Free Market Fairness

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tomasi
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Economic Liberty ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Liberal Justice

Can libertarians care about social justice? This book argues that they can and should. Drawing simultaneously on moral insights from defenders of economic liberty such as F. A. Hayek and advocates of social justice such as John Rawls, the book presents a new theory of liberal justice. This theory, free market fairness, is committed to both limited government and the material betterment of the poor. Unlike traditional libertarians, the book argues that property rights are best defended not in terms of self-ownership or economic efficiency but as requirements of democratic legitimacy. At the same time, it encourages egalitarians concerned about social justice to listen more sympathetically to the claims ordinary citizens make about the importance of private economic liberty in their daily lives. In place of the familiar social democratic interpretations of social justice, the book offers a “market democratic” conception of social justice: free market fairness. It argues that free market fairness, with its twin commitment to economic liberties and a fair distribution of goods and opportunities, is a morally superior account of liberal justice. Free market fairness is also a distinctively American ideal. It extends the notion, prominent in America's founding period, that protection of property and promotion of real opportunity are indivisible goals. Indeed, according to this book, free market fairness is social justice, American style. The book offers a bold new way of thinking about politics, economics, and justice—one that will challenge readers on both the left and right.

Feasibility, Normativity, and Institutional Guarantees

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tomasi
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
General View ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Economic Liberty ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Market Democracy

This chapter considers John Rawls' conception of ideal theory, with particular emphasis on the implications of problems of feasibility for normative political philosophy and market democracy's institutional guarantees. It defends Rawls' general view of ideal theory, first by explaining why the objection to market democracy—that even if market democratic institutional forms appear attractive in theory, they are unlikely to deliver the goods in practice and so are defective for that reason—has little force when applied against the idealism of left liberalism. It then examines why such arguments are equally ineffective when trained against the idealism of free market fairness. It also analyzes Rawls' idea of “realistic utopianism” before concluding by asking whether market democratic regimes that treat economic liberty as constitutionally basic can realize all the requirements of justice as fairness.

Two Concepts of Fairness

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tomasi
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Economic Freedom ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
The Difference

This chapter considers two concepts of fairness, starting the discussion by focusing on market democracy's thick conception of economic freedom in relation to social justice. Market democracy breaks with traditional classical liberal and libertarian traditions in founding politics on a deliberative ideal of democratic citizenship, even as it makes room for a variety of rival conceptions of the nature of public reason. The chapter offers a market democratic interpretation of John Rawls' notion of justice as fairness. It also examines what free market fairness says about a society in which citizens are experiencing the blessings of liberal justice, along with its alternative perspective to social democracy's emphasis on instilling in the citizenry a sense of democratic solidarity. Finally, it compares the interpretations of social democracy and free market fairness regarding justice as fairness and the difference principle, respectively.

The Free Market

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Economic Freedom ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Government Regulation ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Major Question ◽  
Free Markets ◽  
Economic Liberty

Market-based economies outperform the alternative forms of economic organization on almost every measure. Nevertheless, this leaves open what the optimal degree of government regulation, government-provided social insurance, and macroeconomic adjustment is. Most economists seem to favor mostly, but not completely, free markets. Although regulation can in principle correct certain market failures, whether it will do so in practice depends in part on how pervasive and damaging corresponding government failures will be. Philosophers, unlike economists, tend to think that questions about the value of the free market are not settled entirely by examining how well free markets function. Some philosophers even claim that markets are intrinsically unjust. In their view, markets encourage wrongful exploitation, lead to excessive economic inequality, and tend to induce people to treat each other in inhumane ways. Among those philosophers who are more sanguine about markets, one major question concerns the moral status of economic liberty. Some philosophers, such as John Rawls, hold that economic liberty is purely of instrumental value. Citizens should be granted a significant degree of economic freedom only because this turns out, empirically, to produce good consequences. However, other philosophers, such as Robert Nozick and John Tomasi, argue that economic freedom is valuable in part for the same reasons that civil and political liberties are valuable—as a necessary means to respect citizens’ autonomy.

Free Market Fairness

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tomasi
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Fair Value ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Fair Equality Of Opportunity ◽  
The Difference

This chapter defends a “market democratic” interpretation of justice as fairness that it calls free market fairness, with a particular focus on institutions. The discussion encompasses the difference principle, fair equality of opportunity, fair value of political liberties, and the rest of the first principle guarantee of basic liberties. Market democracy is explored in light of some secondary considerations of justice: the just savings principle, environmental justice, and duties of international aid. The chapter also examines how free market fairness interprets the component of justice as fairness in question and how that interpretation compares to John Rawls' social democratic interpretation. Finally, it asks whether market democratic regimes can satisfy the distributional requirements of free market fairness.

