Neoliberal Social Justice

Nick Cowen, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lincoln, UK

’Neoliberal Social Justice brings important considerations like the knowledge problem and entrepreneurial discovery into debates about how the just society “should” be organized. The result is an analysis and set of public policy recommendations that are much more classically liberal than the ones that have emerged from the Rawlsian tradition. Economic liberties, Cowen argues, are a lot more “basic” than many political philosophers seem to think, and utopia—to paraphrase Georgetown University political philosopher Jason Brennan’s Why Not Capitalism?—is classically liberal.’

• Contents: 1. Introduction PART I WHY INSTITUTIONS MATTER IN IDEAL THEORY 2. Ideal theory and the basic structure 3. Knowledge, not incentives PART II DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE AND THE KNOWLEDGE PROBLEM 4. Rawls’ neoclassical economics 5. The burdens of knowledge 6. Why capitalism 7. Why not market socialism 8. Why not economic democracy PART III DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE AND THE INCENTIVE PROBLEM 9. Fairness failure 10. The constitutional point of view 11. The robust case for behavioural symmetry PART IV DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE AND ECONOMIC LIBERTY 12. Basic economic liberties and the moral powers 13. The subjective and objective conditions of the circumstances of justice 14. Developing moral capacities PART V ROBUST PROPERTY-OWNING DEMOCRACY 15. Defining property-owning democracy 16. The robustness critique of property-owning democracy 17. The case for a robust property-owning democracy 18. Conclusion Index