Noxious markets, inequality and social meanings In this thoughtful and timely book, Debra Satz provides a convincing justificatory framework for our ongoing discomfort at the intrusion of markets into many areas of our lives that hitherto had been free from commercial influence. Her central problem is the commodification of everyday life. We inhabit social worlds which are highly commodified and in which the market is often prescribed as a universal panacea for any social problem we confront. Yet despite such (...) overt marketisation in the culture at large, nonetheless there remains the widespread belief that there are some things that should not be for sale: the very thought of selling certain goods remains repugnant. Satz's task in this book is to explain why such misgivings are correct. How might we best account for the intuition that some things should not be for sale? At the heart of her tale is a concern with the inequality that markets often bring in their wake. (shrink)

This article explores how anticipations of parenthood differentially affect the career aspirations and choices of women and men who have not had children. Drawing from in-depth interviews conducted separately with 60 coupled young adults, I find that women in my sample were disproportionately likely to think and worry about future parenthood in their imagined work paths. Moreover, women were more likely than men to alter or downshift their present-day career goals in anticipation of the changes in preferences and responsibilities that (...) accompany new parenthood. Because men were unlikely to engage in the mental work of anticipating parenthood, they were also free from its emotional and behavioral consequences. In this way, gendered anticipations of parenthood, which begin relatively early in an individual’s career path, are likely to play a key role in reproducing patterns of labor market inequality even before the real constraints of parenthood have set in. (shrink)

This article examines inequality from a framework of justice that attends to the socially situated nature of market activity, including exchange. I argue that accounts of unsituated exchange—accounts of market exchange that abstract from social situations, such as philosopher Robert Nozick’s influential libertarian account of justice—overlook various factors that contribute to growing economic inequality in contemporary society. Analyses of market exchange must incorporate the role of “third parties” who play a role in shaping and/or who are affected (...) by economic transactions. The involvement of these additional parties, including the government and future generations, is not interference but, instead, an integral part of the economic and moral accounting of exchange. An approach to justice and inequality which embeds exchange within multiple dimensions of economy and society is needed; the latter part of this article traces such a socially situated approach. (shrink)

This article examines, experimentally, whether inequality affects the social capital of trust in non-market and market settings. We consider three experimental treatments, one with equality, one with inequality but no knowledge of the income of other agents, and one with inequality and knowledge. Inequality, particularly when it is known, has a corrosive effect on trusting behaviours in this experiment. Agents appear to be less sensitive to known relative income differentials in markets than they are in the non-market (...) settings, but trust in markets appears generally more vulnerable to the introduction of inequality than in the non-market setting. (shrink)

I argue that asymmetries in taste and talent can explain markets in bodily services, just as they explain other kinds of work. While inequality is a powerful explanation for participation in bodily-service markets, such markets are not unique in their reliance on inequality. Finally, I address another kind of inequality that deserves our attention -- the advantage of the providers of bodily services over those who require them. While those who suffer from infertility or face the terror of organ failure (...) may have a financial advantage over others, they may still be worse off than fertile and organ-rich people who suffer economic or social disadvantage. Egalitarians ought to concern themselves with the whole scope of disadvantage, not just economic disadvantage. (shrink)

This article examines, experimentally, whether inequality affects the social capital of trust in non-market and market settings. We consider three experimental treatments, one with equality, one with inequality but no knowledge of the income of other agents, and one with inequality and knowledge. Inequality, particularly when it is known, has a corrosive effect on trusting behaviours in this experiment. Agents appear to be less sensitive to known relative income differentials in markets than they are in the non-market (...) settings, but trust in markets appears generally more vulnerable to the introduction of inequality than in the non-market setting. (shrink)

This article focuses on the relationship of employer behaviour to labour market inequalities. Matched employer-employee data are casting an important new light on how variation in wage setting practices across firms can affect the structure of earnings and earnings mobility. It shows that very different wages are paid to equivalent labour across and within firms. It also argues that policies targeting firm selection of workers may affect inequality as much as policies of training and education.

The article addresses how societal inequalities shape market arrangements. While business scholars developed important work about the interplay of organizations and societal economic inequalities, less has been said about the embeddedness of markets in unequal social structures. We argue that this issue may be addressed by cross-fertilizing the sociological approach of Bourdieu and the Strategic Action Fields perspective. To demonstrate our view, we assessed the extreme case of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling markets in Brazil, conducting a qualitative study based (...) on the precepts of abductive analysis and using data from different secondary sources, interviews, and participant observation. We verified the existence of correspondences between the power of strategic action fields and the positions the individuals controlling them occupy in what Bourdieu calls the social space and show how these differences enable inter field connections that tend to reproduce social hierarchies. (shrink)

Women's small share of professional and managerial occupations compared with their share of the total labor force is examined for the 11 largest racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. Gender-related characteristics—women's labor force participation rates, marital status, and the sex ratio—influence women's share of the top jobs, as do class and ethnic variables such as place of birth, population size, and class of worker. Labor market gender inequality is greatest among the smaller, more affluent minorities, many of (...) whom are recent immigrants to this country. The larger, frequently indigenous, minority groups exhibit less of this kind of inequality. Minority and gender status intersect, so that men monopolize surplus resources among the more affluent minority groups and use these resources to secure a more advantaged labor market position. (shrink)

People tend to be repulsed by the idea of cash markets in kidneys, but support the trading of kidneys through paired exchanges or chains. We reject anti-commodification accounts of this reaction and offer an egalitarian one. We argue that the morally significant difference between cash markets and kidney chains is that the former allow the wealthy greater access to kidneys, while the latter do not. The only problem with kidney chains is that they do not go far enough in addressing (...) equality concerns, and we show how the introduction of cash payments by the state could remedy this. (shrink)

This article focuses on the role of unions and their influence on economic inequality. Section 2 reviews the literature regarding the union effect on wages and wage inequality. Section 3 considers the separate contributions of union power, membership composition, bargaining coordination, and wage policy. Section 4 introduces the distinction between membership and coverage, while the following two sections discuss the impact of union power on earnings inequality when coverage is either exclusive or inclusive. Section 7 discusses the rationale for unions (...) aiming for wage compression while Section 8 estimates how the presence of trade unions has influenced the extent and dynamics of earnings inequality across advanced economies during the 1980s and 1990s. For this purpose indicators have been developed for trends in equality and union presence from different sources. Section 9 concludes. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the role the Dutch gymnasium continues to play in the institutional maintenance of educational inequality. To that end we examine the relational and spatial features of state-sponsored elite education in the Dutch system: the unique identity the gymnasium seeks to cultivate; its value to its consumers; its geographic significance; and its market position amidst a growing array of other selective forms of schooling. We argue that there is a strong correlation between a higher social (...) class background and the concern to transmit one’s cultural habitus. We further speculate on the moral implications of state-sponsored elite education, both as it concerns the specific role of the gymnasium in the reproduction of social inequality as well as the curious tendency among its supporters to rationalise the necessity of its existence. (shrink)

A collection of classical and contemporary sources highlighting the radical potential of the individualist anarchist tradition.

It is widely accepted that global forces of technology and trade have caused a profound shift in labor demand toward the most highly skilled, generating sharply rising earnings inequality in flexible labor markets and persistently high unemployment in rigid labor markets. This article critically assesses the evidence for this “Unified Theory.” It finds little compelling empirical support for either the skill-biased demand-shift explanation for high U.S. earnings inequality or the rigid labor markets explanation for high unemployment in Europe. This assessment (...) challenges the policy orthodoxy of the 1990s that developed economies feature a strict inequality-unemployment trade-off and that policy options are therefore limited to skills enhancement in the United States and labor market deregulation in Europe. It is suggested that the theoretical dominance of the textbook supply/demand model has contributed to the neglect of labor market institutions for U.S. wage outcomes and tight macroeconomic policy for European unemployment. (shrink)

This article explores how economic inequality in the United States has led to growing levels of poverty, food insecurity, and obesity for the bottom segments of the economy. It takes the position that access to nutritious food is a requirement for living and for participating fully in the workplace and society. Because of increasing economic inequality in the United States, growing segments of the U.S. economy have become more food insecure and obese, eating unhealthy food for survival and suffering an (...) erosion of “equality of capabilities” that undermines their ability to play a “full and active part in the functioning of community.” Unequal access to nutritious foods in the United States is attributable in part to an industrial food system that is designed to produce short-term profits for industrial food producers, processors, and distributors that extract surplus labor value through market concentration and opportunistic behavior at the expense of the long-term benefits for consumers, food workers, and ecosystems. Economic inequality, food insecurity, and the erosion of equality of capabilities in the United States have given rise to protest movements, social movements, social innovations, and some modest strengthening of regulations to make access to and consumption of healthy food a right for every person. Implications for business and society research are explored. (shrink)

Recognizing the variety of dystopian science-fiction novels and movies, from Brave New World to Gattaca and more recently Star Trek, on the future of humanity in which eugenic policies are implemented, genetic engineering has been getting a bad reputation for valid but arguably, mostly historical reasons. In this paper, I critically examine the claim from Mehlman & Botkin (1998: ch. 6) that human enhancement will inevitably accentuate existing inequality in a free market and analyze whether prohibition is the optimal (...) public policy for this objection as egalitarians might advise (Lamont and Favor, 2014). (shrink)

Digital inequality and digital justice are pressing issues in today's world. This work examines the socio-philosophical aspects of these problems and proposes measures to achieve digital justice. The authors draw attention to the fact that digital inequality can manifest itself in various forms, such as access to information, technology and resources, as well as opportunities to participate in the digital economy. This can lead to increased social inequalities and limited opportunities for the development of individuals and society as a whole. (...) To achieve digital justice, the authors propose a number of measures, such as improving access to digital technologies and resources, ensuring equal opportunities to participate in the digital economy, and protecting consumer rights and data privacy. They also draw attention to the need to promote digital literacy and education so that people can make effective use of digital technologies and resources. The authors also examine digital inequality and digital justice in the context of monopoly and free speech. They point out that some companies that declare their social responsibility may use their monopolistic position in the market to limit freedom of speech and access to information. In this context, the authors suggest strengthening the role of the state in regulating the digital economy and protecting consumer rights. In conclusion, the research is a valuable contribution to the field of research on digital inequality and digital justice. It emphasizes the need to take into account the socio-philosophical dimensions of these issues and suggests measures to achieve digital justice. It also draws attention to the importance of cultural and historical sensitivity in the development of digital policies and resources. (shrink)

This essay begins by summarizing the reasons why unregulated health-care markets are inefficient. The inefficiencies stem from the asymmetries of information among providers, patients and payers, which give rise to moral hazard and adverse selection. Attempts to ameliorate these inefficiencies by means of risk-adjusted insurance and monetary incentives such as co-pays and deductibles lessen the inefficiencies at the cost of increasing inequalities. Another possibility is to rely on non-monetary incentives, including ordeals. While not a magic bullet, these are feasible methods (...) for addressing the inadequacies of market provision of health care, such as moral hazard. (shrink)

This article focuses on the welfare state, which includes social protection, health, education and training, housing, and social services, but can also be conceived more broadly to include policies that affect earnings capacity and the structure of the labour market. It discusses the difficulties of capturing the impact of the welfare state on income inequality, given that one does not observe what the distribution would be in the absence of the welfare state or specific aspects of it. Theories of (...) welfare state redistribution are reviewed, and the conventional categorization into welfare ‘regimes’ discussed. The empirical evidence about the extent and nature of redistribution by the welfare state is described, including noncash services as well as cash transfers, and the impact on poverty in particular is discussed. Economic inequality is also strongly affected by the political process, and vice versa. (shrink)

This article examines the recent transformations of the Italian welfare state from a familist welfare model to what I term transnational market familism. In this model, families buy in care labour, commonly provided by migrant workers. There is now a growing literature exploring both the transformations of the Italian welfare model and the experiences of migrant workers providing care in Italy. However, what has been overlooked in the current literature is the ethical aspect of this model of welfare provision, (...) which is part of the transnational political economy of care. The article analyses the ethical implications of the migrant-in-the-family model, which transforms the care relationship between the caregiver and care receiver into a complex relationship between the family member organising care, the migrant caregiver and the dependent care receiver. The context of such welfare provision is transnational. Examining this care triangle, I draw on care ethics and individualization perspective for an analysis of how social policies safeguard, or overlook, human interaction and care relationships in the context of global hierarchies. The article draws on ethnographic data gathered in Naples, Italy, during 2004–2005, including interviews with Neapolitan employers and elderly care-receivers, interviews with migrant workers, as well as participant observations. (shrink)

This paper examines cross-national differences in the development of sectoral collective bargaining in the European telecommunications industry following comparable changes in market regulations. The authors seek to explain why centralized, coordinated bargaining institutions were established in Austria and Sweden, both within incumbent telecommunications firms and at the sector level, while Germany and Denmark experienced decentralization and disorganization of bargaining at both levels. The authors argue that these outcomes resulted from differences in institutional loopholes employers were able to exploit to (...) avoid centralized bargaining and past union structures that influenced patterns of interunion cooperation. These two explanatory factors were interrelated: the presence or absence of institutional loopholes affected the basis for cooperation between unions, while labor cooperation was an important power resource unions could draw on to close emerging loopholes. Findings demonstrate the importance of sector-level political dynamics for the construction or erosion of solidaristic bargaining structures under pressure from market liberalization. (shrink)

Human Enhancement Technology ranges from the commonplace, such as education, to the futuristic, with possible future developments including genetic modification or direct computer-brain interfaces. Public policies governing the supply of these technologies have the potential to greatly increase or mitigate economic inequality. Due to this potential harm, many have suggested prohibition of further developments of enhancement technologies. However, prohibition would in ineffective at preventing this harm and also would also prevent many positive aspects of enhancement technologies. On the other hand, (...) due to the expected benefits, many have suggested allowing access and development within a free-market system. However, this has the potential to increase inequality beyond acceptable levels. Consequently, Government policies must provide appropriate funding and regulation in order for these technologies to be distributed fairly to provide the most benefits and prevent the worst outcomes. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of inequity aversion as an explanation for observed behavior in experimental Cournot oligopolies. We show that inequity aversion can change the nature of the strategic interaction: quantities are strategic substitutes for sufficiently asymmetric output levels but strategic complements otherwise. We find that inequity aversion can explain why: some experiments result in higher than Cournot–Nash production levels while others result in lower, collusion often occurs with only two players whereas with three or more (...) players market outcomes are very close to Cournot–Nash, and players often achieve equal profits in asymmetric Cournot oligopoly. (shrink)

