Degrees of Connection: A Critique of Rawls’s Theory of Mutual Disinterest

John Rawls's solution to the problem of justice between generations is premised on the idea that “a generation cares for its immediate descendants, as fathers say care for their sons” (John Rawls 1971: 288, emphasis added). This paper brings mothers into the Rawlsian social contract. I argue that, when children have more than one parent, there is a contradiction between the assumption of concern for descendants, which underpins Rawls's account of justice between generations, and the mutual disinterest assumption, which characterizes parties negotiating in the “original position.” Concern for descendants creates connections within generations as well as across generations. The critique is internal and nonradical, but its implications are subversive. It demonstrates that an “add women and stir” liberal feminist reworking of Rawls's theory cannot be successful; bringing sexual reproduction out of the realm of nature and into the social contract necessitates a radical reconstruction of Rawls's theory.     

Ellerman's Labor Theory of Property and the Injustice of Capitalist Exploitation

The traditional Marxian arguments for the injustice of capitalist exploitation generally focus on the ownership patterns of productive property. Exploitation is thus viewed either as the result of illegitimate private ownership or as the result of the unequal distribution of productive assets. This paper seeks to contribute a different perspective on the injustice of exploitation. It argues that exploitation violates principles of appropriative and contractual justice, rather than distributive justice. To make this case, the paper shows how Ellerman's labor theory of property might be combined with Resnick and Wolff's Marxian theory of exploitation and enriched by Nussbaum's interpretation of Aristotelian moral theory to challenge the justice of the wage-for-labor-time exchange, without making reference to the existence or distribution of private property.     

Social contracts for real moral agents: a synthesis of public reason and public choice approaches to constitutional design

Citizens in contemporary democratic societies disagree deeply about the nature of the good life, and they disagree just as profoundly about justice. In building a social contract theory for diverse citizens, then, we cannot rely as heavily on the theory of justice as John Rawls did. I contend that Rawlsian liberals should instead focus on developing an account of constitutional choice that does not depend on agreement about justice. I develop such an account by drawing on the contractarian approach to constitutional choice pioneered by public choice theorists, especially James Buchanan. With some modifications, public choice can help identify mutually justifiable constitutional rules based on the extent to which these constitutional rules produce appropriate laws under normal conditions. This new, synthetic approach to constitutional choice also helps to explain the moral significance of contractarian agreement for the public choice theorist.     

Social Justice in Comparative Political Economy: Lessons from Habermas and the Contemporary German Case

This article critiques recent operationalisations of social justice theories in empirical research in comparative political economy from an epistemological entry point. It offers an alternative epistemic framework based on Habermas’s system and lifeworld distinction to reconcile normative theory with empirical research before developing a critical theory of social justice based on two principles: Nancy Fraser’s parity of participation and Hauke Brunkhorst’s notion that functional differentiation in systems cannot generate asymmetric moral standards. These principles are then operationalised for regimes of welfare capitalism before exploring the contemporary German labour market in these terms, drawing on original qualitative research. It demonstrates that parity of participation cannot be achieved when the moral duty to participate is asymmetrically applied. It concludes capitalism is inherently unjust in any variety due to the inequality of wealth and free movement of capital reinforcing the inequality of moral expectations characterising the lived experience of welfare-mediated labour markets. Therefore, accepting this inherent injustice and whether institutions of the welfare state exacerbate or mitigate it should be the central focus of future research on social justice in comparative political economy.     

Optimal Taxation with a Trade-off Between Income and Children

This paper explores the implications of endogenous fertility for optimal redistributive taxation in the presence of a trade-off between labour income and children. The labour supply is a decreasing function of the desired quantity and quality of children. Since children enter into the parent's budget constraint in a nonlinear form, their shadow prices are directly distorted by the income tax rate. It is shown that the substitution effects of the income tax rate on the quantity and quality of children cannot be signed uniquely although the effect on labour supply is negative. The aggregate substitution effect of the income tax rate on the quantity of children plays an important role in the determination of the signs of the income tax and child subsidy rates at a Rawlsian or Benthamite social welfare optimum.
JEL Classification Numbers: H21, J13, J22     

Innis Lecture: Equity and equality

Abstract Is horizontal equity (HE) the ‘most widely accepted principle of equity’? Or does it stand in ‘opposition to the advancement of human welfare’? This paper argues that the case for the HE principle is not as straightforward as is usually thought and that it requires advanced notions of justice and well‐being. The most likely ethical basis for HE appears to combine a Rawlsian maximin principle and a view of well‐being that allows for relative local comparison effects. The paper also explores some of the dimensions of equality and well‐being along which the HE principle can be applied and presents a number of examples showing how HE considerations can provide an important input into policy analysis.     

