In this article we discuss the political and economic consequences of the contemporary legal theory of incorporation. We argue that incorporation has developed historically in a way that makes it internally inconsistent, but that this inconsistency is useful for the powerful because of its legal and economic effects. The corporation can “shape shift,” which is very helpful for claiming some rights and disavowing certain responsibilities. Of course this flexibility comes at the expense of consistent concepts and this leads to the (...) creation of what we term an “ideal‐type reified singular representation.” We go on to show the far‐reaching effects of this representation for legal studies, economics, and political theory, and show it worked in the pro‐corporate decision in the recent Citizens United case. We conclude by providing several alternative ways to think about the nature of corporate organization. (shrink)

This article is the fourth dialogue in a series in which two characters, a pro‐business experienced manager and a critical management academic idealist, debate contemporary management. In this dialogue, the discussion concerns the curriculum of business and management courses. Though as usual there is little agreement between the two participants, the discussion clearly shows just how difficult it will be to change business education without also changing the market position of business schools. Other topics concern the sort of economic assumptions (...) embedded in much of the curriculum, and the relationship between practical skills and political descriptions of capitalism. (shrink)

This article is the fourth dialogue in a series in which two characters, a pro‐business experienced manager and a critical management academic idealist, debate contemporary management. In this dialogue, the discussion concerns the curriculum of business and management courses. Though as usual there is little agreement between the two participants, the discussion clearly shows just how difficult it will be to change business education without also changing the market position of business schools. Other topics concern the sort of economic assumptions (...) embedded in much of the curriculum, and the relationship between practical skills and political descriptions of capitalism. (shrink)

The Great Recession has brought with it a renewed interest in Hayek's business-cycle theory, which holds that loose monetary policy generates an unsustainable boom characterized by a lengthening of the capital structure. Hayek's theory has received robust criticism for decades, although the criticisms have varied in quality. Various empirical disconfirmations pose the most serious challenge. The small empirical literature on the subject generally confirms Hayek's predictions about variations in the capital structure, but has not persuasively linked the capital structure to (...) the business cycle. A better option, then, may be to abandon Hayek's business-cycle theory, preserve his capital theory, and graft it onto a Keynesian or monetarist understanding of the business cycle that is more consistent with modern macroeconomics. (shrink)

Hayek's later work on the possibility of socio-economic order in decentralized market economies is an exercise in contrastive causal explanation as conceptualized by realist social theorists and philosophers. This interpretation of Hayek's work lends support to the view that Hayek's post-1960 writings can be thought of as an example of comparative institutional analysis. It also provides a means of reinforcing Hayek's own efforts to establish the scientific credentials of his work.

The article discusses the conditions under which can we say that people enter the economic system voluntarily. “The Need for an Exit Option” briefly explains the philosophical argument that voluntary interaction requires an exit option—a reasonable alternative to participation in the projects of others. “The Treatment of Effective Forced Labor in Economic and Political Theory” considers the treatment of effectively forced interaction in economic and political theory. “Human Need” discusses theories of human need to determine the capabilities a person requires (...) to have an acceptable exit option. “Capability in Cash, Kind, or Raw Resources” considers what form access to that level of capability should take—in cash, kind, or raw resources, concluding that a basic income guarantee is the most effective method to ensure an exit option in a modern, industrial economy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT There are, at present, at least two basic forms of market economy: one that tends to be open to innovative ideas; the other that tends to be more oriented to social services. The normative significance of these two “models” of market society—roughly speaking, the American and the Continental models—can best be appreciated by noticing that in the first model, entrepreneurship, and participation in the economy more generally, can be a major source of satisfaction for the entrepreneurs and employees, independently (...) of their financial compensation. In the second model, the economy is primarily a means to the end of the goods it produces. Although the second type may be as suited to producing goods as the first type, it has fallen short—for reasons that economists now understand—in generating employee engagement and the satisfactions of exploration and self‐realization. (shrink)

