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Resource Egalitarianism and the Limits to Basic Income

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Andrew Williams
Andrew Williams
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Extract

In his widely-discussed book, Real Freedom for All, Philippe Van Parijs argues that justice requires the provision of a universal, unconditional basic income. Some critics reject that conclusion on the grounds that it violates requirements of reciprocity or prohibitions on exploitation, free-riding and parasitism. This paper explores a less familiar critique, which operates within the same resource egalitarian parameters as Van Parijs's argument, and leaves unchallenged his conviction that justice requires a basic income. Instead the paper suggests two reasons to doubt his ambitious claims about its magnitude. First, the paper argues that if envy elimination is the fundamental egalitarian aim then Van Parijs's argument for boosting basic income by including jobs within the class of external assets to be equalized is unsuccessful. Second, it argues that Van Parijs fails to show that the provision of basic income should not be constrained by a more restrictive principle for correcting inequalities in personal resources than his favored compensatory norm. Before defending these criticisms, two preliminary sections describe Van Parijs's distributive principles and his central argument for basic income.

Type
Essays
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , April 1999 , pp. 85 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

1 More specifically, he claims that economic institutions should be evaluated by their sustainable capacity to generate an allowance ‘paid by the government to each full member of society (1) even if she is not willing to work, (2) irrespective of her being rich or poor, (3) whoever she lives with, and (4) no matter which part of the country she lives in’. See Real Freedom for All: What (If Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? (Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 35)Google Scholar. Unless specified, page numbers refer to this book.

2 For an example of this type of criticism, see White, S., ‘Liberal equality, exploitation, and the case for an unconditional basic income’, Political Studies, XLV (1997), pp. 312–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Note that an individual's real freedom depends upon her opportunities to satisfy potential rather than actual preferences, and that within a society satisfying leximin opportunity, ‘the person with least opportunities has opportunities that are no smaller than those enjoyed by the person with least opportunities under any other feasible arrangement; in case there exists another feasible arrangement that is just as good for the person with least opportunities, the next person up the scale… must have opportunities no smaller than the second person up the scale of opportunities under this arrangement; and so on’ (p. 25).

4 Nevertheless some critics proceed as if Van Parijs's case for basic income rests solely upon leximin opportunity. See, for example, Barry, B., ‘Real freedom and basic income’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 4 (1996), pp. 264–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The assumption is mistaken since, as Van Parijs clearly explains, ‘It is not really the size or extent of their real freedom that real-freedom for-all requires just institutions to maximize for the worst off’ (p. 32).

5 Since my first objection relies on them diverging, it is important to note that value equalization and envy elimination are logically distinct principles which only contingently converge. As Van Parijs explains, ‘Whereas equality of resource bundles as measured by their competitive prices entails equality of opportunity-sets in the weak sense of envy-freeness, the reverse is not true’ (p. 53). For further illustration see the example of Funny and Very Funny (p. 250, n43).

6 It would be unwarranted, however, to conclude that it is not possible to increase legitimate transfer payments to some voluntarily unemployed individuals by expanding the category of external assets to include jobs. To appreciate why that inference is invalid, note there may be two types of individual who can obtain employment but prefer to remain unemployed. The reluctantly unemployed, whilst refusing those jobs which are available to them, prefer the job assets of at least some individuals, but are unable to obtain them. The willingly unemployed have no such frustrated desires, and would remain unemployed no matter what their employment prospects. The latter clearly can take no solace in the above criticism. But nothing in that criticism implies that the former class of individuals are not entitled to share in the employment rent enjoyed by consultants and company bosses. What they cannot claim, if those less desirable positions are available to them, is further redistribution at the expense of office-cleaners and burger-flippers.

7 See ‘What is equality? Part l:equality of welfare’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10 (1981), Section VIII, and especially the comparison with Jude on p. 239Google Scholar.

