Tensions in Piketty’s Participatory Socialism: Reconciling Justice and Democracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen ◽  
Andreas Albertsen
Keyword(s):  
Private Property ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Current Status ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Progressive Taxation ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Firm Structure ◽  
Principled Account ◽  
Egalitarian Ethos ◽  
Taxation Scheme

Abstract In the final parts of Piketty’s Capital and Ideology, he presents his vision for a just and more equal society. This vision marks an alternative to contemporary societies, and differs radically both from the planned Soviet economies and from social democratic welfare states. In his sketch of this vision, Piketty provides a principled account of how such a society would look and how it would modify the current status of private property through co-managed enterprises and the creation of temporary ownership models. He also sets out two principles for when inequalities are just. The first principle permits inequalities that are beneficial to the worst-off, while the second permits inequalities that reflect differences in people’s choices and ambitions. This article identifies a tension between Piketty’s two inequality-permitting principles. It also argues that the procedural limits on how decisions are made within the enterprises of participatory socialism might create inequalities not permitted by the guiding distributive principles of participatory socialism. This tension points to the need for either further changes in firm structure and ownership, an even more progressive taxation scheme, or an egalitarian ethos reflected in citizens’ choices in their everyday lives under participatory socialism.

scholarly journals THE EUROPEAN WELFARE STATE REGIMES: QUESTIONING THE TYPOLOGY DURING THE CRISIS

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kosta JOSIFIDIS ◽  
John B. HALL ◽  
Novica SUPIC ◽  
Emilija BEKER PUCAR
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
European Welfare State ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Welfare State Regimes ◽  
The Eu

This paper examines the nature of changes within the EU–15 welfare states affected by the 2008 crisis. We try to answer the question of whether the differences that exist among different welfare state regimes, according to prevailing welfare state typologies, lead to different responses to the consequences of the crisis. Welfare state regimes are the result of different institutional perceptions of social risks hence it is realistic to expect specific responses to the effects of crisis among different welfare state regimes, and similar responses among the countries that belong to the same welfare state regimes. In order to recognize convergent vs. divergent processes, we perform a comparative analysis of the dynamics of the key welfare state determinants of the EU–15 countries, grouping according to welfare state regimes, in the pre-crisis and crisis periods. The results indicate that institutional rigidity and inherent inertia has remained a key factor of convergent welfare state processes in countries that belong to the Social Democratic and Corporatist welfare state regimes. Deviations from such a course are the most evident in the Mediterranean welfare state regimes, especially in Greece and Portugal where austerity measures have been formulated under the strong influence of the Troika.

Is There an Attractive Small-Government Alternative?

2019 ◽  
pp. 94-112
Author(s):  
Lane Kenworthy
Keyword(s):  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Public Provision ◽  
Government Programs ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Democratic Capitalism ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Provision Of Services ◽  
Government Transfers ◽  
Past Half ◽  
Egalitarian Ethos

Abstract: The experience of the affluent democratic nations over the past half century hasn’t been kind to the hypothesis that a small-government approach can do as well as social democratic capitalism. Countries with smaller government haven’t achieved faster economic growth. Families and voluntary organizations sometimes are less effective and efficient than government programs, they by nature aren’t comprehensive in coverage, they’ve been weakening over time, and they are nearly or equally as prominent in nations with a big government as in those with a smaller one. Private provision of services should be welcomed, even embraced, but it is most effective as a complement to public provision rather than a substitute. Relying on heavily targeted government transfers may be politically sustainable only in a country with a strong egalitarian ethos, such as Australia, and even there it hasn’t matched the success of social democratic capitalism.

The decline of Western European social democracy: Exploring the transformed link between welfare state generosity and the electoral strength of social democratic parties, 1975–2014

2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881986133
Author(s):  
Karl Loxbo ◽  
Jonas Hinnfors ◽  
Magnus Hagevi ◽  
Sofie Blombäck ◽  
Marie Demker
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Success Factor ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Western European ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

Social democratic parties are crumbling at the polls. Surprisingly, however, the causes of this demise remain largely unexplored. This article contributes to filling this gap in the research by studying the long-term impact of welfare state generosity on the vote share of social democratic parties in 16 Western European democracies. If the welfare state indeed was a key factor behind social democratic growth in the past, we ask whether the recent plight of these parties is down to a reversal of their previously dominant success factor? The article makes three principal findings. First, we show that social democratic parties primarily benefited electorally from expansive reforms at lower levels of welfare state generosity. Second, we find that this dynamic of diminishing returns also helps explain the demise of the Social Democratic party family in the whole of Western Europe. Lastly, our results reveal that programmatic turns to the right predict electoral losses in the least generous welfare states, whereas such shifts either pass unnoticed or predict vote gains in the most generous ones. We conclude by arguing that the structure of welfare state institutions is one important explanation for variations in the demise of the once powerful Social Democratic party family.