The standard assumptions that underlie many conceptual and quantitative frameworks do not hold for many complex physical, biological, and social systems. Complex systems science clarifies when and why such assumptions fail and provides alternative frameworks for understanding the properties of complex systems. This review introduces some of the basic principles of complex systems science, including complexity profiles, the tradeoff between efficiency and adaptability, the necessity of matching the complexity of systems to that of their environments, multiscale analysis, and evolutionary processes. (...) Our focus is on the general properties of systems as opposed to the modeling of specific dynamics; rather than provide a comprehensive review, we pedagogically describe a conceptual and analytic approach for understanding and interacting with the complex systems of our world. This paper assumes only a high school mathematical and scientific background so that it may be accessible to academics in all fields, decision-makers in industry, government, and philanthropy, and anyone who is interested in systems and society. (shrink)

Karl Popper's methodology highlights our scientific ignorance: hence the need to institutionalize open‐mindedness through controlled experiments that may falsify our fallible theories about the world. In his endorsement of “piecemeal social engineering,” Popper assumes that the social‐democratic state and its citizens are capable of detecting social problems, and of assessing the results of policies aimed at solving them, through a process of experimentation analogous to that of natural science. But we are not only scientifically but politically ignorant: ignorant of the (...) facts that underpin political debate, which are brought to our attention by theories that, as Max Weber emphasized, can be tested only through counterfactual thought experiments. Public‐opinion and political‐psychology research suggest that human beings are far too unaware, illogical, and doctrinaire to conduct the rigorous theorizing that would be necessary to make piecemeal social engineering work. F.A. Hayek realized that the public could not engage, specifically, in piecemeal economic regulation but failed to draw the conclusion that this was due to a specific type of political ignorance: ignorance of economic theory. (shrink)

Abstract:Analysis of ethical conduct of business organizations has hitherto placed primary emphasis on the conduct of that corporation’s managers because ethical conduct, like all conduct, must manifest itself through individual behavior. This paper argues that in the real world corporate actions are influenced, to a considerable extent, by external market-based conditions. Therefore, a more comprehensive explanation of ethical business conduct must incorporate both corporate, i.e., internal considerations, and competitive, industry structure-based, i.e., external considerations. A framework is presented that provides a (...) systematic analysis of the interactive effect between different types of external market-based competitive conditions, institutional opportunities to engage in ethical behavior, and the likelihood that corporations would do so. The analytical framework leads to recommendations as to the types of actions that might be more effective in improving business ethical conduct under varying sets of market-based competitive conditions. (shrink)

Normative and prescriptive claims regarding social justice are often inadequately developed in the nursing literature and, in consequence, they must be rejected in their current form. Thus, claims regarding social justice are frequently presented as mere assertion or, alternatively, when assertions are supported that support may be weak . This paper challenges the coherence of social justice as a shared nursing value and it is suggested that claims regarding the concept should be tempered.

The political distinction between left and right remains ideologically muddled. This was not always so, but an immediate return to the pristine usage is impractical. Putting a theory of social liberty to one side, this essay defends the interpretation of left-wing as personal-choice and right-wing as property-choice. This allows an axis that is north/choice (or state-free) and south/control (or state-ruled). This Political Compass clarifies matters without being tendentious or too complicated. It shows that what is called ‘libertarianism’ is north-wing. A (...) quiz gives the reader’s Political Compass reading. (shrink)

In the ‘Introduction’ to Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman's stated intentions are to: establish the role of competitive capitalism as a system of economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom; indicate the proper role of government in a free society; and return the term ‘liberal’ ‘… to its original sense – as the doctrines pertaining to a free man’. In fact, Friedman accomplishes none of these things. This essay has three distinct, though related, objectives: first, to compare Friedman's position (...) with the liberal alternative; second, to show why Friedman's position is more properly regarded as libertarian than liberal; and third, to assess the quality of Friedman's argument in its own right. My purpose is to demonstrate that Friedman overlooks the important liberal insight that the unrestricted accumulation of private propety may limit rather than promote individual freedom. This omission is crucial. Not only does it divorce Friedman's conception from liberalism, it also vitiates his case for economic freedom as a necessary condition for political freedom. (shrink)

Price gouging occurs when, in the wake of an emergency, sellers of a certain necessary goods sharply raise their prices beyond the level needed to cover increased costs. Most people think that price gouging is immoral, and most states have laws rendering the practice a civil or criminal offense. The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the philosophic issues surrounding price gouging, and to argue that the common moral condemnation of it is largely mistaken. I make this (...) argument in three steps, by rebutting three widely held beliefs about the ethics of price gouging: 1) that laws prohibiting price gouging are morally justified, 2) that price gouging is morally impermissible behavior, even if it ought not be illegal, and 3) that price gouging reflects poorly on the moral character of those who engage in it, even if the act itself is not morally impermissible. (shrink)

The Irish Republic's economic success story has been simultaneously regarded as antithetical to and indicative of neoliberal hegemony. The question of the neoliberal pedigree of the Irish case is explored here from the perspective of mediatized representations of political economy. The paper's argument is advanced in three distinct stages. First, it outlines a theoretical and methodological rationale for the analysis itself. Second, it formulates a summary account of neoliberalism as discourse and ideology, introducing a key analytical distinction between ‘transparent’ and (...) ‘euphemized’ neoliberal discourses. Third, it presents an empirical overview of how neoliberal assumptions are articulated through mediatized representations of political economy. The article shows how the ‘Celtic Tiger’ can be understood as a case of neoliberal hegemony, as long as it is recognised that neoliberalism is hegemonically constituted through a plurality of discursive forms and rhetorical strategies. In addition, the paper highlights the constitutive role of media representation, especially the media rhetoric of Irish political leaders, in the production and reproduction of an Irish neoliberalism. (shrink)

1. In praise of Tocqueville. The young United States was lucky – and deserving of its luck – to find as profound an interpreter of its principles as Alexis de Tocqueville. So deeply, so philosophically, did he comprehend this country in Democracy in America 1 that today's reflections on liberty and equality in America either copy Tocqueville or fall short of understanding. The following reflections will be guilty of both plagiarism and superficiality but they do intend to capture something of (...) Tocqueville's spirit. He gave this nation its due. He brought to his endeavors some advantages we no longer enjoy. For example, he had first-hand experience of democracy's great alternative and predecessor, aristocracy; he knew both sides because he was both sides. Of course, some advantages accrue to those of us who have come after him, even apart from having Democracy in America to study. The United States may not be old but it is older now; we can take later developments into account. Thus, we no longer lack poets or poetry; we probably suffer as much from crime as from vice; and juries do not function all that well. But no dwarfish ability to climb the shoulders of a giant nor special dispensation from history can compensate us for the lack of Tocqueville's genius: the breadth of vision that recalls Montesquieu and even Aristotle, an intimacy, reminiscent of Rousseau, with modernity's demons, a sad coming to terms with human contingency that puts one in mind of Thucydides. All honor to Alexis de Tocqueville. (shrink)

RésuméJe me penche sur un aspect de la philosophie sociale de Popper, à savoir les principes d'évaluation des interprétations historiques. Ma thèse globale est que suivant la perspective poppèrienne, notre choix parmi des interprétations historiques doit user d'au moins deux des critères qu'applique Popper au choix parmi diverses théories scientifiques : une interprétation devrait logiquement se prêter à une réfutation et elle devrait être consistante. Afin de montrer la pertinence et la fécondité de cette approche, je me concentre sur l'interprétation (...) historique des causes de la montée du nazisme que propose Erich Fromm, en particulier dansEscape from Freedom.Je montrerai que l'application de notions psychanalytiques dans le cadre de son interprétation historique a une valeur explicative faible, voire nulle. Son échec à expliquer certaines questions sociales tient à plusieurs raisons. Premièrement, l'auteur ne fournit pas, quoi qu'il en dise, d'explication causale convaincante. Ensuite, les concepts et les multiples hypotheèsesad hocauxquels il a recours tendent è rendre son interprétation irréfutable. Enfin, Fromm s'appuie sur des assomptions théoriques contradictoires. Mon analyse est basée sur la notion fondamentale de Popper voulant que la connaissance scientifique empirique exige au strict minimum une ouverture des interprétations historiques à la critique intersubjective. C'est cette exigence qui permet de les critiquer — c'est-à-dire les accepter, les réfuter et les corriger — sur une base rationnelle. (shrink)

