The Concept of Economic Justice Essay (Critical Writing)

Introduction

The foundation of economic justice is that if all financial firms are addressed equitably, the economy becomes more prosperous. The objective is to provide possibilities for everybody to develop and prosper, and justice should operate in harmony with that idea. This essay will discuss how a just society’s resources should be allocated, the government’s role in that process, the limitations of wealth disparities, and the reason for acquiring private property.

How The Goods of a Just Society Should Be Distributed

There are two theories on achieving a fair distribution of economic resources in society: procedural and consequential justice. According to procedural justice, fair distributions occur whenever fair procedures are followed. According to consequential justice, a distribution process is fair if the results are also fair. The topic of how to achieve a just distribution has many answers depending on whether a theory of distributive justice emphasizes procedural or consequential justice. In reality, many theories are engaged with both. The idea behind procedural justice is that, for those involved in decision-making processes, the steps taken to reach conclusions are important predictors of satisfaction independent of the impact of the results. Thus, for instance, procedures that participants perceive as fair may lessen their unhappiness with unfavorable results, whereas procedures that participants perceive as unfair may decrease their contentment with decisions that are otherwise thought to be objectively fair.

Utility theory could serve as an illustration of consequential justice. Utilitarians emphasize the process’s outcome to maximize a society’s overall welfare. They put less significance on how the benefit is generated than on the amount of assistance they can produce. Creating well-being is only relevant since it must be as effective as feasible. Dworkin’s suggestion for how to achieve an envy-free resource distribution can serve as an illustration of procedural justice (Bellamy, 2017). He thoroughly explains the steps necessary to create a just distribution. However, Dworkin’s theoretical justification is not merely procedural; he also cites the fair outcomes he anticipates from his method.

Moreover, each society’s laws, institutions, and policies, along with its other economic, governmental, and social frameworks, affect how its individuals receive advantages and suffer costs. These frameworks are the consequence of radical human processes, varying over time in and among societies. The supplies of recompences and problems impending from these frameworks significantly impact how people live; therefore, considering their edifice is vital. Distributive justice is the argument of which frameworks and resulting disseminations are morally necessary (Buchanan, 2017). Therefore, it is better to think of distributive justice principles as providing an ethical pathway for the dogmatic institutions and systems that influence how responsibilities are shared in societies. Distributive principles differ in many ways, including who needs to receive the distribution, how it should be made, and what factors are relevant to distributive justice.

Strict Egalitarianism

Strict equality is one of the most basic distributive justice principles. According to the notion, each person ought to have access to the same degree of goods and services. The dispute that persons are ethically identical and the utmost method to put this ethical ideal to practice is through fairness in physical goods and amenities serves as the most protuberant defense of the principle. Some challenging distributive principal formulation issues can be recognized even with this presumably basic principle. The creation of acceptable measurement indices and the definition of periods represent the two key issues. The term “principle of stringent equality” refers to a collection of ideas closely related to one another rather than a single principle since numerous ideas are put forth to address these issues. This spectrum of conceivable specifications is present with all of the universal distributive justice principles.

The index problem largely emerges because measuring the disseminated products and services is necessary to distribute them predictably. The concept of strict equality mentioned above states that there ought to be “the same degree of physical goods and services.” How to define and measure levels is the issue. To stipulate that everyone should possess the same package of items and services instead of the same level is the easiest way to address the index issue in a strict equality situation. The issue with implementing this sensible approach is that there may likely be other distributions of material things and services that will benefit some people without harming anyone else. These distributions are known as “Pareto superior” distributions (Buchanan, 2017). For example, a person who likes apples to oranges will benefit if she trades some of her mangos for a few apple-loving person’s apples. In this approach, nobody loses out, and they both benefit. Demanding exact equal bundles will leave almost everyone unhappier than they would have been under a different allocation because most people will want to trade something. Therefore, it does not appear that the index problem can be solved by requiring that everyone possess the same assortment of items. Using some sort of index to gauge the worth of goods and services is necessary.

