Anne Phillips’ book not only challenges the prioritisation of social or political over economic equality, but reveals that distinction to be facile and dangerous in a number of ways. It therefore reflects the ongoing debate between ‘redistribution’ and ‘recognition’, which has emerged in recent decades. The new political movements of the 1960s and 1970s which posed such a challenge to established politics also took socialism to task for its arrogance in the face of what was called ‘difference’. The pursuit of emancipation through economic reform merely sidelined needs that were not crudely reducible to economics, such as those of women, ethnic minorities and homosexuals. Faced with a monolithic socialism and an indifferent state, marginalised groups required, above all, some ‘recognition’. At about the same time, a New Right critique developed making similar points about the crude steam-rolling of redistributive politics, and the latter began to look like a dead horse.

Phillips certainly spares herself the effort of attempting to convert opponents of equality per se—and therefore this reviewer spares himself the effort of persuading them that they will find this book anything other than a provocatively good read. She concentrates instead on the less imposing—though still hardly enviable—task of convincing advocates of ‘recognition’ that economic equality still matters. She is therefore keen that we recognise her as ‘someone whose political formation had been in feminist challenges to the masculinity of labourist traditions’, rather than a stubborn apologist for the socialist monolith—though she nevertheless feels that the backlash has gone far enough. The whole book therefore has the quality of an attempt to recapture the hearts of old allies who have somehow drifted away.

Phillips’ case requires a strong and categorical argument, and this is just what she comes up with: recognition, rather than competing for attention with redistribution, actually depends upon it. Even if we tried to distinguish groups exposed principally to social inequality (homosexuals?) from those which suffer principally from economic inequality (the working class?), no group could be seen to occupy a truly polar position: they would all experience both. Phillips, moreover, ‘would hazard a guess that any group that becomes a focus of resentment or object of disparagement will turn out to differ on some scale of economic comparison’.

We should not let this type of argument slip by unexamined, despite its apparent straightforwardness. Could we think of any two groups (even, to be banal, supporters of different football teams) about whom this would not be the case? Would the fact that Wimbledon supporters were more widely disliked and poorer than Chelsea supporters generate a mandate for social reform? Almost certainly not, because the relationship between social and economic marginalisation has not been established, and it surely matters whether Wimbledon supporters are poor because of, or despite, their lack of favour. In the case of homosexuals, Phillips again points to an economic difference, and again argues that this matters. And again we are persuaded of the facts but left unsure of the link, particularly if—in the age of the ‘pink pound’, and the Dinke family (Dual Income, No Kids Ever)—the economic disparity seems likely to be in favour of the groups concerned.

But although there is fun to be had here, I must admit sympathy with Phillips’ gut feeling that in the absence of economic convergence, the equality of racial and sexual groups may somehow have been thwarted. The continued emphasis on redistribution in the light of the cases above might seem like levelling for levelling’s sake, and while we should not rule this out of court, it does nothing to help Phillips’ case here. But Phillips has a much better reason to advance, and it is here that the argument comes into its own. Economic inequality, she feels, will always be incompatible with political equality if we consider the latter in the deepest sense of depending upon ‘equal human worth’. We therefore cannot truly be citizens in the presence of huge economic gulfs. This is not just about diminished access to conventional politics, but about social interaction: ‘segregation discourages the capacity to view others as equals.’ In such a divided state, we will not meet, and we will not recognise each other as equals when we do. For all the recent talk of ‘social inclusion’, are not such meeting and recognition thwarted by the social and geographical isolation of the poor, and the corresponding ability of the rich to opt out of social interaction in health, education, travel, and everyday living? While this book is not going to convince any of the opponents of equality, it should certainly give proponents of recognition pause for thought.