This paper argues that two areas vital to the teaching profession's own development and to the development of its standing in society have been neglected in inservice education and training. The first, an understanding and development of the ' public ' dimension of teaching, suggests that teachers have duties and concerns which transcend those of professionals in the private sector because the public domain is a necessary focus for the promotion of collective life as opposed to individual interests. The second, (...) an appreciation of the ' ecological ' context of teaching, locates its practice within wider political and social issues and deepens the teaching profession's understanding of itself. The evidence of neglect of these areas is derived from questionnaire data drawn by the authors from primary and secondary schools on their inservice priorities. (shrink)

Democratic Socialism -- The relationship between democracy and socialism is a curious one. Both traditions are rooted philosophically in the concept of equality, but different aspects of equality are emphasized. Democracy appeals to political equality, the right of all individuals to participate in setting the rules to which all will be subject. Socialism emphasizes material equality--not strict equality, but an end to the vast disparities of income and wealth traceable to the inequalities of ownership of means of production.

Post-9/11, concern about bioterrorism has transformed public health from unappreciated to a central component of national security. Within the War on Terror, bioterrorism preparedness has taken a back seat only to direct military action in terms of funding. Domestically, homelessness, joblessness, crime, education, and race relations are just a few of a litany of pressing issues requiring government attention. Even within the biomedical sciences and healthcare, issues surrounding the fact that more than 40 million Americans lack health insurance, the rising (...) cost of prescription medications, and the use of government funds for research using embryonic stem cells remain unresolved. Should we prioritize a hypothetical threat (bioterrorism), or existing conditions that have implications for identifiable individuals? Even more fundamentally, should we prioritize research aimed at defense from bioterrorism (or even terrorism in general) when there are so many pressing social problems that affect the U.S. population? (shrink)

F. A. Hayek's realistic economic theory has been replaced by the formalistic use of equlibrium models that bear little resemblance to reality. These models are as serviceable to the right as to the left: they allow the economist either to condemn capitalism for failing to measure up to the model of perfect competition, or to praise capitalism as a utopia of perfect knowledge and rational expectations. Hayek, by contrast, used equilibrium to show that while capitalism is not perfect, it contains (...) error‐correcting institutions that bring it closer to perfection than is intuitively apparent. (shrink)

F. A. Hayek's realistic economic theory has been replaced by the formalistic use of equlibrium models that bear little resemblance to reality. These models are as serviceable to the right as to the left: they allow the economist either to condemn capitalism for failing to measure up to the model of perfect competition, or to praise capitalism as a utopia of perfect knowledge and rational expectations. Hayek, by contrast, used equilibrium to show that while capitalism is not perfect, it contains (...) error‐correcting institutions that bring it closer to perfection than is intuitively apparent. (shrink)

This paper explores the manner in which educational and political conservatives attempted to control the content and purposes of the history curriculum in English schools during the period 1987-1994. It focuses upon this particular coalition because, since the late 1970s, it has set the agenda for the debate and dominated the race to produce a history curriculum designed to help produce a particular kind of society. The paper argues that the New Right's claim to be engaging in an educational debate (...) is spurious. Rather, its concern is primarily ideological and only educational in terms of its use of history education as a vehicle through which to disseminate a specific set of values and beliefs. (shrink)

This paper explores the manner in which educational and political conservatives attempted to control the content and purposes of the history curriculum in English schools during the period 1987-1994. It focuses upon this particular coalition because, since the late 1970s, it has set the agenda for the debate and dominated the race to produce a history curriculum designed to help produce a particular kind of society. The paper argues that the New Right's claim to be engaging in an educational debate (...) is spurious. Rather, its concern is primarily ideological and only educational in terms of its use of history education as a vehicle through which to disseminate a specific set of values and beliefs. (shrink)

This paper argues that two areas vital to the teaching profession's own development and to the development of its standing in society have been neglected in inservice education and training. The first, an understanding and development of the 'public' dimension of teaching, suggests that teachers have duties and concerns which transcend those of professionals in the private sector because the public domain is a necessary focus for the promotion of collective life as opposed to individual interests. The second, an appreciation (...) of the 'ecological' context of teaching, locates its practice within wider political and social issues and deepens the teaching profession's understanding of itself. The evidence of neglect of these areas is derived from questionnaire data drawn by the authors from primary and secondary schools on their inservice priorities. (shrink)