Time frames are the second primary specification issue. Numerous distributive principles specify and call for a specific pattern of distribution to be accomplished, or at the very least pursued, as the goal of distributive justice. However, they must also make clear when the trend is necessary. According to one interpretation of the stringent equality principle, everyone should start with an equal amount of wealth, but after that, they are allowed to utilize it as much as they feel appropriate, which certainly results in unequal results in the future (Buchanan, 2017). The term “starting gate” refers to rules that define preliminary distributions upon which the sequence does not have to be kept.

Strict egalitarians typically oppose “starting-gate” concepts because they could eventually result in significant inequities. The most popular version of the rigorous equality principle states that earnings ought to be uniform in every period, although even this might result in large wealth gaps if fluctuations in savings are allowed. As a result, rigid equality standards are sometimes combined with a general society-wide description of just-saving conduct. Although it may not seem like it initially, this approach and the starting-gate form may require more comparable distributions. This is because the family structure makes it necessary to redistribute to parents who have been ineffective in acquiring or hanging on to material possessions caused by bad fortune, poor management, or just their own choices.

The Difference Principle

The value of social changes throughout time and is influenced by a number of factors relating to economic growth. Instances of these include changes in government rules or technological advancements that affect how much individuals can produce utilizing their resources and skills. Over the past two centuries, the major hallmark of industrialized nations has been their capacity to produce more money. The prevalent economic theory states that societies with more industrious people also receive better incomes are those where riches may be increased more easily. This economic perspective contributed to the development of the Difference Principle.

John Rawls’ concept of distributive justice and Political Liberalism theory has got much consideration in the previous four decades. The two fairness principles are put forth by Rawls (Buchanan, 2017). The first is that every individual has an equal right to an entirely suitable structure of elementary liberties and rights that fit with the same scheme for everybody. The only radical rights to be assured of their just worth under this plan are equal political liberties. The second is that there are two requirements that social and financial inequality must meet. First, they should be related to jobs and places of work available to every person and offer impartial, equal opportunities. The second requirement is that they must be most advantageous to society’s underprivileged citizens.

The fundamental moral basis for the Difference Principle, as it is for perfect equality, is respect for all people. The Difference Principle collapses to rigid equality under empirical settings when income differences have no impact on people’s motivation to work because it only enables material inequalities that elevate the status of the less advantaged. However, the conventional view in economics is that the possibility of making more money will soon inspire more productive effort. The wealth of those who are less privileged will increase as a result, as per the Difference Principle. There are differing opinions on the severity of the injustices that the Difference Standard might actually permit and the degree to which the least fortunate would fare better under the Difference Principle than under a strict equality principle. Nevertheless, the Rawls principle offers rather precise guidance on the kind of justifications for inequality that will be accepted.

Role of Government in the Distribution of Goods and Services

Infrastructure, education, defense, security, and environmental stewardship are all heavily influenced by the government. These goods are frequently referred to as “public goods.” Since they are strongly tied to problems with the regulation of defects and the free-rider problem, public goods appear to be of conceptual interest. In varied degrees, their distribution is required for the effective functioning of society on a financial, political, and social level. It would be more challenging to interchange goods, vote, or take delight in cultural development if there was no infrastructure and protection. Political thinkers agree that for a democracy to work, some amount of knowledge is required. The provision of public goods poses significant ethical and economic challenges because of their connection to bottlenecks and the problem of free riders.

Economists often use the public-goods problem as a reason for supporting forceful government intervention. The dispute dates back to the inception of economics. According to Adam Smith, one of the functions of government is to build or maintain public bodies and works that are extremely beneficial to a large society. These public bodies and works should also be of a nature that the profit could not cover the expense for any individual or small group of individuals. As a result, it is not anticipated that any person or small group of individuals should build or maintain these public institutions and works.

The government should employ certain methods to encourage people to express their actual opinions on the common good. The Groves-Clarke mechanism is one of them. Here, each person makes a bid that may or may not reflect how much they truly value the common good. These bids can be positive or negative. The public benefit is offered only when the aggregate of bids is at least zero. Each person receives a “side payment” in addition to the public good, which is the total of everyone else’s bids.

