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Economic justice is a component of social justice and welfare economics. It is a set of moral and ethical principles for building economic institutions, where the ultimate goal is to create an opportunity for each person to establish a sufficient material foundation upon which to have a dignified, productive, and creative life.[1]."
Justice in economics is a subcategory of social justice and welfare economics. It is a "set of moral and ethical principles for building economic institutions".[2] Economic justice aims to create opportunities for every person to have a dignified, productive and creative life that extends beyond simple economics.[3]
Models of economic justice frequently represent the ethical-social requirements of a given theory,[4] whether "in the large", as of a just social order,[5] or "in the small", as in the equity of "how institutions distribute specific benefits and burdens".[6] That theory may or may not elicit acceptance. In the Journal of Economic Literature classification codes 'justice' is scrolled to at JEL: D63, wedged on the same line between 'Equity' and 'Inequality' along with 'Other Normative Criteria and Measurement'. Categories above and below the line are Externalities and Altruism.[7]
Some ideas about justice and ethics overlap with the origins of economic thought,[8] often as to distributive justice[9] and sometimes as to Marxian analysis.[10] The subject is a topic of normative economics and philosophy and economics.[11] In early welfare economics, where mentioned, 'justice' was little distinguished from maximization of all individual utility functions or a social welfare function. As to the latter, Paul Samuelson (1947),[12] expanding on work of Abram Bergson, represents a social welfare function in general terms as any ethical belief system required to order any (hypothetically feasible) social states for the entire society as "better than", "worse than", or "indifferent to" each other. Kenneth Arrow (1963) showed a difficulty of trying to extend a social welfare function consistently across different hypothetical ordinal utility functions even apart from justice.[13] Utility maximization survives, even with the rise of ordinal-utility/Pareto theory, as an ethical basis for economic-policy judgments[14] in the wealth-maximization criterion invoked in law and economics.[15]
Amartya Sen (1970),[16] Kenneth Arrow (1983),[17] Serge-Christophe Kolm (1969, 1996, 2000),[18] and others have considered ways in which utilitarianism as an approach to justice is constrained or challenged by independent claims of equality in the distribution of primary goods, liberty, entitlements,[19] opportunity,[20] exclusion of antisocial preferences, possible capabilities,[21] and fairness as non-envy plus Pareto efficiency.[22] Alternate approaches have treated combining concern for the worst off with economic efficiency, the notion of personal responsibility and (de)merits of leveling individual benefits downward, claims of intergenerational justice,[23] and other non-welfarist/Pareto approaches.[24] Justice is a subarea of social choice theory, for example as to extended sympathy,[25] and more generally in the work of Arrow,[26] Sen,[27] and others.[28]
A broad reinterpretation of justice from the perspective of game theory, social contract theory, and evolutionary naturalism is found in the works of Ken Binmore (1994, 1998, 2004) and others. Arguments on fairness as an aspect of justice have been invoked to explain a wide range of behavioral and theoretical applications, supplementing earlier emphasis on economic efficiency (Konow, 2003).
- ^ "Economic Justice". Investopedia. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
- ^ Hayes, Adam. "Economic Justice". Investopedia. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
- ^ "On Economic Justice | SPH". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
- ^ • Developed along more general lines in Allan Gibbard, 1990, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Description and chapter-preview links.
• Marc Fleurbaey, 2008. "ethics and economics," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract. - ^ For example, in Barry Clark and Herbert Gintis, 1978, "Rawlsian Justice and Economic Systems," Philosophy & Public Affairs, 7(4), pp. 302-325.
- ^ The latter is the subject of H. Peyton Young, 1994, Equity: In Theory and Practice, Princeton University Press, discussed in general terms and as quoted, pp. 6-7; description, preview, and chapter 1[permanent dead link] (via scrolling).
- ^ • Peter J. Hammond, 1987. "altruism," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 1, pp. 85-87.
• James Andreoni, William T. Harbaugh, and Lise Vesterlund, 2008. "altruism in experiments," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract. - ^ Joseph J. Spengler, 1980. Origins of Economic Thought and Justice. Link to 1-page chapter-content previews.
- ^ • Edmund S. Phelps, ed., 1973. Economic Justice: Selected Readings. Penguin.
• _____, ed., 1987. "distributive justice," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 1, pp. 886-88. - ^ • Norman Geras, 1985. "The Controversy about Marx and Justice," New Left Review, 150, pp. 47-85.
• J.E.Roemer, 1987. "Marxian value analysis". The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 3, pp. 383-87. - ^ • Marc Fleurbaey, 2008. "Economics and Economic Justice", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Daniel M. Hausman and Michael S. McPherson, 2005, 2nd Ed. Economic Analysis and Moral Philosophy, Part III: Liberty, rights, equality, and justice. pp. 157-214. Drill to preview extracts. Archived 2016-05-27 at the Wayback Machine
• Julian Lamont, 2007. "Distributive Justice", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Julian Le Grand, 1991. Equity and Choice: An Essay in Economics and Applied Philosophy. Chapter preview links.