Socialism after Hayek: A Post Keynesian Contribution to Burczak's Theory of Social Justice

The paper presents a brief overview of the basic premise of the Burczak's Socialism after Hayek, and shows that Burczak's “applied epistemological postmodernism” presents a unique unifying ground for heterodox economics, breaking down traditional barriers between right and left. This new approach allows us to revisit the Marx-Keynes-Hayek debates in a more constructive way for a unified theory of social justice. However, we argue that Burczak's system does not automatically guarantee full employment, so it cannot be considered an ideal theory of social justice. A Post Keynesian contribution is presented in the form of the Employer of Last Resort (ELR) program which we argue is compatible and complementary to Burczak's theory of social justice. Finally, we argue that an adequate system design of the magnitude proposed here must be infomed by the principles of institutional adjustment as outlined by J. Fagg Foster.     

Toward a Horizonal Theory of Justice: Efficiency,Equity, Rights and Capabilities in a Free Market Economy

The theory of planning horizons and their relation to pricing, conscience and learning has been explored in some detail in terms of efficiency attributes and ecological health (Jennings 2003, Journal of Economic Issues 39:365-373, 2005, 2007a, b, 2008a). This paper addresses the equity implications of planning horizons in terms of the social role and importance of justice, rights and capabilities in a free market economy. From my earlier work, cooperation—not competition—is seen as the means to longer and broader horizons in an efficiency frame, mitigating any alleged tradeoff against equity issues. The impact of longer horizons on fairness and justice in terms of intentions and outcomes along with rights and capabilities still remains unexplored. This paper reviews the normative aspects of planning horizons, showing how ethical and ecological conscience spreads with horizon effects, strengthening goals of fairness and the internalization of social effects. In this setting, capabilities and empowerment are enhanced by respect for human rights, as social conscience spreads through interhorizonal complementarities. The features of a long-horizon world differ from myopic contexts, specifically in the relation of efficiency to other goals. This paper examines that difference in terms of its equity aspects, with regard to social justice and the role of rights and capabilities in economic cultures.     

真心换真新：真实型领导风格对新员工创新行为的激发机制研究

随着“90后”成为新员工的主体,不同领导风格对其创新行为的激励作用越来越受到关注。基于认知—情感视角,探究真实型领导风格对新员工创新行为的影响机理,并识别师徒关系的调节作用。结果表明,真实型领导风格对新员工创新行为具有显著正向影响;组织公平感和工作投入具有中介作用,且组织公平感的中介作用更强;良好的师徒关系正向调节真实型领导风格和组织公平感、工作投入对新员工创新行为的影响,且关系越强,中介效应越显著。     

The Migratory Worker in American Agriculture

The debate over the minimum wage is often conducted on a technical level, primarily focusing on the effects of wage increases. In recent years the debate has often been between those who maintain that increases in the minimum wage will result in disemployment, particularly among teenagers, on the one hand and those who maintain that increases will offer much needed assistance to the poor on the other. Lost in this focus have been serious discussions of the ethical grounds for such a policy. Core to the issue of the minimum wage are questions of justice and the type of society we would like to create. This article argues that the technical approach to the minimum wage so often taken is an outgrowth of a particular conception of justice, one predicted on liberal neutrality. A different conception of justice would enable us to view the minimum wage as but one tool for achieving other social objectives. Moreover, a justice approach to the minimum wage would enable us to consider our values because we would be required to engage in a more philosophically grounded discussion of the policy and the issues it raises.     

高阶层员工更加认可组织公正吗？内归因倾向的中介作用及其边界条件

基于社会认知理论,利用312份企业员工有效问卷数据,探讨了社会阶层对员工组织公正感的影响效果和机制。结果显示：社会阶层与员工的组织公正感呈显著正相关；内归因倾向在社会阶层与组织公正感关系中起中介作用；相对剥夺感在社会阶层通过内归因倾向影响组织公正感的间接效应中起调节作用,对于相对剥夺感低的员工,社会阶层通过内归因倾向的认知路径影响其组织公正感。     

CAPABILITIES AS FUNDAMENTAL ENTITLEMENTS: SEN AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Amartya Sen has made a major contribution to the theory of social justice, and of gender justice, by arguing that capabilities are the relevant space of comparison when justice-related issues are considered. This article supports Sen's idea, arguing that capabilities supply guidance superior to that of utility and resources (the view's familiar opponents), but also to that of the social contract tradition, and at least some accounts of human rights. But I argue that capabilities can help us to construct a normative conception of social justice, with critical potential for gender issues, only if we specify a definite set of capabilities as the most important ones to protect. Sen's "perspective of freedom" is too vague. Some freedoms limit others; some freedoms are important, some trivial, some good, and some positively bad. Before the approach can offer a valuable normative gender perspective, we must make commitments about substance.     

Race, poverty, and urban sprawl: Access to opportunities through regional strategies

This article attempts to demonstrate the need for social justice and urban civil rights advocates to focus on sprawl as well as concentrated poverty. The article posits that these are as much civil rights issues as environmental or land use issues and that sprawl has frustrated civil rights efforts. Indeed, there is strong evidence that racialized concentrated poverty is both a cause and product of sprawl and that, due to this interrelationship, concentrated poverty cannot be addressed without addressing sprawl. To examine this relationship, the author explores how the phenomena of gentrification and cities. Finally, the author argues that concentrated poverty and sprawl are regional issues that can only be addressed on a regional level; therefore, it is a mistake for social justice and urban civil rights advocates to leave the regional discussion to environmentalists and land use planners. Thanks go to Rachael Callanan for assistance on this paper.     