Conclusion

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tomasi
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Economic Liberty ◽  
American Values ◽  
Liberal Rights ◽  
Market Democracy

This book has discussed market democracy as a liberal research program and free market fairness as a morally superior account of liberal justice. It has explained the market democratic regime's deliberative approach to the questions of political life and its support for a thick conception of economic liberty that is on par with the other basic liberal rights and freedoms. It has shown how free market fairness advances capitalistic policies under the banner of social justice and how market democracy highlights the moral attractions of the market-based approach to social order. The book has also explored market democracy's differences from classical liberalism, high liberalism, and libertarianism with respect to interpretations of issues such as economic liberty and social or distributive justice. In this conclusion, the book reflects on free market fairness and its relation to traditional American values.

High Liberalism

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tomasi
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Economic Liberty ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
Equal Sharing

This chapter discusses high liberalism, starting with its conception of equality based on an equal sharing of material goods. Compared to the classical liberal ideal pursued by Americans, the European vision of liberal equality saw property rights not as guardians of equality but obstacles to its realization. This notion of property rights extends back at least to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The chapter first considers the high liberalist views on property and equality, focusing on the arguments advanced by Rousseau, Karl Marx, and John Stuart Mill, before discussing the rise of social justice and the decline of economic liberty. It then examines John Rawls' idea of justice as fairness and the emergence of libertarianism as the leading philosophical alternative to high liberalism. It also explores the fundamental ideas of high liberals with regard to economic liberty and the role of the state in regulating economic affairs in pursuit of the distributional requirements of social justice.

Political Institutions as Means to Economic Justice: A Critique of Rawls’ Contractarianism

1979 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph D. Sneed
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Economic Justice ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Economic Institutions ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Institutional Features

AbstractIt is argued that John Rawls’ theory of social justice as well as the contract argument for it are misleading, if not actually mistaken, in that they appear to take institutional features of societies as fundamental objects of moral evaluation. An alternative view: is expounded. Principles involving institutional features are only contingently related to principles involving the distribution of things people care about. These distributions are taken as the fundamental objects of moral evaluation. Social, political and economic institutions are means to achieve more desirable distributions. It is argued that the alternative provides a more accurate reconstruction of the moral foundations of social-democratic liberalism than does Rawls’ theory.

John Rawls' Theory of Social Justice: An Introduction.

1982 ◽  
Vol 32 (127) ◽  
pp. 190
Author(s):  
D. D. Raphael ◽  
H. Gene Blocker ◽  
Elizabeth H. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
John Rawls

scholarly journals Dethroning Democratic Legitimacy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zofia Stemplowska ◽  
Adam Swift
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
Case Basis ◽  
Pro Tanto Reasons

The chapter considers the contributions made by democratic legitimacy and social justice to the question of what may permissibly be enforced. According to the conventional view, democratic decisions forfeit their claim to permissible enforceability only when they are gravely unjust. That view is rejected here as unduly restrictive, with a “balancing” view proposed instead, according to which the two considerations need to be balanced on a case-by-case basis. Both the provenance and the content of decisions yield pro tanto reasons: which determines the permissibility of enforcement depends on whether we have greater reason in any given case to advance legitimacy or justice. A democratically legitimate law or policy need not be gravely unjust for it to be wrong to enforce it.

scholarly journals Axel Honneth and The Reconstruction of Justice: An Attempt to Overcome the "Distribution Paradigm"

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Stanley Souza Marques ◽  
Marcelo Andrade Cattoni De Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Reciprocal Relationships ◽  
Individual Life ◽  
Axel Honneth ◽  
The Social ◽  
Normative Reconstruction ◽  
Set Up

The article takes up the criticisms directed by Axel Honneth to the basic structure of the dominant conceptions of justice, but merely to point out the general outlines of his alternative project of justice normative reconstruction. If John Rawls and Michael Walzer structure theories of distributive justice very consistently and in order to get to the autonomy protection (already taken so) in a more sophisticated way, that to be satisfied it transcends the (mere) obligation of not interfering in the realization of individual life projects, Honneth proposes the radicalization of justice's demands. It is because he pays his attention to the mutual expectation of consideration. This point would be the new texture of the social justice. In this sense, the principles of fair distribution leave the scene to make way for principles which guidelines are directed towards the society basic institutions involved in a new goal: to set up favourable contexts for the success of plural reciprocal relationships.

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