Abstract

The world economy of the 1980s and beyond is characterized by increasingly fierce competition and growing interdependence within and among national economies. Many in the United States believe that this new situation calls for a new social contract among government, business, and labor. The name often given to this proposed new contract is industrial policy. The industrial policy debate is about to respond to this new situation and how to manage the changes it has and will continue to bring. ;Changes in the economy bring in their wake changes in the way people earn their livings and lead their lives. My thesis is that a central issue in the industrial policy debate is how we manage change within and among economies. Disagreements over the management of change arise from disagreements over ethical priorities governing the allocation of the costs and the benefits of change, assumptions about human nature and motivation, and our vision of the good society. ;A basic assumption that I am making is that public policies represent moral choices about preferred futures. Favoring one policy over another constitutes a moral choice about the future. Therefore, when analyzing public policy options, we must try to discern whose preferred future we are talking about, and why this future is more desirable than alternative futures envisioned by others. Ethical analysis not only helps us clarify and evaluate our choices, it also enunciates fundamental rights which set limits on our preferences and constrain our choices. ;In this dissertation, I propose to make a comparative analysis of different types of industrial policy proposals as these proposals themselves are framed by these moral concerns. In the process of conducting this analysis, I hope also to sketch a proposal for a covenantal policy ethic. The central principles of such an ethic are: Justice, freedom, and social responsibility. I shall argue that these principles are found in each policy proposal, but that the weight given to each principle is not the same throughout. Each policy position accents one of the principles and reinterprets the others accordingly.