Aufsatz(gedruckt)2009

Who Is Really 'Deserving?': Inequality and the Ethics of Social Inheritance

In: Dissent: a journal devoted to radical ideas and the values of socialism and democracy, Band 56, Heft 4, S. 88-91

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Abstract

After a summation of the state of US income inequality, the moral principle of "deservingness" as applied to entitlements is explored. Problems with deeply entrenched assumptions about the creation & distribution of income & wealth are addressed, along with economic growth as underpinned by cumulative learning & other forms of social value, particularly as linked to inherited productive capacity. Attention is given to Robert Solow's (1957) ideas on economic growth as chiefly a function of technological progress rather than labor or capital accumulation, indicating that the individual's contributions are far more modest than those of society. Thus, if deservingness is deemed the test, an individual's reward ought to be equally modest. A call is then made for a better understanding of the kind & degree of social value driving economic growth, particularly the inheritance of scientific & other forms of productive knowledge, to the public debate so that it is no longer framed in terms moral assertions of individual "deservingness" vs "undeservingness" in social policy development. That is, in understanding that much of current value derives from a "common patrimony of cumulative infrastructure & knowledge," the moral debate can be redefined with a more rigorous application of the moral principle of deservingness, leading to a dismantling of what is termed, per Leonard Trelawny Hobbhouse (1911), "private socialism." D. Edelman. Adapted from the source document.

Themen

Social Values, Inheritance and Succession, Wealth, Income Inequality, Ethics, Social Policy, Economic Development

Sprachen

Englisch

Verlag

Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, New York NY

ISSN: 0012-3846

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