Abstract
These concluding comments and considerations briefly summarise the achievement of this volume’s set of complementary contributions, answer the main questions posed and pending, and provide the necessary basic analysis and evaluation of the other distributive principles which are alternatives or complements to the one obtained here. The basis is the synthesis between the three polar possible ethical principles for macrojustice: income justice, self-ownership and the proper welfarism. Its central piece is a distributive coefficient k which can provide solutions from the pure self-ownership of classical liberalism for k = 0 to freedom-respecting income-egalitarian ideals. This choice results from the impartial moral judgment of the distributive society in question, representable in particular by comparisons between the “pure welfare” of members and which can be revealed by a number of methods. Non-human resources can be allocated according to various principles, but their equal sharing results from various types of association with the solidaristic equal-freedom allocation of the value of the human resources, and it permits more self-ownership for the same degree of distribution. The relevant introduction of the obtained distributive policy makes everybody better-off. Distributive principles alternative to the one obtained include those based on ordinal welfarism (equity-no-envy and the equivalence principle) and reductions to mesojustice or microjustice. Finally, the moral public goods of justice or caring about others’ needs elicit various types of motives which make the nature of the corresponding transfers be quite more subtle and rich than simple coercion or voluntariness.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bös, D., & Tillman, G. (1985). An envy tax: Theoretical principles and applications to the German surcharge of the rich. Public Finance, 40, 35–63.
Bourguignon, F., & Spadaro, A. (2008). Tax-benefit revealed social preferences. Working paper 2008-37, Paris School of Economics, Paris.
Fleurbaey, M., & Maniquet, F. (1996). Fair allocation with unequal production skills: The no-envy approach to compensation. Mathematical Social Sciences, 32, 71–93.
Fleurbaey, M., & Maniquet, F. (1999). Cooperative production with unequal skills: The solidarity approach to compensation. Social Choice and Welfare, 16, 569–583.
Foley, D. (1967). Resource allocation and the public sector. Yale Economic Essays, 7, 45–98.
Hicks, J. (1959). Essays in world economy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Kolm, S.-C. (1966). The optimal production of social justice. In H. Guitton, & J. Margolis (Eds.), Proceedings, international economic association conference on public economics, Biarritz, 1966 . Economie publique, Paris, CNRS, 1968, pp. 109–177. Public economics, MacMillan, London, 1969, pp. 145–200. Reprinted in The foundations of 20th century economics, landmark papers in general equilibrium theory, social choice and welfare, selected by K.J. Arrow, & G. Debreu, 2001, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, pp. 606–644. Partial reprint in Journal of Economic Inequality, 2007, 5, pp. 213–234.
Kolm, S.-C. (1971). Justice et équité. Paris: Cepremap. Reprint, Paris: CNRS, 1972. English translation, 1997, Justice and equity. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Kolm, S.-C. (1973). Super-équité. Kyklos, XXVI(fasc.4):841–843.
Kolm, S.-C. (1974). Sur les consquences conomiques des principes de justice et de justice pratique. Revue d’Economie Politique, 84(1), 80–107.
Kolm, S.-C. (1977). Multidimensional egalitarianism. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 91, 1–13.
Kolm, S.-C. (1985). Le contrat social libéral. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Kolm, S.-C. (1986). L’allocation des ressources naturelles et le libéralisme. Revue Economique, 37, 207–241.
Kolm, S.-C. (1987). Public economics. In Eatwell, J., Milgate, M., & Newman, P. (Eds.), The new Palgrave: A dictionary in economics (pp. 1047–1055). London: Macmillan.
Kolm, S.-C. (1991). The normative economics of unanimity and equality: equity, adequacy and fundamental dominance. In Arrow, K. (Ed.), Markets and welfare (pp. 243–286). London: Macmillan.
Kolm, S.-C. (1994). The meaning of fundamental preferences. Social Choice and Welfare, 11, 193–198.
Kolm, S.-C. (1995). The economics of social sentiments: the case of envy. Japanese Economic Review, 46(1), 63–87.
Kolm, S.-C. (1996a). Modern theories of justice. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Kolm, S.-C. (1996b). The theory of justice. Social Choice and Welfare, 13, 151–182.
Kolm, S.-C. (1999). Freedom justice. Working paper 99-5, CREM, Université de Caen, France.
Kolm, S.-C. (2001a). On health and justice. In D. Wikler (Ed.), Global health: From goodness to fairness. Geneva: World Health Organisation.
Kolm, S.-C. (2001b). To each according to her work? Just entitlement from action: Desert, merit, responsibility and equal opportunities. Working paper 01-07, IDEP, Marseille.
Kolm, S.-C. (2002). La thorie des transferts sociaux et son application. Rapport, Commissariat Gnral du Plan / Maison des Sciences de Paris: l’Homme (MSH), 412 pages.
Kolm, S.-C. (2005). Macrojustice, the political economy of fairness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kolm, S.-C. (2009a). The rational, recursive original position. A fully determined impartial endogenous social welfare function. In Conference in honour of Maurice Salles. University of Caen.
Kolm, S.-C. (2009b). Social ethics and rationality, new directions for the opimum production of social justice: meaningful welfare, equal liberties, social solidarity. In Conference on inequality, new directions, Ithaca, N.Y. Cornell University. Forthcoming in Journal of Economic Inequality (2011).
Kolm, S.-C. (2010). Equality. In Badie, B. (Ed.), International encyclopedia of political science. London: Sage Publications, Inc.
Luttens, R., & Ooghe, E. (2008). Is it fair to make work pay? Economica, 74(296), 599–626.
Marx, K. (1852). The 18th brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. New-York: Die Revolution.
Nagel, T. (1986). The view from nowhere. Clarendon: Oxford.
Nagel, T. (1991). Equality and partiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nussbaum, M. (1992). Human functioning and social justice: In defence of Aristotelian essentialism. Political Theory, 20(2), 202–246.
Pazner, E., & Schmeidler, D. (1974). A difficulty in the concept of fairness. The Review of Economic Studies, 41(3), 441–443.
Pazner, E., & Schmeidler, D. (1978). Egalitarian-equivalent allocations: A new concept of economic equity. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 92, 671–687.
Posner, R. (1977). The economic analysis of law, (2nd ed.). Boston: Little Brown.
Posner, R. (1981). The economics of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. (1982). Social unity and primary goods. In A. Sen, & B. Williams (Eds.), Utilitarianism and beyond (pp. 159–185). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rawls, J. (1999,1971). A theory of justice, revised edition. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Rothbard, M. (1973). For a new liberty. New York: Macmillan.
Thomson, W. (2008). Fair allocation rules. In K. Arrow, A. Sen, & K. Suzumura (Eds.), Handbook of social choice and welfare. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Tinbergen, J. (1946). Redelijke inkomensverdeling (2nd ed. 1953). Haarlem: De Gulden Pers.
Tobin, J. (1970). On limiting the domain of inequality. Journal of Law and Economics, 13, 363–378.
Varian, H. (1974). Equity, envy, and efficiency. Journal of Economic Theory, 19, 63–91.
Walzer, M. (1983). Spheres of justice. Oxford: Blackwell.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kolm, SC. (2011). Macrojustice in Normative Economics and Social Ethics. In: Gamel, C., Lubrano, M. (eds) On Kolm's Theory of Macrojustice. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-78377-0_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-78377-0_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-78376-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-78377-0
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)