Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Social minimum: The social minimum is the minimum amount of income and resources that a person needs to live a decent life in society. It is typically defined by the government and is used to determine the level of social welfare benefits and other social programs. The social minimum can vary depending on the country and the cost of living. See also Society, Economy, Welfare state, Social law._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Philippe Van Parijs on Social Minimum - Dictionary of Arguments
Gaus I 126 Social Minimum/Van Parijs/Gaus/Mack: (...)each person has the greatest possible opportunity to do whatever she might want to do (leximin opportunity) (1995(1):25). As Van Parijs explains, this last condition requires that 'in a free society, the person with least opportunities has opportunities that are no smaller than those enjoyed by the person with the least opportunities under any other feasible arrangement' (1995(1): 25). And this in turn leads to the requirement that a society provides the highest sustainable basic income for all (...) RawlsVsVan Parijs: see Rawls 2002(2): 179. >Justice/Rawls, >Social Minimum/Rawls, >J. Rawls. Van Parijs: (...) the equalization of external endowments that drives redistribution: if someone produces without using resources in scarce supply she has the right to her full product, but because production always requires such resources, his basic income proposal does not lead to exploitation of the industrious. fruits of Green labour. Coincidence: Van Parijs's intuition is that luck must be irrelevant to justice (1995(1): 160): if some have managed to actually produce while others have tried and failed because of bad luck or natural adversities (see also Steiner, 2001)(3), they have a claim on those who do produce. Gaus I 127 Traditional liberalismVsVan Parijs/Gaus: this is not an intuition shared by the liberty tradition (Rand, 1957)(4). It violates doctrinal commitment (...) of the liberty tradition against seizure of the fruits of another's labour, a commitment that, unsurprisingly, Van Parijs rejects (1995(1): 145ff). Moreover, Van Parijs's position seems to illustrate how violations of [the] commitment (...) also compromise persons' claims to self-sovereignty (...). >Liberalism. 1. Van Parijs, Phillipe (1995) Real Freedom for All: What (If Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? Oxford: Clarendon. 2. Rawls, John (2002) Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin Kelly Cambridge, MA: Belknap. 3. Steiner, Hillel (2001) 'The ethics of redistribution'. Acta Philosophica Fennica, 68: 37-45. 4. Rand, Ayn (1957) Atlas Shrugged. New York: Dutton. Mack, Eric and Gaus, Gerald F. 2004. „Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism: The Liberty Tradition.“ In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Van Parijs, Philippe Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |