Free education, public funding and democratic accountability

The student-led #FeesMustFall campaigns of the past few weeks have helped to reignite a radical political tradition of direct action and popular mobilisation familiar in South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s

Students and their allies amongst both academic and support staff at tertiary institutions have done far more than win an zero per cent fee increase for the next year. By their actions, they have challenged the very model for public funding of education, and the ideologies, priorities, policies and practices which underpin that model. Implicitly, they have also helped to raise important questions about the way in which public funds are applied in other areas, such as health, infrastructure and services.

For the last two decades, state funding of public services, institutions and infrastructure, including public enterprises tasked with providing services such as electricity, as well as the systems of education, health, and transport, has relied on complicated, sometimes incoherent models.

Based on a mixture of applying tax revenue, loans, private investment and a contribution from some users, often articulated under a ‘business’ model of corporatisation, it has been clear for some time that the model for funding and developing public services has failed. This is most obvious in health and primary and secondary education, as well as public enterprises such as transport (SAA, Prasa, Sanral); fuel (PetroSA), electricity (Eskom), and communications (SA Post Office, Telkom, SABC).

Sources of university funding

There is little agreement on how to interpret the elements of university funding over the past decade. Differences over whether public (state-allocated) funding has increased or decreased are often linked more to the interests of the ‘stakeholders’ than the data presented. So, for example, the Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training, Mduduzi Manana, claims that ‘Between 2004 and 2015, university funding has significantly improved from R9,879 billion to R30,338 billion.[1] This may be accurate, although it is not clear whether these figures have been adjusted for inflation over the 11 years they span.

However, they are also misleading: as education researcher Nico Cloete notes, government subsidies as a proportion of university income have dropped by nine per cent over the past 13 years, while the contribution of student fees more than doubled over the same period.[2] This allows for a rather different interpretation of the deputy minister’s figures

The funding of undergraduate study at fulltime universities is complex and not particularly transparent to anyone but ‘experts’ in the field. It is based on a state subsidy per student; fees which are derived from a range of sources, including students and their households (direct fees), loans and bursaries (from both private and public sources, the largesof which is the state funded National Student Financial Assistance Scheme - NSFAS ) and philantropic donations of various types.

The ratio of these element differs from university to university, but the situation at one of South Africa’s more prominent institutions is probably fairly typical for the historically advantaged universities. In 2014, this university’s total income was derived as follows:

- tuition and other fee income: 38 per cent;

- state subsidies and grants: 34 per cent;

- gifts, other grants and income from other sources: 28 per cent.

More than 50 per cent of income from student fees came from loan, scholarship and bursary support derived from a wide range of sources. Around 60 per cent of the 2014 student body at this university received some form of bursary or scholarship support channeled and administered through the university itself.

The major sources of student loan, scholarship and bursary support were

- 24 per cent from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme to support poor and working class families (around ten per cent of students were supported in this way).

- 15 per cent from a range of public entities and SETAs which support financially needy students in specific occupational qualifications.

- ten per cent was derived from university income to support a range of scholarships and bursaries for more academically deserving undergraduate and postgraduate students.

- The remaining 51 per cent was received from more than 500 corporate, government, trust and foundation and individual sponsors and donors.

While this data is illustrative, it is not necessarily representative of all universities. At least one university (UCT) charges higher fees than the average, allocating revenue from direct fee paying students as additional financial aid to students from poorer households. In addition, historically advantaged universities tend to be able to generate more income from wealthier alumni and philanthropists than institutions disadvantaged during the apartheid era.

So, for example, while some universities are technically solvent, others – especially some of the ‘historically disadvantaged’ ones – may be bankrupt. UKZN, an amalgamation of both historically advantaged and disadvantaged institutions, is said to be in debt to the tune of R1,8-billion. There does not seem to be a consolidated figure readily available for the debt of all tertiary institutions, and how this impacts on discussions about fees and public funding of these institutions.

Allocating blame?

Expending energy allocating responsibility for the situation that has arisen in tertiary institutions is not particularly useful at present. It is apparent that there have been myriad failures – by government and politicians, by state departments, by university management and councils. This has been compounded by a remarkable complacency – a ‘business as usual’ approach – by most key ‘stakeholders’.

But attributing blame, scoring political points, using the issue to seek support and strengthen constituencies, involves a continuation of precisely the approach which has led to the crisis. It does not place the problem at the centre of engagement.

There may be well-founded criticisms of the approaches adopted by some student groups and university leadership, government and political parties. Interdicts, deployment of police, violent and destructive conduct by groups of students, refusal by some students to engage on any rational basis with those they disagree with – these may all involve tactics and strategies which can be subject to criticism, debate and contestation.

In addition, there are legitimate criticisms of the tactics of some – but not all - groups of students in pursuing an authoritarian politics based on shouting down and threatening those who disagree, assaulting and abusing members of university management teams, taking hostages, invading and disrupting meetings, and barricading campuses. But that critique is part of a different discussion. It is a necessary conversation but does not advance the quest for solutions to the central issues involved.

Equally, the ANC and its allies’ deflection of culpability for the poor state of tertiary funding onto the universities is my have involved skillful politics, as does its use of the student protests to question models of university autonomy. But this has rather more to do with a search for social control and electoral support than an assessment of priorities in the allocation of public funds. It assists little in grappling with the central issues of systemic inequality, distribution and redistribution in education and elsewhere.

In this regard, it is worth mentioning the oddity in the state president’s announcement of a zero per cent increase in fees. The universities are governed by statute, with various power delegated to their Councils. Fees cannot be determined by ‘presidential decree’, or even by agreement with vice-chancellors, principals and student representatives. Presumably what the president was reporting when he announced the outcome of the meeting was that participants had undertaken to return to their campus and – with government support – propose no fee increases for 2016.

However, criticisms of the way in which this announcement was made, and then elaborated on by various government ministers – legitimate as they may be – are also not particularly helpful in seeking solutions based on different models and priorities.

The heart of the matter

The intense conflicts of the past weeks are, at core, about prioritization in the way government allocates the taxes it collects. It is the resources of citizens, not its ‘own’ funds, which government distributes according to policy and priority. In a democracy, citizens try to hold government accountable for these decisions in different ways, and this lies at the heart of at least some of the student campaigns on some of the campuses.

The crux of student demands for no fees, or low fees, and free and quality education is in effect a demand that government accounts for its priorities in allocating public funds. Suggestions that government is now being called upon to ‘bail out’ the universities – and hence that this opens the door to more state or government involvement in university decision making – miss the point. It is government’s funding model, together with the pressure to increase student numbers massively without adequate resources, which has led to the financial crisis at universities; and it is public funds which are distributed to universities, not government or ruling party’s private resources.

Government’s model to fund undergraduate university education involves an allocation to the NSFAS to cover a portion of fees for some students; fees paid by students through family savings, loans, grants and donations; and a subsidy per student as a part contribution to university expenditure. It is common cause that these amounts are inadequate, and come nowhere close to provision of free and quality education.

The detail of public funding of the universities is not the core issue, although it is obviously important. But we would be wise to guard against reducing the broader discussion to a realm of technocratic number crunching, accessible primarily to financial mangers and bureaucrats. It is sufficient to know that public funding of the universities as a percentage of total income has decreased while the contribution from student fees has risen by a similar percentage.

Part of the shortfall, the gap between what government provides through allocation of public funds and ‘user pays’ contributions, and what universities require, has been met through donations from the private sector, philanthropists, returns on investments, and donations from university alumni. It is a complex, opaque model, made up of different elements, which is hard to understand and difficult to operationalize and manage.

Fees and living expenses

The #FeesMustFall student narrative has not always drawn a distinction between tuition and related fees, and living expenses (including food, accommodation, transport and other basics which can legitimately be viewed as part of an integrated educational experience).

The media coverage of #FeesMustFall has done little to explore, clarify or explain what underlies student anger. It is difficult to reconcile reports about families unable to afford fees, or students excluded from studying further or graduating because fees are outstanding, with - for example - one university’s unambiguous statement that no student admitted to study will be excluded because of inability to pay fees. It is equally difficult to reconcile this situation with, for example, UCT’s insistence

that no qualifying student from a financially stressed family will have to pay more than around R1 050 towards fees in 2016, partly because the university will top up the inadequate NSFAS aid available with its own subsidies.

