Feeling Uncomfortable: Young People's Emotional Responses to Neo-Liberal Explanations for Economic Inequality

Abstract

People's emotional and political responses to economic inequality are shaped by their beliefs about and interpretations of that inequality. Drawing on a series of group interviews with a total of 110 11 - 16 year olds across eight schools I show that participants spoke about economic inequality in terms of rich and poor, but tended to place themselves in the middle of the income distribution. Despite this self-placement, they often felt very strongly about experiences where economic inequality was visible in consumption patterns. Participants interpreted economic inequality using ideas of neo-liberal meritocracy to explain that the existence of economic inequality was the fair result of different skills or effort among the rich and the poor. But at the same time they used a more egalitarian interpretation to claim that that rich and poor were the ‘same kind of people’ and that luck played a great part in the different levels of wealth and possessions. This led them to argue that everyone should be treated the same and granted the same respect, regardless of whether they were rich or poor. These egalitarian sentiments were also drawn on to propose strategies to minimise situations where rich and poor might be treated differently, or to manage the difficult feelings and lack of respect that participants associated with situations of economic inequality. These proposals did not challenge the existence of economic inequality, but focussed on the justice of how people with different levels of wealth or possessions should be treated.