The government must supply the infrastructure and services for a society’s economy to work successfully. The lawful system creates the legal standing of corporations, protects private property rights, and permits the formation and execution of contracts. The government also established the legal “rules of the game” that administer relations between corporations, material suppliers, and users. Discrete governmental entities adjudicate commercial transactions, look for offenses, and levy sanctions. The assumption is that government involvement will advance resource provision. The régime promotes the capacity and security of exchange by issuing a means of exchange, guaranteeing product quality, illuminating ownership civil liberties, and imposing contracts. Increased specialization in the utilization of land, labor, money, and innovative resources is encouraged due to market expansion. Such specialization encourages the more effective use of resources. The ideal level of regulation is one where the marginal benefits and costs are equal, just like with any other “good.”

As the primary regulatory tool in the market economy, maintaining competition is another duty of the government. With competition, consumers are in control, the market serves as their agent, and firms are at their beck and call. In a market system with so few suppliers, each one significantly impacts the quantity supplied and the cost of the commodity or service. A monopolist can set a price higher than the level of competition by controlling the supply. Consumer sovereignty is replaced by producer sovereignty.

The government can control monopolies through regulation and antitrust, outlawing specific monopoly practices and, if required, dissolving monopolists into rival companies. In many countries, a few sectors are natural monopolies, where the state of technology allows just one vendor to reach the lowest costs. In certain instances, the government has permitted these monopolies to operate while setting up public commissions to control costs and establish quality standards for their services. Some businesses that offer local phone, energy, and transportation services are examples of regulated monopolies.

Because the market economy is impersonal and might distribute income less fairly than society would want, redistributing income is another function of the government. Similarly, persons who have acquired substantial capital and land via hard labor or inheritance enjoy sizable property incomes. However, many other people in society have lower levels of productivity, little to no education or training, and no property resources of their own to inherit. In addition, some older people, those with physical and mental disabilities, and people with low levels of education have meager wages or none. To redistribute income, a range of federal policies and initiatives should be used, including transfer payments, taxation, and market intervention. There is much disagreement regarding how much income should be redistributed by the government. Redistribution entails both advantages and disadvantages. Greater “fairness” or “economic justice” is the ostensible benefits; decreased incentives to labor, save, invest, and generate are the ostensible drawbacks, which results in a reduction in overall output and income.

The authorities and the country’s central bank should support full jobs and price stability through responsible fiscal and monetary policy. When a society’s economy’s output is in line with its yield potential, its labor force is fully utilized, inflation is stable, and low economic stability is considered to exist. The government may attempt to increase overall spending by increasing its expenditure or by decreasing tax rates to promote more private spending when private industry spending is too small and causes unemployment. The country’s central bank may also implement monetary policies to reduce interest rates, promoting increased private borrowing and expenditure.

A broad rise in the price level is referred to as inflation. When economic expenditure grows more quickly than the provision of goods and services, prices for goods and services go up. This may occur if the national central bank permits interest rates to stay too low, given the current state of the economy. In these circumstances, the monetary authority can reduce inflation by raising interest rates to restrain private consumption and borrowing. By reducing its spending or raising taxes to discourage private spending, the government could also strive to cut overall spending.

Should there be Limits to the Inequities between Rich and Poor?

Scholars have demonstrated that economic disparities have been growing over the past few decades. The study of Thomas Piketty (2014) demonstrated that wealth disparities have been expanding in many nations as a result of the improvement in the financial situation of the 1% best off or, more specifically, the 0.1% best off, is perhaps the most well-known of them (Ansell, 2017). According to Piketty and his coworkers, people live in “a new gilded era,” which is characterized by a tiny number of persons who are enormously wealthy relative to the majority of the population. The ICT revolution has altered capitalism; it has made it possible for businesses to profit from worldwide, and thus much larger markets, and to position themselves in a significant market power concentration. The rise of the wealthiest is not solely a feature of post-industrialized nations; even in less developed nations, where many people live in poverty, some inhabitants are extraordinarily wealthy.

As long as they have obtained their wealth legally, nothing is wrong with a community that contains a small number of extremely wealthy individuals, but there ought to be some restrictions on the disparity between the rich and the poor. The concern that vast wealth and income disparities threaten the importance of democracy in general and the goal of political equality specifically is the first argument for the limitation viewpoint.