This suggests that student demands are not only or even mainly about fees, but involve deeper issues about access to resources while studying. If this is the case, a zero per cent increase in fees does little to address the financial stress students and their families face in meeting the overall costs of studying, including living expenses. And it leaves the majority of students reliant on financial aid in a very similar situation to the pre-#FeesMustFall moment.

The NSFAS acknowledges that both fees and resources for living require support through financial aid (‘A student loan is the money you borrow from NSFAS to cover the costs of your studies at any of the 25 public universities in South Africa. The costs include tuition fees, residence or private accommodation costs, food, books and travel’.) But the gap is most apparent in this respect. NSFAS will grant loans up to a maximum of R60 000 per year. The average NSFAS aid grant to poor and working class students at one university in 2014 was calculated at less than R57 000.

While this was generally sufficient to cover tuition fees, it leaves little for food, accommodation, and transport, let alone computers, cellphones for communication or extra-mural activities. It is dangerous in the extreme to facilitate access to university through differential admission requirements and support for fees, and leave those admitted without the resources to live the life of an ‘ordinary’ student. This is one of the reasons for both the passive and active resentment and anger expressed by many students - although there are, of course, substantial class differences in the composition of student bodies both within, and between universities. This suggests that the motives for current student activism might differ, depending on class location and economic circumstances of those protesting.

There has been some uncertainty about whether the call for free tertiary education – at least as a principle – extends to all students, or only those from households or families which fall below a certain income level. This distinction is separate from how free education can be funded.

Government is promoting the idea that free education should be available only to ‘the poor’ and ‘the working class’, and that this should be funded through various cross-subsidies and special taxes on those defined as ‘wealthy’.

This, too, is a complex and contested terrain, and it is important to note that the middle classes, as well as the poor and unemployed, the working class and the marginalised, have also been placed under increasing financial pressure and stress. The ‘immiseration’ of employed working and middle class families is an international phenomenon, not specific to South Africa. However, it has been exacerbated by the high levels of privatisation of services because of the dysfunctionality of public provision in areas such as health, education and transport.

It is by no means apparent that the majority of middle class families have the resources to pay additional taxes, or fund the full costs of university education for their children. More generally, it is doubtful that the middle classes can continue to fund private services and facilities which are more usually provided as part of public provision in return for taxation and citizenship. This is equally so for working class families which have, for example, opted to send their children to fee-based public or private schools because of the failures in most areas of public education.

It is difficult to understand how the NSFAS funding model is meant to benefit the families of higher-paid categories of employed working class families. The current threshold for funding is currently a family income of R122 000 per annum. Many South African families which earn marginally or even considerably more than this threshold (just over R10 000 a month) are obviously unable to afford even the fees for tertiary undergraduate study, yet are excluded from financial aid.

Politics, ideology and policy choices

The acceptance of a zero per cent increment in university fees for 2016 should the beginning – not the end - of a process to reassess public funding of tertiary education. Even the more radical call for free and quality tertiary education does not address the deeper question of priorities in public funding, including how resources are generated, how they are allocated, how spending is prioritized - and how government is held accountable for this.

Alternative models for our tertiary institutions take us to the heart of how society does – and could – function. This includes values and priorities; reasonable expectations and responsibilities; and the relationship between public representatives and citizens.

The questions raised by the actions of students have reminded an older generation that these are at the core of real, rather than formal or symbolic, democracy and progress.

Any model for free publicly-funded tertiary education must necessarily seek resources from a range of new sources, including increased taxation for at least the highest income earners. However, changing the priorities in the way government allocates public funds can go some way to identifying funds required.

For example, as students gathered outside parliament to demand that fees should fall, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene announced that VIP Protection Services’ budget for the remainder of the financial year would increase by R118,8-million to reach a total of R1,123-billion. The Department of Higher Education and Training received an increase of just R36,2-million., while the budget for university subsidies remained unchanged. Shortly after this, it was reported that up to R4-billion was being set aside for a new presidential jet.

These budgetary allocations are not technical or financial. They involve political decisions and priorities on expenditure of public funds, which can be challenged as part of the democratic process of calling government to account. If, for example, government had fewer ‘VIPs’, it would require less for their ‘protections services’.

One way of retaining a smaller number of ‘VIPs’ would be to reduce the size of cabinet, which has grown from 28 full ministers and ministries during Thabo Mbeki’s second term as president to 35 ministers and 37 deputies. Reducing the number of ministers, deputies and ministries would allow for reallocation of funds to other priorities. This is not technical or financial: it decision-making based on values which prioritise the needs and interests of ordinary citizens above those of the bureaucratic elite and its dependent allies.

In much the same way, the increase in the number of government employees – by over a quarter between 2005 and 2012 – reflects a political decision with major implications for the way public funds are allocated. Writing at the time the 2015/16 national budget was presented to parliament Nazeer Essop, a director at Deloitte, noted that ‘Over the next three years government will spend R4,4 trillion, approximately R1,8 trillion representing 40% (of this amount) will be spent on the Public Sector wage bill’.

This means that about 40 per cent of government expenditure will be consumed by the public sector wage bill. By comparison, other BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India and China) spend about 25 per cent of total expenditure on their public service wage bills.[3]

Public resources are available – for education as much as other areas requiring public funding. The question is where these resources are currently allocated, how this can be changed, and according to which priorities.

In search of solutions: the importance of ‘utopian’ thinking

Well over 40 years ago, political philosopher Richard Turner explained that there are two kinds of ‘impossibility’: absolute impossibility (eg teaching a lion to be a vegetarian) or ‘other things being equal’ impossibility (eg finding the model and resources to provide free and quality education to all South Africans). The second type of ‘impossibility’ is sometimes not impossible at all, as long as its assumptions are challenged, and alternatives conceptualized – even if they appear initially to be ‘utopian’ or ‘unrealistic’.

It is remarkable how what was viewed as ‘impossible’ in one context became possible in another. When Turner[4] was writing (1972), many believed it was ‘impossible’ that a black person could become head of the South African state. But the assumption underlying that ‘impossibility’ – apartheid – was challenged and eventually overthrown; and what was once seen as ‘utopian’ – universal franchise under constitutional democracy – became the new conventional wisdom.

This digression explains why it is important to explore and ‘imagine’ alternatives even if all the preconditions for their achievement seem – for the moment – ‘impossible’.

It is important that this sort of thinking not be constrained by technocrats, bureaucrats, bean counters, who will immediately argue that what is being explored cannot be implemented. There are insufficient resources, they will argue. The South African economy is contracting alarmingly. There are too many other competing priorities. And that favorite of bureaucrats the world over: ‘it’s the thin edge of the wedge’. Those lacking vision will argue, in a measured assertion of what is presented as ‘common sense’, that free public education is ‘impossible’.

Some of those concerns may be accurate for the moment. But imagination and creativity is required to see how a different model, with different priorities, could be developed – even if it is ‘impossible’ at this moment. That enables new priorities to be formulated, different policies to be developed. It is the opposite of a ‘business as usual’ approach, and challenges a spurious ‘common sense’ which invariably underlies maintenance of the status quo.

Different priories and models

Our policies and models are over-engineered and inordinately complex. To some extent, this has been the consequence of trying to accommodate too many competing interests and priorities in each policy, in each operational area. Sometimes this has created such complexity that the central reason for a policy or set of practices is lost, few can understand the model, and citizens’ ability to hold government accountable for the way resources are allocated is weakened.

One approach to public funding of university education could be based on a set of fairly simple principles:

- No student who meets the requirements for admission to a university course should be excluded for financial reasons.

- Fees for all courses and all students (at least at undergraduate level) should be paid out of public funds.

- Living expenses of students from households below a specified income should be met from public funds.

- Living expenses of those from more advantaged households should be met from within the household budget.

- Apart from fee income, universities should receive a subsidy per student from public funds which is sufficient for its recurrent operations.

- In return, students are expected to contribute to society when leaving university – through a combination of repayment of subsidies and community service and by working in public institutions after graduation.

Of course, the devil in these fairly uncontroversial principles lies in the detail. How much additional funding is required and where will it come from? Should loans and subsidies be paid back in full or in part, with or without interest? Why should the fees of students from employed working class families, the middle class and wealthy households be subsidized?

Should students be given credit towards conversion of loans/subsidies to bursaries on the basis of academic achievement, and possibly contributions made while at university (e.g. representative leadership positions and participation in university institutions and activities such as sport and community service). Each of these – and many other – questions require mature debate and consideration in developing alternative models for public funding of universities.