• Phillipe Mongin, 2000. "Is There Progress in Normative Economics?", same title in Stephan Boehm, et al., eds., 2002, Is There Progress in Economics?. - ^ Paul A. Samuelson, 1947. Foundations of Economic Analysis, ch. VIII ("Welfare Economics"), p. 221.
- ^ Kenneth J. Arrow, 1963. Social Choice and Individual Values, 2nd ed.
- ^ • Jonathan Riley, 2008. "utilitarianism and economic theory," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
• Charles Blackorby, Walter Bossert, and David Donaldson, 2002. "Utilitarianism and the Theory of Justice," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, v. 1, ch. 11, pp. 543-596. Abstract.
• A.B. Atkinson, 1982. Social Justice and Public Policy. Description and scroll to chapter-preview links. - ^ • Richard A. Posner, 1981. The Economics of Justice. Description Archived 2009-12-27 at the Wayback Machine and chapter links, pp. xi-xiii.
• Peter J. Hammond, 1982. "The Economics of Justice and the Criterion of Wealth Maximization," Yale Law Journal, 91(7), pp. 1493-1507.
• Richard Schmalbeck, 1983. "The Justice of Economics: An Analysis of Wealth Maximization as a Normative Goal," Columbia Law Review, 83(2), pp. 488-525.
• Denis J. Brion, 2000. "Norms & Values in Law & Economics," in Encyclopedia of Law & Economics, v. 1, pp. 1041-1071.
• Louis Kaplow and Steven Shavell, 2003. Fairness versus Welfare: Notes on the Pareto Principle, Preferences, and Distributive Justice," Journal of Legal Studies, 32(1), pp. 331-362.
• A. Mitchell Polinsky and Steven Shavell, 2008. "law, economic analysis of," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract. - ^ Amartya K. Sen, 1970 [1984]. Collective Choice and Social Welfare (description) Archived 2011-05-01 at the Wayback Machine:
- ch. 9, "Equity and Justice," pp. 131-51.
- ch. 9*, "Impersonality and Collective Quasi-Orderings," pp. 152-160.
- ^ • Kenneth J. Arrow, 1983. Collected Papers, v. 1, Social Choice and Justice. Description Archived 2009-04-16 at the Wayback Machine, contents Archived 2008-04-17 at the Wayback Machine, and chapter-preview links.
• Amartya Sen, 1985. "Social Choice and Justice: A Review Article," Journal of Economic Literature, 23(4), pp. 1764-76. Review of Arrow, 1983. Reprinted in Sen, 2003, Rationality and Freedom, pp. 325-348. - ^ • Serge-Christophe Kolm, 1969. "The Optimal Production of Social Justice," in J. Margolis and H. Guitton (eds.), Public Economics, Macmillan.
• _____, 1996. Modern Theories of Justice. Description and scroll to chapter-preview links. MIT Press.
• _____, [1972] 2000. Justice and Equity. Description Archived 2012-10-10 at the Wayback Machine & scroll to chapter-preview links. MIT Press. - ^ • Robert Nozick, 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia.
• John Rawls, 1971, A Theory of Justice. - ^ • John E. Roemer, 2008 "equality of opportunity," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
• _____, 1998. Equality of Opportunity, Harvard University Press. Description and scrollable preview. - ^ Amartya K. Sen, 1985. Commodities and Capabilities. Description.
- ^ Amartya Sen, [1987] 2008. "justice," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
• _____, 2000. "Social Justice and the Distribution of Income," in Handbook of Income Distribution, v. 1, Ch. 1, pp. 59-85.
• _____, 2009. The Idea of Justice, Harvard University Press. Description and preview link. - ^ Bertil Tungodden, 2008. "justice (new perspectives)," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
- ^ Louis Kaplow, 2008. "Pareto principle and competing principles," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
- ^ Kenneth J. Arrow, 1977. "Extended Sympathy and the Possibility of Social Choice," American Economic Review, 67(1), pp. 219-225.
- ^ Kenneth J. Arrow, 1983. Collected Papers of Kenneth J. Arrow, v. 1, Social Choice and Justice, preview.
- ^ • Amartya K. Sen, 1970 [1984]. Collective Choice and Social Welfare (description) Archived 2011-05-01 at the Wayback Machine:
- ch. 9, "Equity and Justice," pp. 131-51.
- ch. 9*, "Impersonality and Collective Quasi-Orderings," pp. 152-160.
• _____, 1977. "Social Choice Theory: A Re-Examination," Econometrica, 45(1), pp. 53-88.
• _____, [1987] 2008. "justice," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
• _____, 2009. The Idea of Justice, Harvard University Press. Description and scroll to Table of Contents, preview, back-cover comments of Hilary Putnam, Kenneth Arrow, Philippe Van Parijs, and G. A. Cohen, and a guide to reviews.
- ^ • Walter Bossert and John A. Weymark, 2008. "social choice (new developments)," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
• Charles Blackorby, Walter Bossert, and David Donaldson, 2002. "Utilitarianism and the Theory of Justice," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, v. 1, ch. 11, pp. 543–596. Abstract.