Through a number of techniques, wealthy people can convert their economic clout into political power. In his study, Thomas Christiano (2012) outlines four ways that monetary expenditures might affect different facets of political systems (Levin-Waldman, 2020). Christiano demonstrates how wealthier people are both more inclined and more able to invest in the many systems that turn money into political power. The declining marginal value of money primarily causes this trend. Poor people must spend every penny they earn on food or other necessities. Thus, investing $100 to gain political power would be a great loss to them. On the other hand, the wealthy rarely incur the same degree of opportunity cost when they spend $100 because they do not require that kind of money for essentials.

Second, the wealthy can utilize their excess wealth to dictate how the group makes decisions. For instance, the capacity to raise money is a key factor in determining who will serve as the next candidate in presidential races in a country such as the United States (Levin-Waldman, 2020). Political candidates representing these upper-middle class and wealthy interests are far more likely to have their names appear on the ballot if they have a greater chance to be donors. This is because wealthy people are considerably more likely to fund campaigns, and donors tend to favor giving to others who share their values and ideas. The interests and viewpoints of those unable to donate will not be addressed in the election debates or included on the ballot. According to Christiano (2012, 245), one of the benefits of democracy is that it openly treats residents as equals. It does this by granting them equal participation in the process of group decision-making, then financial investments in politics result in opportunity inequalities when it comes to affecting the political agenda.

Third, extra cash can be utilized to sway public opinion. Rich people can purchase media organizations, which they can then utilize to censor information flow and the arguments made in public discourse. In modern democracies, the media have grown to be a significant source of influence, but if accessibility to the media is a good that can be bought and sold by the winning bidder, this gives wealthy people another way to translate their economic clout into political authority. Lobbyists are another key tool for swaying public opinion. The services of competent lobbyists are frequently expensive.

Once more, those whose interests can afford to engage lobbyists will be considerably more represented in the choices made by politicians and policymakers. The mainstream press and activists are most frequently mentioned when examining how wealth can affect ideas. However, there are more covert ways for wealthy people to sway public opinion, including the creation of what is thought to be reliable information and proof. For instance, a historical study by Daniel Stedman Jones (2012) has demonstrated how the development of neoliberal ideas within institutions and, ultimately, across politics depends heavily on private financial backing (Duranti, 2017). Rich individuals can also influence the ideological atmosphere and what is viewed as “good evidence” by funding think tanks that present research and arguments supporting their donors’ positions on various social, economic, and political topics.

Therefore, there should be limits on inequities between the rich and poor since these inequities cause many problems. Researchers have discovered that increased rates of social and health problems, reduced levels of social goods, lower levels of general happiness and fulfillment among the population, and reduced levels of economic development are all effects of income inequality. In countries and jurisdictions with more inequality, scholars Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate Pickett found sophisticated rates of health and communal issues and lower rates of social goods. Using data from 23 industrialized nations and all 50 U.S. states, they discovered that social and health issues were less prevalent in countries with elevated amounts of equality than in nations and states with significant wealth disparities (Gemmell et al., 2018). For most of the history of humanity, having a full stomach, clean water availability, and warmth from fuel were associated with improved health and longer lifespans.

Life expectancy rises as per head income rises in underdeveloped nations, where this trend of greater incomes-longer lives still stands true. However, this tendency has decelerated among middle-income nations in recent decades and plateaued amongst the world’s thirty wealthiest nations. Despite having a larger GDP per capita than New Zealanders, Americans do not generally live any longer than Kiwis (Gemmell et al., 2018). Sweden had a higher life expectancy than other countries with more evenly distributed income.

According to research, social cohesion and wealth disparity are mutually exclusive. People are significantly more inclined to trust one another in more egalitarian societies, which also tend to have higher levels of social capital and lower homicide rates. Eric Uslaner and Mitchell Brown discovered a strong association between social trust and income equality using data from the U.S. General Social Survey and data on income inequality (Splinter, 2021). Economic disparity within and between nations and endurance for 35 democracies were strongly correlated in a study by Andersen and Fetner from 2008. Robert Putnam found relationships between social assets and wealth disparity in two research. His most significant investigations formed these connections in Italy and the United States.