Adam Smith's growing concern on the issue of distributive justice

According to the accepted view, Smith carved out distributive justice from his concept of justice and argued that distributive justice would follow in the wake of natural liberty. In recent contributions, however, it is emphasized that a system of natural liberty will only generate beneficent distributional outcomes if the rules of commutative justice safeguard natural liberty and mirror community standards of justice. In this paper it is argued that Smith increasingly came to question whether commercial society could meet this requirement. Given their subservience to sectional interests, rules of justice neither safeguard natural liberty nor conform to community standards. Moreover, the inherent strain in commercial society to corrupt man's moral sentiments erodes community standards of justice. In the development of Smith's views his growing concern for distributive justice is reflected.     

Is social justice for or against liberty? The philosophical foundations of Mill and Hayek’s theory of liberty

By comparing the philosophical foundations of Mill and Hayek’s theory of liberty, this paper shows that some similarities in the economic theories of Mill and Hayek are actually based on different rationales. It follows that any attempt to find a common thread in Mill and Hayek to provide reasonable guidance for social policy can be promising only if we can find the common ground from their social philosophy. While analyzing the rationales behind their opinions regarding the role of government and taxation policies, this paper will focus on exploring the role of two philosophical ideas, liberty, and justice. This will clarify the relationship between social justice and liberty as well as their status in relation to the ultimate principle of rules in the philosophy of Mill and Hayek. This paper will offer an explanation why, in Mill’s utilitarian philosophy, the pursuit of social justice aligns with the real freedom of everyone, but in Hayek’s philosophy, it is a hindrance.     

Social capital and social economics

The “discovery” of social capital in the early 1990s led to an upsurge of research into the economic impact of social cohesion and governmental effectiveness. This paper outlines key developments in the social capital literature over the past 13 years. It then examines theory and evidence of the links between social cohesion, quality of governance, economic performance and human welfare. The literature indicates that social capital makes a measurable contribution to economic development and overall wellbeing, particularly in developing countries. Partly in response to this emerging body of evidence, there has been increased interest in the application of community development principles to economic development initiatives. This paper argues that the advent of social capital theory represents a partial convergence between social economics and mainstream economics, and signifies an increased acceptance that economic activity cannot be meaningfully “disembedded” from social and political context.     

民生支出的公平正义性分析——基于浙江各县教育和卫生支出的分析

文章基于1997～2008年浙江省教育支出和卫生支出的受益归宿分析表明,民生支出的最大受益者为人均收入最高地区居民,最大受损者为人均收入次低地区居民,民生支出具有累进性,距离公平正义的政策初衷仍有一定差距。但是,如果考虑不同收入组别生活成本、支出需求的差异,民生支出的公平程度将有所提高。通过建立因素法转移支付制度,提高民生支出比重,可以进一步提高民生支出的公平正义水平。     

Short Changing the Value of Democracy for Economic Development in Africa

Official donor policy towards Africa seems to be informed by the twin requirements of alleviating poverty on the one hand and ensuring respect for human rights and democratization on the other. In practice, when these interests conflict, as they usually do in Africa, donors tend to choose to continue supporting dictatorships, arguing that economic development will eventually lead to democratization. This paper argues that this faulty reasoning is a product of modernization theory that has had undue influence in western policy circles. Based on a broad survey of the literature, the paper shows that there is no theoretical or empirical basis for the claim that authoritarian regimes would provide better economic performance than democracies in general and particularly in Africa. Furthermore, available evidence suggests that the lack of democratization (defined broadly to include the substance of democracy such as government accountability and basic freedoms in addition to meaningful democratic elections) is a key constraint on economic and social development in Africa. Finally, the paper argues that even when the empirical case to establish a definite causal relationship between democratization and development cannot be ascertained, a very strong case can be made for prioritizing democratization for the long term societal transformation of the continent.     

Short Changing the Value of Democracy for Economic Development in Africa

Official donor policy towards Africa seems to be informed by the twin requirements of alleviating poverty on the one hand and ensuring respect for human rights and democratization on the other. In practice, when these interests conflict, as they usually do in Africa, donors tend to choose to continue supporting dictatorships, arguing that economic development will eventually lead to democratization. This paper argues that this faulty reasoning is a product of modernization theory that has had undue influence in western policy circles. Based on a broad survey of the literature, the paper shows that there is no theoretical or empirical basis for the claim that authoritarian regimes would provide better economic performance than democracies in general and particularly in Africa. Furthermore, available evidence suggests that the lack of democratization (defined broadly to include the substance of democracy such as government accountability and basic freedoms in addition to meaningful democratic elections) is a key constraint on economic and social development in Africa. Finally, the paper argues that even when the empirical case to establish a definite causal relationship between democratization and development cannot be ascertained, a very strong case can be made for prioritizing democratization for the long term societal transformation of the continent.