can be justified on consequentialist grounds. It concludes that the debate about whether torture is permissible is conducted within a narrow narrative framework which both obscures the purpose of torture and sets up false and misleading choices between respect for human rights and averting terrorist threats.

Dirty hands or dirty decisions? Investigating, prosecuting and punishing those responsible for abuses of detainees in counter terrorism operations

It is well established that in response to the events of 11 September 2001, the US routinely and systematically used torture and other forms of ill-treatment against terrorist suspects and that this was authorised at the highest levels of the Bush administration. The authors of that policy have vociferously defended the use of so called enhanced interrogation techniques with dirty hands justifications. Cheney, for instance, has aggressively defended the necessity of ‘tough, mean, dirty, nasty tactics’ to keep the country safe and this is mirrored in academic justifications for torture as dirty hands decisions in extreme circumstances. This article will: (1) dispute that the use of torture and ill-treatment were genuine cases of dirty hands; and (2) even if they were, it is a feature of dirty hands justifications that there is focus on the abiding wrong of the necessary evil and punishment is necessary to acknowledge the wrong that has been done. In the light of this, it will be argued that those who ordered, designed and applied the policy should be held to account in criminal investigations or in some appropriate socially sanctioned proceedings.

Human rights in jeopardy

Judith Blau and Alberto Moncada, Human Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). David A. Reidy and Mortimer N.S. Sellers (eds), Universal Human Rights: Moral Order in...

Casemix funding of hospitals: Ethical objections

George Palmers primary argument for introduring casemix funding to hospitals is that it will, and does, achieve efficiency by providing powerful incentives for hospitals to reduce costs. He claims that opposition to casemix funding reflects confusion and misunderstanding, yet his argument will have no purchase with those opponents who are, in effect, challenging the idea that the overriding goal of health services is efficiency rather than equitable provision for needs. It is difficult to see how the oppositions arguments can be reduced to confusion and misunderstanding--confusion about what? The goals of the health service? The author himself agrees that meeting needs and improving health