On taxation

Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande has predictably suggested an increased tax on wealthier citizens to fund the shortfall in higher education budgets: ‘My own considered view is that government must have the political will to tax the rich and wealthy to fund higher education. None of us must develop cold feet about the necessity of taxing the rich to fund higher education’, he told parliament.

There should be no in-principle objection to the idea that those with access to more resources should make a greater contribution to the public good than those who have less. Indeed, this lies at the heart of South Africa’s already-existing system of progressive taxation, rather than flat-rate taxation. It is, however, unfortunate that this is sometimes presented as punitive, almost as if those who have higher incomes are ‘the enemy’ and have to be punished through higher taxes.

This is the language of a crude binary model of society, in which those more advantaged are presented as ‘evil’ and deserving of punishment. This approach lacks nuance, and is far distant from more sophisticated interpretatations based on collective social interests, rather than judgemental moralism.

An individual-based model of voluntary contribution might assist certtain universities in their current funding crisis, and the ethical intentions behind such proposals are to be applauded. However, this can never been an alternative to a model of public funding, together with democratic accountability in the way in which government applies and prioritises use of public funds. Increasing public funding through higher taxation of the very wealthy is more democratic than individual charity or philanthropy, allowing for a system based on an ethos of contribution to society on the one hand, and accountability in application of public funds on the other.

That is the model to which we need to aspire, rather than individual-based and voluntary contribution, which does little to advance a social model of democratic participation and citizenship. In this more democratic and accoutable approach, contribution to the public good is viewed as a positive activity based on a belief in building society and its institutions, rather something enforced from above in a punitive or moralistic manner.

This goes hand in hand with the profoundly democratic imperative of holding governments to account not only for how they spend public funds, but how they prioritise that spending. Confidence and trust in how the current government spends public funds has been deeply damaged by levels of systemic corruption, rapacious and conspicuous consumption, waste and the relationship between a rent-seeking elite and government. This has become so serious that the chair of the commission exploring taxation options, Justice Dennis Davis, has warned of he dangers of a ‘tax revolt, amongst citizens.

Challenges to the way government has priorised use of public funds in terms of principles and policies, and holding it to account for this, is as important as exposing the massive wastage of public resources evident over the past years. Recent student activism has sought to hold government to account for the consequences of its ongoing underfunding of tertiary education. Increasingly, university managements will have to do the same if their institutions are to develop accessible, affordable education of quality and value.

In arguing that increased taxes will be reqired to fund tertiary education more adequately, Minister Nzimande also suggested that the funding crisis was a consequence of government’s success in higher education, through dramatically increasing the number of students enrolled at tertiary institutions. There is a debate to be had about whether encouraging massive increases in enrolment without at the same time providing for increases in subsidies, funding and infrastructure is an indicator of success.

There is also some question over whether enrolling students at universities who clearly do not have the resources to live and eat properly, or enjoy any of the assumed benefits of a stduent experience, is a successful initiative. The drop-out rate of undergraduate students before completing their degrees is at around 60 per cent, accounting for a loss in wasted subsidies and aid of R12-billion per annum.[5] This is hardly an indicator of success, although its causes are to be found as much in the failed systems of primary and tertiray education as in university funding models.

That notwithstanding, the Minister has a point when he tries to open a discussion about increased taxation of South Africa’s highest earners, although that discussion has to be qualified and contextualised within a range of other dependencies, preconditions and variables.

What does seem clear is that there is space for at least one amendment to the structure of personal taxation which seems reasonable and viable. The top bracket for personal taxation (41%) kicks in for all income above R701 300 – a rather modest income bracket for the highest level of taxation in a society where income distribution is deeply skewed.

Thomas Pikkerty stated, in his recent Mandela memorial lecture, that the share of total income going to the top 10% of income earners in South Africa is between 60% and 65% of total income. This on its own indicates that the addition of a higher tax bracket could generate a substantial increase in available public revenue.

It would be interesting to quantify the effects further tax brackets for personal annual income of, for example, R2-million per annum, at the rate of – say – 43% of income above that R2-million. Perhaps 45% of amounts above R4 million could be introduced. And so on. In supporting this sort of extension to progressive taxation, Joseph Stiglitz has suggested, in his latest book, that a five per cent increase to the tax rate of the top one per cent of earners in the US would raise as much as $1.5 trillion over 10 years.[6]

This type of adjustment could result in a substantial increase in funds available for education, without impacting on the financially embattled poor, working and middle classes, and without seriously challenging the security or quality of life of those making up the top 10% of earners.

