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What monkeys and the Queen taught me

about inequality
We humans have an inherent sense of fairness.
Deep down, we dont like inequality. In a second
extract from his new book, Russell Brand goes
in search of ways to build a more just world
Russell Brand speaks: I want to address the
alienation and despair
Read the first extract from Russell Brands new
book Revolution

Russell Brand
The Guardian, Sunday 12 October 2014

Russell Brand at a G20 protest in London. Photograph: Geoff Caddick/AFP/Getty Images

When travelling in impoverished regions in galling luxury, as I have done, you have to
undergo some high-wire ethical arithmetic to legitimise your position. If you cant

geographically separate yourself from poverty, then you have to do it ideologically. You
have to believe inequality is OK. You have to accept the ideas that segregate us from one
another and nullify your human instinct for fairness.
Edward Slingerland, a professor of ancient Chinese philosophy at Stanford University,
demonstrated this instinct to me with the use of hazelnuts. As we spoke, there was a
bowl of them on the table. Russell, he said, scooping up a handful, we humans have
an inbuilt tendency towards fairness. If offered an unfair deal, we will want to reject it. If
I have a huge bowl of nuts and offer you just one or two, how do you feel?
The answer was actually quite complex. Firstly, I dislike hazelnuts, considering them to
be the verminous titbits of squirrels. Secondly, they were my hazelnuts anyway; we were
in my house. Most pertinently though, I felt that it was an unfair offering when he had
so many nuts. He explained that human beings and even primates have an instinct for
fairness even in situations where this instinct could be seen as detrimental. You still
have more nuts now than before, he chirped, failing to acknowledge that all the nuts
and indeed everything in the entire house belonged to me.
We then watched a clip on YouTube where monkeys in adjacent cages in a university
laboratory perform the same task for food. Monkey A does the task and gets a grape
delicious. Monkey B, who can see Monkey A, performs the same task and is given
cucumber yuck. Monkey B looks pissed off but eats his cucumber anyway. The
experiment is immediately repeated and you can see that Monkey B is agitated when his
uptown, up-alphabet neighbour is again given a grape. When he is presented with the
cucumber this time, he is furious he throws it out the cage and rattles the bars. I got
angry on his behalf and wanted to give the scientist a cucumber in a less amenable
orifice. I also felt a bit pissed off with Monkey A, the grape-guzzling little bastard. Ive
not felt such antipathy towards a primate since that one in Raiders of the Lost Ark with
the little waistcoat betrayed Indy.
Slingerland explained, between great frothing gobfuls of munched hazelnut, that this
inherent sense of fairness is found in humans everywhere, but that studies show that its
less pronounced in environments where people are exposed to a lot of marketing.
Capitalist, consumer culture inures us to unfairness, he said. That made me angry.

Poverty and wealth side by side in Bombay, India. Photograph: Viviane Moos/Corbis

When I was in India, a country where wealth and poverty share a disturbing proximity, I
felt a discomfort in spite of being in the exalted position of Monkey A. Exclusive hotels
require extensive, in fact military, security. As we entered the five-star splendour
through the metal detectors, past the armed guards, I realised that if this was what was
required in order to preserve this degree of privilege, it could not be indefinitely
sustained.
These devices that maintain division are what my friend Matt Stoller focused on when I
asked him what ideas he had that would change the world. I first met Matt in Zuccotti
Park, Manhattan, in the middle of the Occupy Wall Street protest in 2011. Matt
understands power: at the time, he worked as a policy-wonk for a Democratic
congressman and his days were spent in the cogs of the lumbering Washington
behemoth. Beneath his cherubic, hay-coloured curls and proper job, he detested the
system he was trapped in.
Since then, he has regularly prised apart the clenched and corrupt buttocks of American
politics and allowed me to peer inside at its dirty workings. I asked Matt for ideas that
would aid the revolution; his response was, as usual, startling and almost proctologically
insightful. No more private security for the wealthy and the powerful, he said. I
nervously demanded he explain himself. He did: One economist argued in 2005 that
roughly one in four Americans are employed to guard in various forms the wealth of the
rich. So if you want to get rid of rich and poor, get rid of guard labour.
This may be the point in the article where you start shouting the word hypocrite. Dont
think Im unaware of the inevitability of such a charge. I know, I know. Im rich, Im

famous, I have money, I have had private security on and off for years. There is no doubt
that I as much as anyone have to change. Revolution is change. I believe in change,
personal change most of all. Know, too, that I have seen what fame and fortune have to
offer and I know its not the answer. Of course, I have to change as an individual and
part of that will be sharing wealth, though without systemic change, that will be a sweet,
futile gesture.
Now lets get back to Matt Stoller, banning private security and ensuring that Ill have to
have my own fist fights next time Im leaving the Manchester Apollo.
The definition of being rich means having more stuff than other people. In order to
have more stuff, you need to protect that stuff with surveillance systems, guards, police,
court systems and so forth. All of those sombre-looking men in robes who call
themselves judges are just sentinels whose job it is to convince you that this very silly
system in which we give Paris Hilton as much as she wants while others go hungry is
good and natural and right.

An Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

This idea is extremely clever and highlights the fact that there is exclusivity even around
the use of violence. The state can legitimately use force to impose its will and,
increasingly, so can the rich. Take away that facility and societies will begin to equalise.
If that hotel in India was stripped of its security, theyd have to address the complex
issues that led to them requiring it.
These systems can be very expensive. America employs more private security guards
than high-school teachers. States and countries with high inequality tend to hire

proportionally more guard labour. If youve ever spent time in a radically unequal city in
South Africa, youll see that both the rich and the poor live surrounded by private
security contractors, barbed wire and electrified fencing. Some people have nice prison
cages, and others have not so nice ones.
Matt here, metaphorically, broaches the notion that the rich, too, are impeded by
inequality, imprisoned in their own way. Much like with my earlier plea for you to
bypass the charge of hypocrisy, I now find myself in the unenviable position of urging
you, like some weird, bizarro Jesus, to take pity on the rich. Its not an easy concept to
grasp, and Im not suggesting its a priority. Faced with a choice between empathising
with the rich or the homeless, by all means go with the homeless.
He continues: Companies spend a lot of money protecting their CEOs. Starbucks spent
$1.4m. Oracle spent $4.6m. One casino empire the Las Vegas Sands spent $2.45m.
This money isnt security so much as it is designed to wall these people off from the
society they rule, so they never have to interact with normal people under circumstances
they may not control. If you just got rid of this security, these people would be a lot less
willing to ruthlessly prey on society.
Matt here explains that at the pinnacle of our problem are those that benefit most from
the current hegemony. The executors of these new empires that surpass nation. The logo
is their flag, the dollar is their creed, we are all their unwitting subjects.
People can argue about the right level of guard labour. You conceivably could still have
public police, but their job should be to help protect everyone, not just a special class. If
you got rid of all these private systems, or some of these systems of surveillance and
coercive guarding of property, youd have a lot less inequality. And powerful and
wealthy people would spend a lot more time trying to make sure that society was
harmonious, instead of just hiring their way out of the damage they can create.

A security guard at a gated community in India. Photograph: Tom Pietrasik

Matts next idea to create a different world was equally cunning and revolutionary: get
rid of all titles. Mr President. Ambassador. Admiral. Senator. The honourable. Your
honour. Captain. Doctor. These are all titles that capitalism relies on to justify treating
some people better than other people.
Matt is an American, so when it comes to deferring to the entitled, he is, lets face it, an
amateur compared with the British. Look at me, simpering to Professor Slingerland. I
cant wait to prostrate myself before his sceptre of diplomas. Plus weve got a bloody
royal family. Whats he going to say about that?
One of the most remarkable things you learn when you work in a position of political
influence is just how much titles separate the wealthy and the politicians from citizens.
Ordinary people will use a title before addressing someone, and that immediately makes
that ordinary person a supplicant, and the titled one a person of influence. Or if both
have titles, then theres upper-class solidarity. Rank, hierarchy, these are designed to
create a structure whereby power is shaped in the very act of greeting someone.
Im getting angry again. Matts right! Titles are part of the invisible architecture of our
social structure. Im never using one again. If I ever see Slingerland in the street, I shall
alert him by hollering: Oi, fuck-face! and then throw a hazelnut at him.
What does Matt propose?
One thing you can do to negate this power is to be firm but respectful, and address
anyone and everyone by their last name. Mr, Ms or Mrs is all the title you should ever
need. This allows you to treat everyone as your equal, and it shows everyone that they

should treat you as their equal.

This is a provocative suggestion particularly to those of us who live in monarchies. I
mean, in England, we have a queen. A queen! We have to call her things like your
majesty. YOUR MAJESTY! Like shes all majestic, like an eagle or a mountain. Shes
just a person. A little old lady in a shiny hat that we paid for. We should be calling her
Mrs Windsor. In fact, thats not even her real name, they changed it in the war to
distract us from the inconvenient fact that they were as German as the enemy that
teenage boys were being encouraged, conscripted actually, to die fighting. Her actual
name is Mrs Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Mrs Saxe-Coburg-Gotha!! No wonder they changed it. Its the most German thing Ive
ever heard she might as well have been called Mrs Bratwurst-Kraut-Nazi.
Titles have got to go.

Russell Brand speaks at an anti-austerity rally in London. Photograph: Ben Cawthra/Rex

Im not calling her your highness or your majesty just so we can pretend there isnt
and hasnt always been an international cabal of rich landowners flitting merrily across
the globe, getting us all to kill each other a couple of times a decade. From now on shes
Frau Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Come on, Frau Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, its time for you to have breakfast with Herr SaxeCoburg-Gotha. And you can make it yerselves. And by the way, were nicking this castle
youve been dossing in and giving it to 100 poor families.
Actually, you can stay if you want, theyll need a cleaner. Youll have to watch your lip,
Herr Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, some of em aint white.

We British have much to gain from Matts titleless utopia.

He continues: If this became common, youd shortly see sputtering rage from the
powerful, and increased agitation from the erstwhile meek. People need to mark their
dominance; that is the essence of highly unequal capitalism. If they cant do so, if they
arent allowed to be dominant, to be shown as being dominant, then the system cannot
long be sustained.
Matts ideas are like the schemes of a cackling supervillain from a Bond movie. At first,
they seem innocuous, but then they elegantly unravel the fabric of society. He suggests
we start now: This is something that anyone and everyone can act on, a tiny act of
rebellion that takes no money, influence or social status. You just need courage, and
every human has that.
This is an edited extract from Revolution by Russell Brand, published by Cornerstone.
To order a copy for 13.50 (RRP 20) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333
6846

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