There has recently been a good deal of interest in the republican tradition, particularly in the political conception of freedom maintained within that tradition. I look here at the characterisation of republican liberty in a recent work of Quentin Skinner1and argue on historical and conceptual grounds for a small amendment—a simplification—that would make it equivalent to the view that freedom in political contexts should be identified with nondomination.

I argue that capitalism presents a threat to “democratic contestation”: the egalitarian, socially distributed capacity to affect how, why, and whether power is used. Markets are not susceptible to mechanisms of accountability, nor are they bearers of intentions in the way that political power-holders are. This makes them resistant to the kind of rational, intentional oversight that constitutes one of democracy’s social virtues. I identify four social costs associated with this problem: the vulnerability of citizens to arbitrary interference, the insensitivity (...) of markets to relevant interests, failures of trust in the market system, and the inhibition of social deliberation about matters of public concern. I make general two suggestions about how we might ameliorate these problems: First, as a way of introducing some measure of intentionality to large-scale patterns of business activity, the reconceptualization of such activity as participation in larger group actions; second, the development of deliberative bodies that bring together business actors, policy experts, and diverse citizens in an effort to better characterize and transmit the public values that business should serve. (shrink)

"The terms do not have to be spelled out, because they have been set not by a meeting of minds of the parties, but by a default baseline defined by corporate, property, and employment law that establishes the legal parameters for the constitution of capitalist firms." p. 2.

The long republican tradition is characterized by a conception of freedom as non‐domination, which offers an alternative, both to the negative view of freedom as non‐interference and to the positive view of freedom as self‐mastery. The first part of the book traces the rise and decline of the conception, displays its many attractions and makes a case for why it should still be regarded as a central political ideal. The second part of the book looks at the sorts of political (...) and civil institutions that would be required in a society in which freedom as non‐domination is systematically fostered. It outlines the causes and policies, the constitutional and democratic forms, and the regulatory controls that a republican state ought to endorse. And it argues for a vision of the state's relation to civil society in which there is no pretence of doing without widespread civility and trust; the argument is that the state ought, at once, to foster and build on such extra‐political foundations. (shrink)

Although republican political theory has undergone something of a revival in recent years, some question its contemporary relevance on the grounds that republicanism has little to say about central questions of modern economic organization. In response, this paper offers an account of core republican values and then considers how capitalism stands in relation to these values. It identifies three areas of republican concern related to: the impact of unequal wealth distribution on personal liberty; the impact of the private control of (...) investment on popular sovereignty and pursuit of the common good; and the impact of capitalism on the level and quality of political participation. In view of these concerns, we can see some of the likely requirements of a distinctively republican, but contemporary political economy. (shrink)

Systemic risks are risks produced through interconnected non-wrongful actions of individuals, in the sense that an individual's action is a negligible cause of the risk. Due to scale effects of interaction, their consequences can be serious but they are also difficult to predict and assess via a risk assessment. Since we can have good reason to engage in the interconnected activities giving rise to systemic risk, we incur a concurrent collective responsibility to ensure that the risks are fairly distributed and (...) well regulated. James argues that fairness in this context requires taking reasonably available precautions ensuring for each risk-bearer a favourable ratio of expected benefits over expected losses. In sections 2 and 3 we argue that such a conception of fairness applies but only on the condition that the systemic risks created are irreversible risks and that the general background conditions of justice are imperfectly fair. When risks are reversible, compensatory justice can correct for unfairness in risk imposition. Where risks are irreversible, compensatory justice necessarily fails, giving rise to a collective responsibility to regulate fairly ex ante. Additionally, where background conditions of justice are fully fair and the systemic risk is well understood, risk bearers can be said to have consented to the systemic risk. If they are not fair, we argue that the primary political obligation should lie in fixing the fairness of the backgrounds of justice. A related reason for addressing the general background conditions of fairness is that James’ account of fairness in systemic risk imposition encounters a baseline problem. If expected risks and benefits are calculated again an unfair historic background condition, systemic risk imposition would not be fully fair. Section 4 shows why differences in evidentiary uncertainty as to probability and levels of harm and effective responses require a normatively appropriate response in the form of additional precautions. We show that the evidentiary standards set for risk-based cost-benefit analysis have a connection with deontology because they express a postulate of equal treatment in formal terms. Systemic risks can have different possible degrees of epistemological certainty due to factors of social and natural origin, such as more available research funding or higher degrees of complexity for some systemic risks but not others. These differences have to be mitigated by taking even greater precautions in difficult-to-research systemic risks. (shrink)

