Economic Justice In American Society (ebook)

Argumento de Economic Justice In American Society (ebook)

America is entering a new age of economic discord, warns Robert E. Kuenne. In addition to a panoply of other structural economic troubles, the nation must now confront unprecedented demands for the kind of "distributive justice" that will meet the needs of the elderly, handicapped, and impoverished. Furthermore, American society faces the pressing problems of the disadvantaged with no explicit code of economic justice. Claims to various kinds of government entitlements are based increasingly on appeals to "economic justice," but no real national agreement exists on what that expression means. In this ambitious work, Kuenne sets out to remedy this want of consensus.

After an extensive evaluation of earlier thinking about distributive justice, Kuenne proposes a new theory, "dualistic individualism," that is consistent with the American ethos of political and economic liberalism. He then frames a formal Bill of Economic Rights and Obligations, which defines proper governmental conduct in the economic terrain as the American Constitution does in the political. Defending a form of governmental policy that strikes a balance between the egoistic and compassionate elements of American individualism, Kuenne also considers the practical tasks of program implementation, and goes on to assess the feasibility of meeting concrete redistributive goals over the next thirty years. His thorough investigation of one of the country's most urgent predicaments could do much to stimulate debate over the ad hoc and unprincipled distributive policies that now prevail in the United States.

Originally published in 1993.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.0List of Figures List of Tables Preface Ch. 1 The Implicit Economic Ethic in the Market Economy 3 Ch. 2 Theories of Social Equity: Egoistically Oriented Theories 29 Ch. 3 Theories of Social Equity: Socially Oriented Theories 59 Ch. 4 A Framework for Judgment 96 Ch. 5 A Critique of the Egoistically Oriented Theories 114 Ch. 6 A Critique of the Socially Oriented Theories 144 Ch. 7 The Bases for Economic Justice in America: Philosophy, Rights and Obligations, and Policy 177 Ch. 8 Measuring Inequality: A Menu of Problems and Choices 209 Ch. 9 The Distribution of Income in the United States in the Postwar Period 234 Ch. 10 The Feasibility of Redistributive Programs under the Dualistic Individualism Theory of Economic Equity 311 Ch. 11 The Longer-Term Implications of Dualistic Individualism 336 Ch. 12 Compassionate Capitalism 383 Notes 405 Index 427