In return, those making this additional contribution would receive, along with all other South Africans with children studying at universities, the benefit of the subsidies on fees (but not living expenses). This is one of the reasons why the simple proposal set out above involves a no-fee model for all students, not just those who cannot afford fees.

It is based on the idea that the relatively privileged pay for their children’s education through taxation, and the distribution of public funds, rather than through an individually-based ‘wealthy user pays’ model. Again, this involves a deeper and more democratic model of public interest and public funding than individual philanthropy or subsidy.

The model is also based on an ethical imperative: students study through the contribution of a public ‘community’ - all those who pay tax in various forms. In this way, students from poorer families are not viewed as recipients of charity or philanthropy. Rather, all students, regardless of socio-economic position, have a similar status. They are beneficiaries of public funding, and participants in a system prioritising the public good. As such, they also have a responsibility to contribute to that public good after qualifying through study.

There is some anecdotal evidence that students resent being admitted to universities as ‘affirmative action’ or ‘redress’ candidates, rather than on the basis of their abilities and potentials. Some anger has also been expressed by students admitted to ‘extended degree’ programmes which distinguish them from other students. There is likely to be an equally understandable resentment at what is perceived as being patronized, or being treated as a ‘charity case’, when sitting in classes with more privileged students who are in effect paying for your education.

This situation is likely to create further divisions and greater levels of resentment, serving to increase social divisions. Equal participation in the benefits of public funding by virtue of citizenship is a far better basis for creating socially cohesive student groups liberated from at least some of the psychological burdens of inequality.

A model whereby some students are eligible for subsidy or free education on the basis of household income runs the danger of being both arbitrary and divisive. How is the income level determined? Families and households entering the middle class for the first time are often financially squeezed and under pressure, and despite a higher level of income than, for example, many working-class households, still find it exceptionally difficult to fund the education of their children.

It would be far more equitable and cohesive if all students were eligible for zero fees, and that the additional funds required for this were derived from higher taxation of those who fall into the highest ten per cent of earners. That would mean that all students were beneficiaries of public funding, rather than some benefitting from subsidies derived from other students and their families.

Immediate impediments to this ‘utopian’ model lie in the relationship of trust between government and its citizens regarding allocation and prioritization of tax expenditure; and in the dysfunctionality of many other areas of public services and infrastructure required to support and maintain ‘free and quality’ tertiary education – public transport and health services, safety and security and especially primary and secondary education. But part of the importance of utopian thinking is to ‘imagine’ that, other things being equal, it is possible to remove these impediments, to change the model and the system.

Technocrats might refer to a ‘trust deficit’ between government and tax payers. Others might be more blunt, and point to the high levels of waste, conspicuous consumption, poor appointments based on loyalty rather than ability to perform public service, corruption and questionable prioritization which have characterised government expenditure of public funds.

In our utopian scenario, government would be forced to acknowledge this if it wished to retain the support of the majority of citizens and move – in deed rather than just rhetoric – towards substantial changes and reprioritisations. Turner argued that this imagination of an alternative was an indispensible precondition for structural and systemic change. Activism on the part of at least some of the students has reminded us of this in dramatic fashion.

Glenn Moss is author of The New Radicals. A generational memoir of the 1970s (Jacana Media, 2014). This article also appears as a blog on the on the book’s website, www.thenewradicals.com

Footnote:

[1] ‘Response to the memorandum from petitioners or protesters for freeafrocentric quality education’, GCIS statement published 2 November 2015

[2] Nico Cloete, ‘The Ideology of Free Higher Education in South Africa: The Poor, the Rich and the Missing Middle’, Chet, 2 November 2015.

[3] Nazeer Essop, ‘Managing the public sector wage bill’, here, accessed 3 November 2015.

[4] Turner was banned in 1973, and assassinated – almost certainly by an agent of one of the state’s security agencies – in 1978.

[5] ‘#FeesMustFall: A perfect financial storm, R12bn spent on drop-outs pa, Biznews.com, 4 November 2015, here, accessed 5 November 2015.

[6] Gillian B White, ‘Stiglitz. Here’s how to fix inequality’, The Atlantic, 2 November 2015.