This paper considers a distinction between two types of politics developed by Michael Oakeshott in his book The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism and argues that the theoretical framework proposed supplies an illuminating and productive perspective for examining the notion of political extremism. These positions are linked to two other important aspects of his work, namely his account of 'enterprise' and 'civil' association and his differentiation between abstract philosophical entities and concrete political situations. There is also a (...) discussion of the idea of 'perfectionism' which is central to the politics offaith. The paper concludes with a consideration of some of the implications for political education arising from this analysis. (shrink)

This paper considers a distinction between two types of politics developed by Michael Oakeshott in his book The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism (1996) and argues that the theoretical framework proposed supplies an illuminating and productive perspective for examining the notion of political extremism. These positions are linked to two other important aspects of his work, namely his account of 'enterprise' and 'civil' association and his differentiation between abstract philosophical entities and concrete political situations. There is also (...) a discussion of the idea of 'perfectionism' which is central to the politics offaith. The paper concludes with a consideration of some of the implications for political education arising from this analysis. (shrink)

Fifty Key Sociologists: The Contemporary Theorists covers the life, work, ideas and impact of some of the most important thinkers in this discipline. Concentrating on figures writing predominantly in the second half of the twentieth century, such as Zygmunt Bauman, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault and Claude Le;vi-Strauss, each entry includes: · full cross-referencing · a further reading section · biographical data · key works and ideas · critical assessment. Clearly presented in an easy-to-navigate A-Z format, this accessible reference (...) guide is ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students of sociology, cultural studies and general studies, as well as other readers interested in this fascinating field. (shrink)

Various quantitative analyses have stressed the connection between lower socioeconomic status (SES) and low political participation. The general argument behind these studies was that since political participation is crucial for democracy, and since low SES compromises political participation, liberal democratic governments cannot afford such a compromise. This paper argues that presenting political participation as a democratic value, corresponding to a ‘positive’ right, places the implied argumentation of such studies in a potential conflict with classical liberalism and its contemporary ‘successors’, emphasizing (...) ‘negative’ rights alone. However, the tension can be reconciled by employing the political thought of John Locke, one of the forefathers of classical liberalism. Thus, the paper illuminates a strong bond in Locke’s thought between democratic political participation and liberal natural rights. In fact, I argue that it is precisely his advocacy of liberal rights that leads to a conception of political participation, converging with democratic theory and redistributive policies. (shrink)

What role, if any, should the government perform in a society? Two very different answers to this question have been provided by John Rawls and Robert Nozick. For Rawls, the government plays an important role in ensuring that the principles of justice are realized in the workings of society. For Nozick, the role of government is limited to that of providing protection. The debate over these two views has led to the questioning of the entire liberal doctrine, a questioning that (...) has taken place not only within intellectual circles, but also within the society at large. (shrink)

Contemporary democratic theorists have tended to assume that democracy is compatible with and even requires a capitalist economic system. Rosa Luxemburg offers a democratic criticism of this view, arguing that the dominating effects of a capitalist economy undermine the ability of liberal democracy to actualise its ideals of freedom and equality. Drawing on Luxemburg’s writings, this article theorises a model of socialist democracy which combines support for public ownership and control of the means of production with a plural multi-party electoral (...) system and a defence of civil liberties. It recovers Luxemburg’s conceptualisation of a socialist democracy as the extension of democratic principles to major social and economic institutions currently governed by nondemocratic authority structures. It defends this version of socialist democracy from the liberal objection that it violates citizens’ property rights and the Marxist objection that it retains the dominating structures of the state and a coercive legal system. (shrink)

There remains no consensus among social scientists as to how to measure and understand forms of information deprivation such as misinformation. Machine learning and statistical analyses of information deprivation typically contain problematic operationalizations which are too often biased towards epistemic elites' conceptions that can undermine their empirical adequacy. A mature science of information deprivation should include considerable citizen involvement that is sensitive to the value-ladenness of information quality and that doing so may improve the predictive and explanatory power of extant (...) models. (shrink)