It has been demonstrated that social inequality and the crime rate are related. Since murders are almost universally defined across all countries and jurisdictions, homicides have been the focus of most studies examining the link. According to Daly et al.’s 2001 estimate, differences in the level of inequity in each region or state can account for nearly half of the difference in rates of murder between U.S. states as well as Canadian provinces (Rogers & Pridemore, 2020). Fajnzylber et al. discovered a similar link (Rogers & Pridemore, 2020).

Economic disparity is an issue when the utilitarian concept of pursuing the greatest benefit for the largest quantity is followed. A vacation home for a millionaire that serves a homeless family of five less usefully than it does a millionaire is an example of lowered “distributive efficiency” in society, which lowers the marginal value of wealth and, subsequently, the total amount of human utility. While an extra dollar expended by a much wealthier person will almost certainly go to luxuries offering comparatively less value to that person, an extra dollar spent by a poorer person will likely go to factors offering a significant amount of versatility to that individual, including basic needs such as food, water, and healthcare.

Therefore, when a person gets richer, their marginal benefit of property per person declines. From this perspective, a society with greater equality will have greater average utility for any given level of wealth. Studies have shown support for this notion, finding that overall happiness and contentment tend to be greater in countries with lower levels of inequality. According to David Schmidtz, “There is significant value in becoming able to treat some parameters as settled, even not allowing case-by-case utilitarian reasoning (Mack, 2018). the exact premise on which the case for redistribution is based—the declining marginal usefulness of property.

Should There Be Private Property at All?

There should be private property as it encourages resource preservation and preservation of capital for potential future development. Capitalism, a socioeconomic program grounded on the individual’s ownership of the equipment of production, is built on the principle of private property. According to Aristotle, private property encourages moral qualities like caution and responsibility. He claims that when each person has a unique concern, men would not speak of each other, and they shall advance more, for each will be adhering to his own business (Meany, 2020). The term “property” generally refers to the laws that control who has access to land ownership and other tangible resources.

There are intriguing philosophical questions regarding the justification of wealth since these laws are controversial in terms of their basic structure and specific application. Private property is a type of system that gives specific items, such as plots of land, to certain people for them to use and administer as they choose, to the detriment of anyone else and toward the exclusion of any specific control by society. The concept of private property may appear problematic in light of these exclusions, but philosophers have frequently argued that it is essential for the ethical growth of the individual or for the formation of a social context in which people can thrive as independent and responsible agents.

On What Basis Is the Acquisition of Private Property Justified?

In a system of private property, laws governing property are structured around the notion that control over certain contested resources is delegated to specific people. This is referred to as “the property strategy” by Thomas Merrill (2012), who compares it with bureaucratic government and the use of group consensus to manage resources (Penner, 2020). In a private property system, the individual who receives an object has power over it; it is up to them to decide how it should be used. This person is not regarded as acting in their capacity as a representative or agent of society when using this authority. He has complete freedom to take independent action without informing anyone else and to collaborate with others as he sees fit.

Private property is a framework of personal choice, but it is also a set of social norms. The owner is entitled to make judgments concerning the assigned object in his best interests without relying solely on his power to defend that right. However, there is always a need for public justification of private property. This is because it gives people the authority to decide how best to use limited resources without necessarily considering the needs of others or the greater good. Additionally, it permits that and uses public funds and muscle to uphold it.

Private property can be obtained by “adding” one’s labor to an outside thing. This is because each person owns his physique and the labor done with it. As a result, when someone “mixes” their labor with a commodity, that item becomes theirs and is taken out of the commons. Locke employs the example of choosing an apple to illustrate that once an individual picks it, in other words, mixes their labor with it, the apple becomes their property. According to Locke, this personal use of things takes place in the state of existence before any social agreement and does not need human assent (Biser, 2020). He argues that if one follows a system for the acquisition of property founded on logical standards that any sane person would accept, consent is unnecessary. He contends that because humans are rational beings and share the power of reason, there will be no reason to oppose property assertions as long as everyone receives land under specific rational circumstances.