Even long after their formal exclusion has come to an end, members of previously oppressed social groups often continue to face disproportionate restrictions on their freedom, as the experience of many women over the last century has shown. Working within in a framework in which freedom is understood as independence from arbitrary power, Mary Wollstonecraft provides an explanation of why such domination may persist and offers a model through which it can be addressed. Republicans rely on processes of rational public (...) deliberation to highlight and combat oppression. However, where domination is primarily social rather than legal or political (such as where cultural attitudes, traditions and values exert an arbitrary and inhibiting force) then this defence against domination is often negated. Prejudice, she argues, ‘clouds’ people’s ability to reason and skews debate in favour of the dominant powers, thereby entrenching patterns of subjection. If they are to be independent, then, citizens require not only political rights but a platform from which to add their perspectives and interests to the background social values which govern political discussion. (shrink)

Republicans understand freedom as the guaranteed protection against any arbitrary use of coercive power. This freedom is exercised within a political community, and the concept of arbitrariness is defined with reference to the actual ideas of its citizens about what is in their shared interests. According to many current defenders of the republican model, this form of freedom is understood in strictly negative terms representing an absence of domination. I argue that this assumption is misguided. First, it is internally inconsistent. (...) The central republican focal point of arbitrariness is a necessarily socially constructed ideal that only exists as the creation of the citizens themselves. Second, republican freedom operates in two distinct realms or spheres. There is freedom under a law that is required to uphold the collective good as reflected in society’s norms, and there is freedom within that very system of norms. The threats to freedom from within each sphere are different and must be addressed accordingly. The negative approach, however, conflates the two and emphasises only the dangers faced under the law. This exposes citizens – especially those from marginalised social groups – to domination in the second realm from oppressive social norms. Only by clearly recognising the nature of both kinds of threats can a comprehensive republican freedom be formulated. (shrink)

In the nineteenth century a group of “labor republicans” argued that the system of wage-labor should be replaced by a system of cooperative production. This system of cooperative production would realize republican liberty in economic, not just political, life. Today, neo-republicans argue that the republican theory of liberty only requires a universal basic income. A non-dominated ability to exit is sufficient to guarantee free labor. This essay reconstructs the more radical, labor republican view and defends it against the prevailing the (...) neo-republican one. It argues that neorepublicanism lacks an adequate conception of structural domination, which leaves it without theoretical resources to address certain forms of economic domination. The concept of structural domination allows us to comprehend the coherence of the nineteenth century, labor republican view and identify its relevance to modern labor markets. Labor republicanism takes us beyond a universal basic income to a concern with control over productive assets and workplace organization. As such, it shows us how the republican theory of liberty can support an argument for the transformation of work, not just the escape from it. (shrink)

The basic income proposal provides everyone in a society, as an unconditional right, with access to a certain level of income. Introducing such a right is bound to raise questions of institutional feasibility. Would it lead too many people to opt out of the workforce, for example? And even if it did not, could a constitution that allowed some members of the society to do this – at whatever relative cost – prove acceptable in a society of mutually reciprocal, equally (...) positioned members? I assume in this short essay, however, that none of these problems is insurmountable. I concentrate on the question of how far republicanism makes room for justifying something like a right to basic income, assuming that there are no problems of this kind with introducing and establishing such a right. Any satisfactory argument for a basic income should satisfy two desiderata. First is that of adequacy: the argument should establish a right to an intuitively.. (shrink)

It is clear that a revival of republicanism is under way, but it is not clear that the republican tradition truly speaks to contemporary concerns. In particular, it is not clear that republicanism has anything of value to say about economic matters in the early 21st century. I respond to this worry by delineating the main features of a neo-republican civic economy that is, I argue, reasonably coherent and attractive. Such an economy will preserve the market, while constraining it to (...) serve public purposes, and promote what John Rawls calls a ‘property-owning democracy’. To accomplish these ends, a civic economy is likely to concern itself with the character of work and the workplace, to take steps to preserve and protect the sense of community or publicity, to levy an inheritance tax and a progressive consumption tax, and to provide some kind of ‘social’ or ‘civic’ minimum of support to all citizens. Key Words: republicanism • equality • self-government • deliberative politics • civic virtue • publicity • markets • property-owning democracy • basic income • inheritance tax • consumption tax. (shrink)

