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We continue to discuss the roots of capitalism, with an eye toward including social justice.
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Poverty Problems HW Chapter 5 114-end.
Famine Problems: Singer Singer’s trilemma (3 premises that seem true, but one must be rejected on pain of contradiction.) • We all believe that human rights to life, liberty, and happiness should be distributed equally. • We all act in a way that gives preferential treatment to how human rights to life, liberty, and happiness are distributed. • How we act and believe should be equivalent.
Famine Solution: Singer Support for (2) preference ordering: We treat our kin (relatives, friends) with preference because without them our lives are less free and happy. As Singer states, “Relationship require partiality.” 98 Support for (3) non-hypocrisy: It takes very little effort ($200 to UNICEF) to act in a way that gives human right to life for others. Support for (1) equal right to life: drowning child in a pond should be saved in contrast to being late for a lecture. • Sum: Which premise can we REALLY afford to deny? Well, Singer allows us to maintain all three by lowering the standard of how to act with equality (give $200) AND partiality (prefer kin).
Famine Problems: Singer • Further Problems: • What does a “spare” $200 mean? • How can one really accept (1) and (2) when we live in “superabundance”?
Kristol: Capitalist Justice JUSTICE = Equality in Law and Political Rights SOCIAL JUSTICE = Equality in Law, Political Rights, and Wealth Distribution… ….and all other aspects (slippery slope) CAPITALIST JUSTICE = Equality in Law and Political Rights AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY (?) “[C]apitalism says that equal opportunity will result in everyone’s bettering his or her condition. And it does. (…) Now, although individuals do better their condition under capitalism, they do not better their conditions equally. In the pursuit of happiness, some will be more successful than others.” (Kristol: 218)
ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY (!) “Economic justice under capitalism means the differential reward to individuals is based on their productive input to the economy” (Kristol 218)
Hayek: Social Justice? Social Justice “It is indeed the concept of “social justice” which has been the Trojan Horse through which totalitarianism has entered.”
Hayek’s Argument • When rights and goods are shared equally, then everyone is driven to the “mean” (those with more have less and those with less do not have as much as those with more once did). • The mean drives down the “value” of rights and goods which is the basis of the value of a society. (If everyone has them, then the system is ‘oversupplied’ and demand is less.) • Thus, egalitarianism lessens the value of society. E.g. Barbers decreasing income with equal distribution of wealth.
Hayek’s Argument: The “Floor” should be high “There is no reason why in a free society government should not assure to all, protection against severe deprivation in the form of an assured minimum income, or a floor below which nobody need descend. To enter into such an insurance against extreme misfortune may well be in the interest of all; or it may be felt to be a clear moral duty of all to assist, within the organised community, those who cannot help themselves. So long as such a uniform minimum income is provided outside the market to all those who, for any reason, are unable to earn in the market an adequate maintenance, this need not lead to a restriction of freedom, or conflict with the Rule of Law.”
