The Search for a Fair Society: Why Wide-Ranging Economic Freedoms Can’t Be Basic
September 22. Happy Mabon or fall equinox. Grab a coffee and let’s talk about a realistic utopia of a fair society.
Today, I want to take a deeper look into the question why Rawls’ list of basic liberties only includes a very limited set of economic freedoms. At first I’ll bring up his ideas and arguments. Only then I’ll add my thoughts that came up when reading his writing. There are in particular two discussions I want to have here: about the concept of property that’s embedded in the dataset we are all using unconsciously in our personal world generation process and how it limits our approach to possible solutions and about the limitation of human motivation to solely the personal benefit expressed in a bottom-line. But I warn already that these discussions might happen only in the following days as they are longer and I want to give Rawls his due since his work is the foundation I want us all to stand on for our discussions and debates.
So, Rawls’ very limited set of economic freedoms. Actually, he ever only mentions two: the freedom to occupational choice and the right to own personal property. Personal property therein is very narrowly defines as a right to own personal possessions and to have control over one’s living space. Rawls rejects any notion that the freedom of exchange is on par with, or should even take priority over, personal freedom and political equality. The problem if you give wide-ranging economic freedoms such a strong priority, it severely limits what the state can do to address poverty or inequality, or even regulate markets in order to promote economic growth. Questions about taxation and property should depend on how we can best promote the idea of economic justices as it is defines in Rawls’ second principle, the idea that social and economic inequalities are to justify two conditions: first, they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair opportunity, and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of the society.
In the end it goes back to how Rawls defines truly basic liberties as fundamental and inalienable. Inalienable includes, as I have shown in an earlier post, that the right is given to the individual but truly benefits and belongs to the collective; something that goes back to the motivation any member of a society ever agreed to submit to the social contract and align their individual generation process of their model of the world by using a common dataset: the ability to engage in random searches to get their high payoff while their high risk for the individual is offset. If the balance between a remaining wide variety of the self-generated worlds and their degree of alignment necessary to cooperate on the agreed level isn’t kept for each and every member, the whole group is robbed of the benefit of the random searches the members can’t conduct. So, a right is basic only when it protects this subtle balance for all at all times.
It is never enough when a right offsets the risk only for some members, even when this group represents the majority. For the rest of the members their motivation to be part of the group isn’t accomplished. So, they grow resentful and will not continue voluntarily to use the common dataset. Moreover though, the group loses their finds from random searches, what makes the overall search of the group less random. So, even the rest whose own risk is offset does not get completely what they wanted out of the deal. Resentment happens in them as well, what leads to a detachment from the agreed upon dataset. People generating unaligned models of the world in their minds have no common basis to cooperate anymore as they are in different realities and thus unable to form common goals. The society either breaks apart or some – maybe even as a majority decision – resort to the use of violence to force everyone to stick to the agreement because the deal apparently benefits them. Either way the outcome is not good, and most definitely not fair.
So, basic liberties are those rights and freedoms, and only those, that we need in order to live freely and play our part in society, what for the least of us still means leaning securely into the unknown and explore what can be found there even when this search will more often then not be unsuccessful. They are also those rights and freedoms that can be re-formulated as obligations and responsibilities each member of society has in regard to any other member without losing their universal correctness. Wide-ranging economic freedoms don’t pass this test.
What are your thoughts? Tell me. Tell all.
To watch this post as a video, go here.
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