A. Two conceptions of moral legitimacy Socialism, understood as the rejection of markets based on private property in favor of comprehensive centralized economic planning, is no longer a serious political option. If the core of capitalism is the organization of the economy primarily through market competition based on private property, then capitalism has certainly defeated socialism. Markets have been accepted—and central planning abandoned—throughout most of the “third world” and the formerly Communist states. In the advanced industrial states of the West, (...) Labor and “democratic socialist” parties have rejected socialism, having deregulated markets and privatized industries, utilities, and transport. The United Kingdom Labour Party’s 1945 manifesto declared it to be a “Socialist Party, and proud of it. Its ultimate aim is the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain.”1 Today it insists that markets are a given. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to act as a corrective to the comparatively deafening silence of egalitarian political philosophy’s response to the Great Recession. The paper thus provides an accessible analysis of a new strand of empirical research into the causes of the crisis. This new literature, which has largely gone unnoticed by the broader philosophical community, maintains that the main driver of financial instability is income and wealth inequality coupled with income stagnation at the bottom of the (...) income distribution. Building on this empirical research, the paper puts forward six connections between egalitarian political philosophy broadly construed, and the findings of the new literature it surveys. These connections are understood as operating in two directions: that is, they both provide reasons for egalitarians to play a larger role in debates concerning the moral aspects of financial instability, and also offer valuable insights to egalitarians to reorient their position concerning central facets of their arguments. (shrink)

The 2008 global financial crisis raises ethical as much as financial questions. Moral outrage centered on the imbalance between banks profiting from excessive risk-taking in good times and taxpayers suffering the costs in bad times. The paper analyzes this imbalance in terms of ethical theory. It first develops a rights-based framework to answer questions about the moral obligations of states and banks towards each other. It then criticizes standard economic thinking, which de-moralizes the phenomenon of moral hazard. Moral hazard between (...) states and banks arises in a context that cannot be interpreted as normal economic contracting, but should rather be characterized as governed by an implicit social contract giving rise to moral obligations. (shrink)

Liberalism generally holds that legitimate political power is limited and is to be impartially exercised, only for the public good. Liberals accordingly assign political priority to maintaining certain basic liberties and equality of opportunities; they advocate an essential role for markets in economic activity, and they recognize government's crucial role in correcting market breakdowns and providing public goods. Classical liberalism and what I call “the high liberal tradition” are two main branches of liberalism. Classical liberalism evolved from the works of (...) Adam Smith and the classical utilitarian economists; its major 20th century representatives include Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. The high liberal tradition developed from John Stuart Mill's works, and its major philosophical representatives in the 20th century are John Dewey and, later, John Rawls. This paper discusses the main distinguishing features of the classical and the high liberal traditions and their respective positions regarding capitalism as an economic and social system. Classical liberals, unlike high liberals, regard economic liberties and rights of private property in productive resources to be nearly as important as basic liberties. They conceive of equality of opportunity in more formal terms, and regard capitalist markets and the price system as essential not only to the allocation of production resources, but also as the fundamental criterion for the just distribution of income, wealth, and economic powers. High liberals, by contrast, regard the economic liberties as subordinate to the exercise of personal and civic liberties. They are prepared to regulate and restrict economic liberties to achieve greater equality of opportunities, reduce inequalities of economic powers, and promote a broader conception of the public good. And while high liberals endorse markets and the price system as essential to allocation of productive resources, they do not regard markets as the fundamental criterion for assessing just distributions of income, wealth, and economic powers and positions of responsibility. The paper concludes with some reflections upon the essential role that dissimilar conceptions of persons and society play in grounding the different positions on economic justice that classical and high liberals advocate. (shrink)

The financial Crunch of 2008 was easily explained by both the left and right–too easily. Each insisted that events thoroughly confirmed its own long-held views and utterly refuted those of the opposed camp. This essay argues that there are indeed new lessons to be drawn from the Crunch, lessons that involve balancing the bounty of the Invisible Hand against perils of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Liberal moral imperatives are traced to variables of Personal Choice and External Cost that are typically in (...) tension with each other and thus generate needs for institutional reconstructions that change according to time and circumstance. Personal bankruptcy protection, limited liability corporations, and intellectual property are cited as examples. It is argued that the Crunch occurred because of failure adequately to balance these variables. Three paradoxes came to a head in 2008: Paradox of Efficient Markets; Paradox of Reduced Risk; Paradox of Hard-won Knowledge. The essay concludes with suggestions concerning specific lessons to be drawn from the Crunch and a corresponding list of lessons not to be drawn. (shrink)

This paper suggests that “systemic risk” has a distinctive kind of moral significance. Two intuitive data points need to be explained. The first is that the systematic imposition of risk can be wrongful or unjust in and of itself, even if harm never ensues. The second is that, even so, there may be no one in particular to blame. We can explain both ideas in terms of what I call responsibilities of “Collective Due Care.” Collective Due Care arguably precludes purely (...) aggregative cost-benefit decision-making and requires one kind of “precautionary” attitude in public choice. (shrink)

In this paper we ask whether liberal egalitarians can endorse workfare policies that require that welfare recipients should work in return for their welfare benefits. In particular, we focus on the fairness-based case for workfare, which holds that people should be responsible for their own welfare since they would otherwise impose unfair costs on others. Two versions of the fairness-based case are considered: The first defends workfare on the grounds that it would form part of an unemployment insurance scheme that (...) individuals would endorse under certain hypothetical conditions that are salient for the purposes of determining just public policy. The second appeals to the notion of reciprocity in order to justify the requirement that people work for their benefits. We cast doubt on both of these arguments for workfare. Neither argument shows that the unconditional provision of welfare benefits is unjust; hence, the fairness case for workfare is inconclusive. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Republicanism of Rawls's Liberalism: An Open Question Property‐Owning Democracy Justice and Stability Tocqueville on the Ills of Democratic Personality The Republican Response Some Objections Conclusion: Lessons for Republicans and Liberals References.

Philosophers attracted to the republican ideal of freedom as nondomination sometimes offer the thought that a state concerned to promote this ideal would be more committed to economic justice than a liberal state pursuing freedom as noninterference. The republican commitment to economic justice is more demanding and its provisions are more substantial. These philosophers overstate republican redistributive commitments. The state need only provide a basic set of capabilities in order to achieve the republican goal, and concerns about domination in society (...) better support a sufficiency aim in redistributive policy. (shrink)

I propose a theory of domination derived from republican political theory that is in contrast to the neo-republican theory of domination as arbitrary interference and domination as dependence. I suggest that, drawing on of the writings of Machiavelli and Rousseau, we can see two faces of domination that come together to inform social relations. One type of domination is extractive dominance where agents are able to derive surplus benefit from another individual, group, or collective resource, natural or human. Another is (...) what I call constitutive domination where the norms, institutions, and values of the community shape the rationality of subjects to accept forms of power and social relations and collective goals as legitimate forms of authority. Each of these make up two faces of a broader theory of social domination that is more concrete and politically compelling than that put forth by contemporary neo-republican theory. I argue that this understanding of domination should be seen as a kind of ‘radical... (shrink)

The financial Crunch of 2008 was easily explained by both the left and right–too easily. Each insisted that events thoroughly confirmed its own long-held views and utterly refuted those of the opposed camp. This essay argues that there are indeed new lessons to be drawn from the Crunch, lessons that involve balancing the bounty of the Invisible Hand against perils of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Liberal moral imperatives are traced to variables of Personal Choice and External Cost that are typically in (...) tension with each other and thus generate needs for institutional reconstructions that change according to time and circumstance. Personal bankruptcy protection, limited liability corporations, and intellectual property are cited as examples. It is argued that the Crunch occurred because of failure adequately to balance these variables. Three paradoxes came to a head in 2008: Paradox of Efficient Markets; Paradox of Reduced Risk; Paradox of Hard-won Knowledge. The essay concludes with suggestions concerning specific lessons to be drawn from the Crunch and a corresponding list of lessons not to be drawn. (shrink)