8 Van Parijs (p. 250, n43) cites Varian, H., ‘Two problems in the theory of fairness’, Journal of Public Economics, 5 (1976), pp. 249–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the generalization in Champsaur, P. and Laroque, G., ‘Fair allocations in large economies’, Journal of Economic Theory, 25 (1981), pp. 269–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Compare Varian's intuitive explanation in ‘Dworkin on equality of resources’, Economics and Philosophy, 1 (1985), p. 114Google Scholar, cited in Real Freedom for All, p. 250, n45.

10 For classic illustration, see Singer, P., ‘Altruism and commerce: a defence of Titmuss against Arrow’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2 (1972), pp. 312–20, especially p. 316Google Scholar.

11 Van Parijs, however, is sanguine about the constraint's impact: ‘under the conditions that now prevail in advanced industrial societies, the highest sustainable basic income consistent with both formal freedom and undominated diversity can confidently be expected to be quite substantial, indeed to exceed what is there unanimously considered as belonging to the bare necessities. In a society that is not only sufficiently diverse (which makes dominance less frequent for ‘subjective’ reasons), but also sufficiently healthy (which makes dominance less frequent for ‘objective’ reasons) and sufficiently wealthy (which drives up the average external endowment), a small minority of ‘handicapped’ people will be entitled to differential transfers, but the majority consisting of ‘normal’ people will remain entitled to a substantial basic income’ (p. 84).

12 Arneson, Richard, discussing an earlier presentation of undominated diversity, pursues the latter strategy with considerable force, in ‘Property rights in persons’, Social Philosophy and Policy, 9 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Section V. But see Real Freedom for All, Section 3.6 and 3.8, for some replies.

13 Lonely objects that the extended auction is unfair since it compensates for ugliness only insofar as it affects earning potential, yet, she urges, ‘Good looks may matter a great deal even if they do not add a penny to one's earning power’ (p. 64). As will become apparent, I exploit that thought in criticizing Lovely's objection.

14 Dworkin uses the phrase in his own critique of the extended auction in ‘What is equality? Part 2: equality of resources’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10 (1981), p. 312Google Scholar.

15 Suppose A's opportunities for income and leisure are a proper subset of B's, yet could be improved by a lump-sum ability tax on B, which still leaves B able to do all that A can do and more. Self-ownership might condemn even this modest proposal in favor of those with least opportunities. Therefore — unless his remark risks triviality since ‘liberty’ means self-ownership — it appears strange that Van Parijs claims ‘If one wishes to attack it [self-ownership] … one has to do so on grounds other than liberty’ (p. 9).

16 For convincing arguments concerning why the application of Dworkin's suggestion should be individualized, see Rakowski, E., Equal justice, (Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 136Google Scholar, nll.

17 For further criticism of the proposal see Rakowski's thorough discussion in Equal Justice, Section 6.2, which contains a related horizontal equity objection at pp. 135–7, and is mentioned by Van Parijs on p. 225, nl9.

18 See ‘What is equality? Part 2: equality of resources’, pp. 287–8.

19 Furthermore, recall that the less stubborn player ‘wisely’ revised his ambitions. Unlike the ‘battered slave’ and ‘tamed housewife’, effectively employed by Sen to criticize welfare egalitarianism, he is not the victim of adaptive preference formation. Thus, Sen's criticism cannot be extended to my use of the envy test in Van Parijs's example. For relevant discussion, see Sen, A., The Standard of Living (Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 11)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Elster, J., ‘Utilitarianism and the Genesis of Wants’, Sen, A. and Williams, B. (eds.). In Utilitarianism and Beyond (Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 219–38)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 For that reason, I am unconvinced by Fleurbaey's ‘Equal Resource for Equal Handicap’ axiom. For a description of the axiom, which might be employed to object to my differential treatment of the two oboe players, see Fleurbaey, M., ‘On fair compensation’, Theory and Decision, 36 (1994), p. 283CrossRefGoogle Scholar.