Macrojustice: The Political Economy of Fairness

The main features of the just society, as they would be chosen by the unanimous, impartial and fully informed judgment of its members, present a remarkable and simple meaningful structure. In this society, individuals\' freedom is fully respected, and overall redistribution amounts to an equal sharing of individuals\' different earnings obtained by the same limited ‘equalization labour’. This also amounts to general balanced reciprocity, where each individual yields to each other the proceeds of the same labour. The concept of equalization labour is a measure of the degree of community, solidarity, reciprocity, redistribution, and equalization of the society under consideration. It is determined by a number of methods presented in this study, which also emphasizes the rationality, meanings, properties, and ways of practical implementation of this optimum distribution. This result is compared with the various distributive principles found in practice and in political, philosophical, and economic thinking, with the conclusion that most have their proper specific scope of application. The analytical presentation of the social ethics of economics is particularly enlightening.

• Kolm is France’s senior scholar on the relations between economics, philosophy, and politics, author of 30 books • Kolm is also closely associated throughout Europe with Macrojustice, currently a hot topic for debate • Argument mostly presented in narrative, little math

Part I. Bases: Consensus, Freedoms and Capacities: 1. Macrojustice: an overview of its place, method, structure and result; 2. Social freedom; 3. The liberal theory; 4. Free and equal in rights; 5. Resources; 6. Capacities; Part II. Overall Distributive Justice: ELIE (Equal Labour Income Equalization): 7. Equal labour income equalization: general presentation; 8. Models of labour and productivity; 9. Equal duration income equalization; 10. Information; 11. Income justice; 12. General equal labour income equalization: the model; 13. Involuntary unemployment; Part III. Comparisons with Policies and Philosophies: 14. Comparisons: general issues; 15. Comparison with distributive schemes; 16. Comparison with philosophies; Part IV. The Degree of Community, Equality, Reciprocity, and Solidarity: 17. The degree of redistribution, solidarity, community, and reciprocity; 18. Impartiality, consensus, and information; 19. Disinterested judgements and the moral surplus; 20. Communication and dialogue; 21. Impartialization and consensus; Part V. Comparison with Economics’ Social Ethics: 22. Related economic values; 23. The structure and substance of distributive principles; 24. Happiness and freedom; 25. Freedoms, responsibility, desert, merit, equality of opportunity, capacities, capabilities, basic needs; 26. The theory of equivalence; 27. Conclusion.