To a large extent, the liberalness of Protestant Christianity has been central in the entrenchment of colonialism in Africa. Although Uganda became a British protectorate in 1894, the Anglican missionaries from the Church Missionary Society arrived in Uganda in 1877 and through their association with the British Empire, they ploughed the ground for colonial capitalism. The Cross as a Christian symbol was used to conquer the spirit and mentality of African rebellion against imperialism. The moralities in the Ten Commandments such (...) as do not steal and not kill helped the British colonialists to rob resources, kill and enslave Africans with impunity. In 1962, British colonial capitalism went out of Uganda through the door only to come back through the window in what is now called neo-colonialism. To date, the Ugandan economy continues to be funded by Britain and Uganda (satellite) became a consumer of European goods(metro-pole). This paper argues that from 1986, a new kind of capitalism fronted by the Prosperity Gospel and speared by the USA took root in Uganda. In this sort of capitalism, the Prosperity Gospel is used to hide the flag of American neo-liberal imperialism. The paper contends that although Neo- Pentecostal churches in Uganda have been used as an opium to cushion the masses from the neo-liberal evils of land-grabbing, corruption, unemployment, dictatorship as well as army and police brutality, they have become an instrument for perpetuating these neo-colonial vices. (shrink)

In this thesis, I argue that Van Parijs’ theory of distributive justice, which grounds his basic income offer, is blind to racial inequality, and therefore to racial injustice. I revise his theory to make it insusceptible to charges of blindness to racial injustice as well as suitable for grounding a basic income that can help eliminate racial inequality. According to Van Parijs’ theory, people’s freedom should not only incorporate the absence of hindrance in doing what they might want to do. (...) It should also include their real access to the opportunities to do what people might want to do, hence he defines freedom as critically including a principle of the leximinning of real freedom, or more precisely, of opportunities. On the principle of leximinning opportunities, one society is more just than an alternative if the least well-off people in that society are better off in terms of opportunities than the least well-off people in the alternative, and if both groups are equally well off the groups above them are compared, and so on until a better off comparable group is found. I argue that on this account, a leximin chooser would be unable to consider a racially equal society as more just than a racially unequal society. That is, Van Parijs’ theory is blind to racial injustice. To deal with this, I argue for racially sensitive versions of leximin and real freedom and suggest that the theory that emerges will ground a basic income offer that can help eliminate or at least reduce racial injustice. (shrink)

This dissertation addresses a debate about the proper relationship between democratic theory and institutions. The debate has been waged between two rival approaches: on the one side is an aggregative and economic theory of democracy, known as constitutional economics, and on the other side is deliberative democracy. The two sides endorse starkly different positions on the issue of what makes a democracy legitimate and stable within an institutional setting. Constitutional economists model political agents in the same way that neoclassical economists (...) model economic agents, that is, as self-regarding, rational maximizers; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and stability depend on the extent to which the design of institutional rules and practices maximize individual utility by promoting efficient schemes of collective choice. Deliberative democrats, on the other hand, understand political agents as communicative reason-giving subjects who justify their preferences and positions on issues that jointly affect them in a process of consensus-directed discourse, or deliberation; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and order depend on the degree to which institutional norms and practices promote deliberation and draw upon deliberated public judgment. I argue that despite the numerous incompatibilities between constitutional economics and deliberative democracy—which amount to a 'deep divide'—an opportunity to produce a genuine synthesis of the two approaches arises inasmuch as it is possible to overcome several points of opposition in their separate research programmes. The central thesis of the dissertation is that it is possible to construct a bridge spanning the divide between constitutional economists and deliberative democrats, and that Dewey and Bentley's transactional view can facilitate this bridge-building project. Pursuant to this end, the points of opposition between the v research programmes are mediated by way of five concepts which, on balance, favor deliberative democracy and its feasible institutionalization. (shrink)