The attempts to defend the right to private property are based on interest, entitlement, and utility. Interest-based justifications state that it is in the best interest of humans to meet their demands. Having the required resources and employing them as they feel appropriate are prerequisites. The right to personal property is the ability to own and manage people’s resources to meet their needs. This right is justified by the fact that it benefits everyone. A decent society will guarantee the right to personal property’s legal protection because it is necessary for its members’ welfare and because a good society must safeguard that welfare.

The entitlement-based rationale has various variations that differ primarily in the principles upon which entitlement is based. The earliest version states that people have the right to a portion of the property if they combine their work with a resource that is generally accessible and if, once they have done so, there is enough of the resource left over for others to use as they choose. A person who acquires the claim to a property piece in this way may sell, trade, or leave it to someone else. Therefore, if someone else receives the item from the original possessor through one of these methods, they can also gain a claim to it. This reasoning appeals to individuals intuitively because it makes them consider the merited benefits of competence and diligence.

The utility-based justification supporters state that a good that is fundamental to humans. These supporters then claim that protecting the right to private property is a key requirement for effectively pursuing the good. Because many theorists postulate various goods, several variants of this argument exist. This version’s defense has both a supportive and a critical argument. The constructive part demonstrates the importance of liberty for people’s well-being by allowing them to choose their lifestyle without outside influence from among the available options. Only when interference with another person’s right to freedom is present should freedom be restricted. The constructive element seeks to demonstrate that affluence is similarly essential since it broadens the definition of liberty and relieves us of the burden of caring for our basic needs.

A society’s members can prosper and provide the resources required for the productive use of liberty by safeguarding the freedom of private property. The key point of the argument demonstrates that community or state property ownership will not bring about the required prosperity and will instead result in an unjustified restriction of freedom. Even if the utility-based rationale is accurate in its constructive and critical assertions, it does not adequately support the private property right. The main justification for this is that, while it is undeniably true that liberty and wealth are essential for human well-being, it is also clear that other commodities are also crucial for it. These other goods frequently compete with liberty and prosperity, and there may be compelling arguments for restricting liberty and affluence in order to protect the other goods.

What Limits Should There Be on The Acquisition of Private Property?

Ownership Restrictions refer to these two sets of restrictions—the Initial Owner Limit as administered to the Initial Holder and the Ownership Limit as imposed to Persons beyond the Original Bearer. Private property ownership is a fundamental right, and restrictions on the number of assets retained in private ownership are crucial in preventing property fragmentation or the concentration of territory under one person. Limiting the growth of minor wealth holdings is typically done to maintain the economic climate that, absent regulation, would necessitate property amalgamation processes and associated governmental expenditures. While rapid and occasionally unequal property distribution caused substantial land fragmentation in certain transitioning nations, it has been a problem in others for centuries due to unrestrained real estate transactions. Limiting the amount of wealth an individual may possess is frequently motivated by political beliefs on social fairness that may be prevalent in society and potential economic factors.

Overall, there should be two different kinds of property ownership restrictions: general and particular restrictions. The state’s inherent taxing, policing, and eminent domain capabilities are general constraints that the state holds and uses. Additionally, there are certain restrictions on ownership, including those imposed by the law and those enforced by contracts. Among general restraints include taxes, police authority, and eminent domain. Property may be subject to taxes that, if unpaid, may result in property seizure. Through police authority, unless the owner can demonstrate that the seizure was unreasonable, the property may be denounced or taken for the benefit of health, safety, or security without the owner being entitled to compensation. Eminent domain means no person’s property may be taken unless authorized by a court, taken for the benefit of the public, and always after receiving just compensation. Specific limitations include property mandated by law, nuisances, states of need, voluntarily granted easements, and contractually mandated mortgages.

Conclusion

As demonstrated in this study, various philosophers and theorists have participated in the exciting investigation into the characteristics of an economically fair society. It is seen that the government has a role in promoting justice in the community. People with private property have the right to appropriate and control objects in the world, such as land and other resources. Property rights’ primary goal is to minimize harmful competition for ownership of economic resources.

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