The Debate on the Sustainability of Social Spending

The economic and political debate in countries with older industrialization faces a progressive growth of social spending in relation to national products, generated by a concurrence of factors (aging of populations, low productivity in human services, moral hazard), which leads to propose reductions of social spending in favor of other resource allocations. Social expenditures, however, constitute an essential part of the “social pact” which historically united citizens in accepting equalities in political rights and inequalities in the command over resources. The question on the “sustainability” of the choices regarding social policies is open, with regards to the acceptability of economic inequalities and in relation to the ethical themes founded on the recognition of human dignity.Sustainability of social spending

Relational foundations for global egalitarianism and cosmopolitan inclusion

Multiple authors have argued that moral cosmopolitanism, the thesis that every human has a global stature as an ultimate unit of moral concern, is compatible with domestic egalitarianism. This is because they believe that from equal concern does not follow equal treatment, and it might be possible to impartially justify partial treatment. Some such attempts at justifying restricting the scope of egalitarian demands of distributive justice to the state proceed by application of Rawls’s principle of fairness to the provision of basic goods. But such relational approaches have been criticized by institutionalists who believe there is a global basic structure for the provision of basic goods. Institutional approaches, however, have themselves been criticized for relying on less than global institutions, such that the egalitarianism that they may justify is not truly global either. We argue that beyond institutionally provided goods there are nonetheless some goods whose provision is truly global, such that we can find a relational foundation for global egalitarianism, from which we can argue for cosmopolitan institutionalization

The demands of substantive decolonisation:Brexit and Ireland as a matter of justice

Although the impact Brexit might have on Ireland has generated a vast array of critical analyses, insufficient attention has been paid to this project as a question of justice or a matter of potential injustice. It is suggested here that the relative academic silence on this moral dimension of Brexit is connected to a widespread failure to connect theory and practice within the dominant approach to conceptualising the demands of justice both within and beyond the state. If we are to grasp the fabric of justice today, including just relations between political communities, then we need to be less reliant on methods of rational abstraction and focus instead on the history and structure of those hierarchical relations between the peoples of the world that have been imposed throughout the colonial and neo-colonial eras. This will lead us to re-conceive justice among the world’s peoples as a project of substantive decolonisation, an alternative paradigm that offers a critical perspective on how best to address the legacy of historical injustice at a global level. This theoretical framework equips us too with the language required to assess the moral dimensions of Brexit, specifically in relation to its impact on Ireland

The veil of ignorance and solidarity in healthcare : finding compassion in the original position

In this paper I will juxtapose the concept of the veil of ignorance – a fundamental premise of Rawlsian justice as fairness – and solidarity in the context of the organisation of a healthcare system. My hypothesis is that the veil of ignorance could be considered a rhetorical tool that sup-ports compassion solidarity. In the concept of the veil of ignorance, I will find some crucial features of compassion solidarity within the Rawlsian concept of “reciprocity” (actually, not being reciproc-ity at all) – located between “impartiality” and “mutual advantage”. I conclude that, even behind this “thick” veil, some essential, yet “particular” facts on health and wealth redistribution are available to decision makers. Lastly, I discover that by means of the assumption of self-interest in the original position the veil aims to convert egoism into empathy, thus invoking the solidarity of compassion that in turn could be translated into principles of the organisation of a healthcare system

Between market and merit: How unequal should incomes be?

The distribution of the benefits from co-operation represents one of the central problems of distributive justice. At the core of my thesis stands an argument based on the division of labour in our society that calls for an equal division of these benefits. This line of reasoning avoids the shortcomings of the two traditional approaches pursued by those who are critical of income inequalities, namely egalitarians and their more sophisticated cousins, liberal egalitarians. Straightforward egalitarianism, I suggest, turns out to be a default position once other considerations, like choice or merit, are taken into account. My disagreement with the liberal egalitarian centres on the question whether the scope of justice should encompass natural and social contingencies like talent or family background. I argue that the impact of these endowment factors on income distribution, though undeniable, is small compared to the influence of the market system in distributing income. This position also puts me at odds with libertarians, who accept the normative authority of the market distribution. Enter the argument from division of labour. The specialisation it entails leads to a surge in individual productivity and a substantial surplus compared to the counterfactual situation of autarky. On the plausible assumption that the interdependence between the parties to the division of labour is mutual, there is a case for dividing the surplus equally. This argument, so my claim goes, severely limits the scope of the central libertarian tenet of self-ownership. In practice, surplus is produced and distributed at various levels of co-operation; my focus lies on the economy as a whole, the firms that operate in it, and the insights from imperfect competition about the connection between these two levels. I close with some considerations about the transformation of unjust distributive structures

from the enlightenment to the 21st century

Inequality emerged as a social concern during the Enlightenment and was seen as violating the norm of human equality. Three main development narratives were generated following this concern: one of long-term equalization (de Tocqueville), one of polarization (Marx), and one of modern rising inequality followed by equalization (Kuznets). Although each of these narratives was able to score some points, none of them fully captured the actual trajectory of the inequality curve which is currently bending upwards towards more inequality. 21st century inequality studies are taking off in new directions, multiscalar, multi-dimensionally rooted in recent moral philosophy, and more focused on causal mechanisms and forces. Since early modernity a centre of economic inequality in the world, Latin America has a special relevance to inequality studies. Nevertheless, it is currently the only world region with a predominant tendency of equalization