The Honest History Book by David Stephens

Author:David Stephens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NewSouth
Published: 2017-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

Universal values?

While many Australians believe we are exceptional, the claim that we are more passionately wedded to ‘a fair go’ than others is challenged by international data on attitudes toward various forms of (in)equality. The Canadian sociologist Lars Osberg points to the ‘near ubiquity’ worldwide of a preference for greater equality.17 This indicates that such values are actually the touchstones of modern, liberal democracies. While there are clear national differences in both the type of values endorsed and the importance ascribed to them, there is also surprising consensus on the importance assigned to particular values. A survey of 54 nations found similar high rankings of core egalitarian values; that study suggested the similarities arose from the way values sustain societies and from our shared nature as human beings.18 Values promote group survival and prosperity, which is why egalitarianism is at the core of many societies: its cultivation helps people recognise that they share basic interests and need to look out for everyone’s welfare. The Norwegian government, for example, tells intending international students that ‘Norwegian values are rooted in egalitarian ideals’ and that ‘egalitarian values … are at the root of the welfare state’ and ‘manifest themselves throughout Norwegian society in many ways – for instance in the field of gender equality’.19 (Readers will note similarities in these sentiments to those in the Australian Values Statement quoted above.) Similar statements are commonplace around the world, and opinion polls continue to reveal strong egalitarian preferences in most contemporary societies.

Global surveys also show a near universal antipathy toward conspicuous inequality of wealth and income. While the people surveyed may not estimate the degree of inequality with any accuracy, everywhere they do appear to care about it. According to various surveys, a large majority of people – between two-thirds and 90 per cent in a survey by the International Social Survey Programme – judge income differences in the countries where they live as ‘too large’. In these surveys, clear majorities in all countries either agree or strongly agree with the question, ‘In [your country] are income differences too large?’, although, contrary to our self-image, Australians appear less emphatic in this view than the citizens of some other countries (for example, 60.3 per cent of respondents in France ‘strongly’ agreed compared with Australia’s 17.8 per cent).20

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