Why all Welfare States (Including Laissez-Faire Ones) Are Unreasonable

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald F. Gaus
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
Laissez Faire

Liberal political theory is all too familiar with the divide between classical and welfare-state liberals. Classical liberals, as we all know, insist on the importance of small government, negative liberty, and private property. Welfare-state liberals, on the other hand, although they too stress civil rights, tend to be sympathetic to “positive liberty,” are for a much more expansive government, and are often ambivalent about private property. Although I do not go so far as to entirely deny the usefulness of this familiar distinction, I think in many ways it is misleading. In an important sense, most free-market liberals are also “welfare-state” liberals. I say this because the overwhelming number of liberals, of both the pro-market and the pro-government variety, entertain a welfarist conception of political economy. On this dominant welfarist view, the ultimate justification of the politico-economic order is that it promotes human welfare. Traditional “welfare-state liberals” such as Robert E. Goodin manifestly adopt this welfarist conception. But it is certainly not only interventionists such as Goodin who insist that advancing welfare is the overriding goal of normative political economy. J. R. McCulloch, one of the great nineteenth-century laissez-faire political economists, was adamant that “freedom is not, as some appear to think, the end of government: the advancement of public prosperity and happiness is its end.” To be sure, McCulloch would have disagreed with Goodin about the optimal welfare-maximizing economic policy: the welfarist ideal, he and his fellow classical political economists believed, would best be advanced by provision of a legal and institutional framework — most importantly, the laws of property, contract, and the criminal code — that allows individuals to pursue their own interests in the market and, by so doing, promote public welfare. In general, what might be called the “classical-liberal welfare state” claims to advance welfare by providing the framework for individuals to seek wealth for themselves, while welfarists such as Goodin insist that a market order is seriously flawed as a mechanism for advancing human welfare and, in addition, that government has the competency to “correct market failures” in the provision of welfare.

scholarly journals The Four Worlds of ‘Welfare Reality’ – Social Risks and Outcomes in Europe

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuele Ferragina ◽  
Martin Seeleib-Kaiser ◽  
Thees Spreckelsen
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Mediterranean Countries ◽  
Democratic Regimes

After three decades of welfare state crisis, change and transformation can we still speak of welfare state regimes when looking at their outcomes? The analysis of outcomes provides a picture of ‘the real worlds of welfare’ and is of considerable importance to understanding political legitimacy across countries. We use aggregate longitudinal data for West European countries in order to map welfare outcomes and cluster countries. The cluster results are also assessed for their sensitivity to the choice of different countries, years or indicators. All European welfare states have a significant capacity for reducing poverty and inequality. However, the degree of this reduction varies considerably, especially when examining different social groups, i.e. unemployed people, children, youths or the elderly. Outcomes cluster countries largely in line with previous institutionalist literature, differentiating between conservative, liberal, Mediterranean and social-democratic regimes. As the main exception, we identify Germany, which can no longer be characterised as the proto-typical conservative welfare state. When analysing old social risks such as unemployment and old age, Europe appears to be characterised by two groups, i.e. one consisting of liberal and Mediterranean countries and a second made up of social-democratic and conservative countries. New social risks such as child and youth poverty, by contrast, replicate very closely the theoretical four-cluster typology. Our sensitivity analyses reveal that our clusters tend to be stable over time. Welfare regimes continue to serve as a useful analytical tool and relate to outcomes experienced by European citizens.

scholarly journals First Force

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
William A. Edmundson
Keyword(s):  
Private Property ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The State

The state’s very existence seems morally problematic: there may be a justification, but there had better be. A vivid way of putting this is to say that gunmen, and the state as “gunman writ large,” threaten first force, while individuals who make conspicuous their readiness to defend what is theirs threaten not first but second force. But the “No First Force” maxim–originally Kant’s–must be relaxed if any institution of private property is to get off the ground. Property begins not in nature but in acts of appropriation, which in turn involve the use and threatened use of force against persons who might carry off the thing that has become property. Is it possible to relax the stricture against first force in a way that allows appropriation and transfer while maintaining a moral presumption against compulsory redistributive measures like those characteristic of modern welfare states? I argue that it is not.

scholarly journals Beyond Cycles of Hegemony: Economic, Social, and Military Factors 

1995 ◽  
pp. 34-48
Author(s):  
Walter L. Goldfrank
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Third World ◽  
National Development ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Third ◽  
Closing The Gap ◽  
The Third World ◽  
Changing World

As we survey the changing world on the eve of the 21st century, scholars confront empirical puzzles and interpretive uncertainties. Those of us who identify with worldwide social and political movements seeking more democracy, more equality, more justice, and more rationality find ourselves at once free and daunted. We are free, finally, from the albatross of repressive party-states calling themselves "socialist," from the illusion that social-democratic welfare states are trending toward perfection, from the myth that national development in the Third World is closing the gap. And we are daunted by the double task of (1) reconstructing a strategy of global transformation and (2) making a viable movement out of the multiple oppositional fragments scattered about the global landscape.

5. Varieties

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Garland
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Welfare Regime ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Developed Country ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Government Involvement ◽  
Welfare State Regimes ◽  
The Welfare State

Every developed country has a distinctive welfare state of its own. Welfare states generally rely on the same basic institutions, but these institutions can operate in different ways. Welfare state programmes are government programmes, but while public authority is necessary to establish, fund, and regulate these programmes, the nature of government involvement varies. Three worlds of welfare have been identified: social democratic; conservative; and liberal. ‘Varieties’ describes the welfare state regimes that developed in Sweden, Germany, and the USA, each of which exemplifies one of these ‘worlds’ of welfare. It goes on to consider briefly the welfare regimes beyond the ‘three worlds’ and how Britain’s welfare regime has changed over time.

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