Law and inequality

During troubled times, events that captivate for a minute may quickly be replaced by other, even more troubling developments, and perhaps forgotten. Nonetheless, the quote at the start of this chapter, coupled with Emily Maitlis’ now famous Newsnight speech about how COVID-19 is “not a great leveller” offer a metaphor for what the contributors to this book are arguing – the different effects of, and responses to, COVID-19; the fragmentation of the global, and anxieties about the local scale. At heart, we are concerned with the idea of the public, and the presentation of the public as a homogenous community equally affected by COVID-19. Just like the supposed equal effects of the rule of law, we know that the idea and constitution of the public as well as the rule of law are riven with inequalities. We know that class, gender, race and wealth are cleavages in the supposed homogeneity of the public. And we know that the effects of COVID-19 are visited disproportionately on the already disadvantaged.

Despite – and, perhaps, because of – the economic packages in place to support businesses and others during the pandemic, there are anxieties over how the coming economic crisis caused by the resultant swollen sovereign debt will affect the public. After the last great economic crisis following the bank and market meltdown in 2007– 08, austerity measures were put in place. What might be termed ‘austerity law’ emerged as the need to repay sovereign debt dominated discussions of the economy. It is these questions and anxieties which, virtually, brought us together. We had originally been inspired by the almost naïve questions raised by Dee Cook in her brilliant, innovative book, Rich Law, Poor Law (1988), which uncovered not only the differential approaches to tax and social security fraud, but also sought to explain how these differences had come about at a structural level. Even the architecture of the state emphasized this disparity – the majesty of the former London HQ of the HMRC, as opposed to the jobcentres outside which the labour and income poor queue for assistance.