Why Don't They Revolt? 'Invisible Income' as a Neglected Dimension of Runciman's Relative Deprivation Thesis

This article reopens a currently unfashionable sociological concern. Increasingly available evidence testifying to the existence of various forms of 'fiddling', and to the size of the thus manufactured 'hidden economy', is used to suggest a novel answer to the old question: why do the low-paid acquiesce in an inegalitarian income structure? It is suggested that the 'invisible income ' individuals receive from their part in the 'hidden economy' creates subjective feelings of 'farltasy equality ' whilst simultaneously exacerbating real, objective inequality. It is concluded that the 'hidden economy' supports rather than undermines the status quo. All societies are inegalitariarl. But what is the relation between the inequalities in a society and the feelings of acquiescence or resentment to which they give risev People 's attitudes to social inequalities seldom correlate strictly with the facts of their own position. It mignt be thought plausible to assume that a person's feelings about the structure of his society should vary with his own location; whatever the system of stratification, should we not expect those at the top to be pleased with it and those at the bottom dissatisfied? But this is not what happens. Dissatisfaction with the system of privileges and rewards in a society is never felt in an even proportion to the degree of inequality to which its various members are subject . . . But what has in fact determined the actual relation between inequality and the acceptance or rejection o f it? This is how Runciman opens his classic text on the social meaning of deprivation.2 Stated briefly: given class-stratified income inequality (as displayed diagrammatically, for example, in Figure 1),3 an eternal question recurs. What accounts for the acquiescence of the underprivileged in the inequalities to which they are subjected? Put a little more brutally, why don't they (at the bottom) revolt (against those British Journal of Sociology Volume 32 Number 4 December 1981 (C) R.K.P. 19810007 1315/81/3204-0521 $1.50/1

Dimension (graph theory · Pure mathematics · Relative deprivation · Social science · Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Mathematics · Political Economy and Marxism

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