The theologian John Milbank founded the Radical Orthodoxy movement, whose name implies a dynamic attempt to unite the most extreme poles of the theological world. Now, in a piece in the Guardian co-authored with Philip Blond, he is attempting to apply his methods to political thought. A man who proceeds by paradox and thinks in aporias, Milbank wishes to address the issue of social inequality with an approach drawn from the traditions of the left and the right.
That social mobility is in decline as the gap between the richest and the rest, let alone the richest and the poorest, is growing, is an urgent and accusing problem that the ineffective, feeble rhetoric of all the parties effectively ignores. Milbank is to be commended for bending his own thought towards it and, it is to be hoped, drawing the attention of others. He and Blond contend that ‘equality of opportunity’ is an inadequate enactment of equality as, ‘the winners in life are few, the losers several, and the middle the majority.’ They suggest that attention should focus on ‘outcomes’ rather than opportunity and that distribution of resources should be based on a reward for, and enabling of, ‘virtue,’ defined as ‘a combination of talent, fitness for a specific social role and a moral exercise of that role for the benefit of wider society.’
Unfortunately, Milbank has not succeeded, this time, in nudging along the Zeitgeist by uniting thesis and antithesis: his stance remains firmly on the right, albeit in an Old Tory enclosure and his concessions to the concerns of the left read like benevolent paternalism.
Indeed, the real roots of his thinking delve far deeper through time, past nineteenth-century high conservatism, back to Plato’s Republic, whose ideal community was ruled, conveniently, by born-and-raised philosopher-kings and populated by quiescent tiers of subjects. Social cohesion and peace would be ensured by the people’s recognition and interiorisation of their natural and inevitable suitability for their station. It is a powerful model for thoughtful men. Yet, have a mere ten years’ distance from the twentieth century inured us completely to phrases such as ‘justified inequality’ and the sinister undertones in the acknowledgment that, ‘Those who fail to win in the socioeconomic race still make a crucial contribution in doing mundane but necessary jobs. They, as much as the winners, deserve a fulfilling life in accordance with their capacities’?
By Milbank and Blond’s definition, this is not meritocracy, but neither has it anything to do with ‘equality,’ radical, orthodox or otherwise. While they deplore the left’s ‘vague implication’ that ‘inequality is bad,’ they wish to structure society upon an equally elusive ideology of inequality. The ancient concept of ‘virtue’ is broad and flexible, and may have great potential, but remains vulnerable to definition by those already comfortably in power. What is proposed is an etymologist’s aristocracy: the rule of the best. Not only are we left unsure quite who these ‘best’ are, not only does such an aristocracy never remain strictly etymological for very long, we are asked to accept as a principle that, as social beings, people are a priori and fundamentally unequal and that, in some intangible way, this is not open to change.
Such an ordering of society is quite different from the virtuous conception that ‘the first shall be last and the last shall be first.’ I’m not sure whether my entrenchedly leftist stance makes me old-fashioned or too modern, but I’m grateful if we are beginning to engage in discussion on the subject. Perhaps our meaning will be a little less vague when we next state, ‘Inequality is bad.’