Introduction

As argued in Chapter Two, social policy researchers, along with social scientists more generally, have focused overwhelmingly on poverty as a social problem. Research has covered this from a number of angles, including what poverty is, what causes it, what the consequences are of poverty, what the experience is of living in poverty, how poverty changes over time (the dynamics of poverty) and the ways in which policy might tackle poverty. Social policy researchers, along with researchers in the social sciences more generally, have had rather less to say about the wealthy/rich because they have not generally been seen as a ‘social problem’. But we have argued that the wealthy might be seen as a social problem, or associated with social problems, for a number of reasons. First, there is increasing evidence that the gap between rich and poor causes social problems throughout society. Second, a large gap between rich and poor may be considered unjust if those who become rich do so through luck of birth rather than merit and hard work. Third, even if people do become richer than average through merit, this may not justify an extensive gap between those at the top and those at the bottom. This chapter therefore focuses on how policy might address the ‘problem of riches’.

As we saw in Chapter Two, public opinion appears to agree that the gap between rich and poor is too high and that something should be done about it. But if the current gap is too high, what level of inequality would be appropriate and/or acceptable? Some may argue that there should be no inequality at all, with everyone receiving exactly the same. However, we do not take this view, as we, along with the majority of the general public, support the idea that effort and important hard work deserve some level of extra reward or incentive. We also accept that some forms of wealth creation are important and so would want to reward/incentivise this. However, we do question whether the kind of work which receives the largest rewards/incentives currently is the most important and deserving of such rewards.