This article traces the emergence of the term welfare state in British political discourse and describes competing efforts to define its meaning. It presents a genealogy of the concept's emergence and its subsequent integration into various political scripts, tracing the struggles that sought to name, define, and narrate what welfare state would be taken to mean. It shows that the concept emerged only after the core programmes to which it referred had already been enacted into law and that the referents (...) and meaning of the concept were never generally agreed upon – not even at the moment of its formation in the late 1940s. During the 1950s, the welfare state concept was being framed in three distinct senses: the welfare state as a set of social security programmes; the welfare state as a socio-economic system; and the welfare state as a new kind of state. Each of these usages was deployed by opposing political actors – though with different scope, meaning, value, and implication. The article argues that the welfare state concept did not operate as a representation reflecting a separate, already-constituted reality. Rather, the use of the concept in the political and economic arguments of the period – and in later disputes about the nature of the Labour government's post-war achievements – was always thoroughly rhetorical and constitutive, its users aiming to shape the transformations and outcomes that they claimed merely to describe. (shrink)

This paper clarifies the usage of Albert Hirschman’s categories of market behaviour as of exit and voice in debates about workplace democracy by taking seriously his critique of the neoclassical analysis of competition. Pro-market liberals are generally hostile to the idea of workplace democracy and tend to favour top-down hierarchies as a way of organising labour. This hostility is generally inspired by the neoclassical analysis of exploitation and efficiency, which leads them to defend distributions achieved through exit-based competitive equilibria. Following (...) Hirschman, I propose to consider a hypothetical alternative: a democratic equilibrium, reached through the use of voice. I show that it would present the same appealing characteristics than its competitive counterpart while also accounting for the non-ideal conditions in which markets operate. Support for free markets should entail support for workplace democracy minimally understood as a strengthening of voice. (shrink)

This thesis concerns the measurement of freedom, and its value. Specifically, I am concerned with three overarching questions. First, can we measure the extent of an individual’s freedom? It had better be that we can, otherwise much ordinary and intuitive talk that we would like to vindicate – say, about free persons being freer than slaves – will turn out to be false or meaningless. Second, in what ways is freedom valuable, and how is this value measured? It matters, for (...) example, whether freedom is valuable only insofar as it enables us to pursue specific ends we happen to value for independent reasons, or whether it is also valuable in itself. In the latter case, but not the former, more freedom will always be better. Likewise, it’s important to get clarity on what ends, exactly, freedom is especially instrumentally valuable in promoting, since this goes to how much we should care about it. And finally, the liberal political tradition asserts that there is a special sphere of personal choices within which individuals should be free to do as they please, for reasons over and above the value of freedom itself. Now, can we measure the extent to which states and individuals respect individual liberties, and can we weigh the importance of respecting liberty against competing values like social welfare? To answer these questions, I follow the axiomatic tradition of social choice theory, and I develop several novel measures of freedom – including the first measure of freedom ever proposed that is sensitive to how modally robustly our options are available – a novel approach to measuring the diversity of an opportunity set, and I develop an account of the value of freedom according to which an important part of why freedom matters is that it enables us to improve our preferences through learning, and I construct ways of measuring the value of freedom along this dimension of value. Finally, in later chapters, I provide a representation result for a measure of illiberalism, i.e. of the degree to which states fail to respect the rights of their citizens, and I extend this result to provide a characterization of moral theories that express concern for respecting the rights of others. The final chapter closes by discussing how this concern may be weighed against concerns for social welfare. (shrink)

In this article, I propose a novel characterization of sufficientarianism. I argue that sufficientarianism combines three claims: a priority claim that we have non-instrumental reasons to prioritize benefits in certain ranges over benefits in other ranges; a continuum claim that at least two of those ranges are on one continuum; and a deficiency claim that the lower a range on a continuum, the more priority benefits in that range have. This characterization of sufficientarianism sheds new light on two long-standing philosophical (...) debates, namely about the distinctiveness of sufficientarianism as a distributive principle and about the common objections to sufficientarianism. (shrink)

In this paper, we draw attention to the epistemological assumptions of market liberalism and standpoint theory and argue that they have more in common than previously thought. We show that both traditions draw on a similar epistemological bedrock, specifically relating to the fragmentation of knowledge in society and the fact that some of this knowledge cannot easily be shared between agents. We go on to investigate how market liberals and standpoint theorists argue with recourse to these similar foundations, and sometimes (...) diverge, primarily because of normative pre-commitments. One conclusion we draw from this is that these similarities suggest that market liberals ought to, by their own epistemological lights, be more attentive towards various problems raised by feminist standpoint theorists, and feminist standpoint theorists ought to be more open to various claims made by market liberals. (shrink)