This article documents and provides explanations for levels of and trends in earnings inequality, with a central focus on international differences in these outcomes. It concentrates on OECD countries, which are largely advanced industrialized nations, and typically have similar levels of labour productivity but often very different labour market institutions and changes in the supply of or demand for labour of various skill levels. As a result, one can use international differences to test hypotheses about the role of supply (...) and demand and institutions in influencing levels and trends in earnings inequality. The article first provides an analytical framework for understanding earnings inequality in which labour earnings are distinguished from wage rates. It then places inequality of wage rates in a supply and demand framework, augmented by consideration of labour market institutions. Next, after providing some data on the extent of earnings and wage inequality across countries and over time, it discusses evidence on the determinants of differences and changes in earnings inequality. (shrink)

Secular discourse about problem of economic inequality rests on two foundational premises that are problematic from a theological point of view. First, individuals enter into society with the aim of bettering their own condition. Second, bettering one's own condition entails accruing more wealth and power so that one can fulfill more of one's desires. In this paper I argue that insofar as these premises shape market behavior, they actively promote excessive economic inequality. Ethical responses to the problem of economic (...) inequality that do not challenge these assumptions are unlikely to effectively promote justice. A theological response to the problem of economic inequality should work to promote cultural change by reminding us that genuine human flourishing depends on communal ties and the higher human goods that material wealth is properly meant to support. (shrink)

We examine the extent to which host country income inequality influences multinational enterprises’ (MNE) expansion strategy for foreign production investment, depending on their specific strategic objectives. Applying a transaction cost framework, we predict that national income inequality has an inverted U-shaped relationship with foreign production investment. As inequality increases, MNEs accrue lower transaction costs arising from interactions with various local actors, leading to higher probability of investment. As income inequality increases further, its effect on location attractiveness will become negative, as (...) its attraction effect is increasingly offset by additional monitoring, bargaining, and security costs owing to the more fractious nature of high inequality societies. In addition, we suggest that the impact of income inequality is contingent on investment objectives: The inverted U-shaped relationship is stronger for efficiency-seeking investment but weaker for market-seeking and competence-enhancing investments. We find substantial support for our hypotheses through an analysis of 27 years (1986-2012) of data on Japanese MNEs’ overseas production entries. (shrink)

Racial earnings inequalities in the United States diminished significantly over the three decades following World War II, but since then have not changed very much. Meanwhile, black—white disparities in employment have become increasingly pronounced. What accounts for this historical pattern? Sociologists often understand the evolution of racial wage and employment inequality as the consequence of economic restructuring, resulting in narratives about black economic fortunes that emphasize changing skill demands related to the rise and fall of the industrial economy. Reviewing a (...) large body of work by economic historians and other researchers, this article contends that the historical evidence is not consistent with manufacturing- and skills-centered explanations of changes in relative black earnings and employment. Instead, data from the 1940s onward suggest that racial earnings inequalities have been significantly influenced by political and institutional factors—social movements, government policies, unionization efforts, and public-employment patterns—and that racial employment disparities have increased over the course of the postwar and post-1970s periods for reasons that are not reducible to skills. Taking a broader historical view suggests that black economic fortunes have long been powerfully shaped by nonmarket factors and recenters research on racial discrimination as well as the political and institutional forces that influence labor markets. (shrink)

Agricultural commercialization as a mechanism to alleviate rural poverty raises concerns about small land-holders, non-adopters, and inequity in the distribution of benefits within transforming economies. Farm gross margins were calculated to assess the economic status and impact of cash cropping on the economic well-being of agrarian households in the Mid-hills of Nepal. On an individual crop basis, tomatoes and potatoes were the most profitable. On a per farm basis, 50 of the households with positive farm gross margins grew at (...) least one vegetable crop, while only 25 of households with negative farm gross margins included vegetable crops in their rotation. Farmers have been hesitant to produce primarily for the market given the rudimentary infrastructure and high variability in prices. Farmers reported selling more crops, but when corrected for inflation, gross revenues declined over time. The costs and benefits of developing markets have been unevenly distributed with small holders unable to capitalize on market opportunities, and wealthier farmers engaging in input intensive cash cropping. Farms growing vegetables had an average gross margin of US$137 per year compared to US$12 per year for farms growing only staple crops. However, the area under production is small, and while vegetable production is likely to continue increasing, sensitivity analysis and scenarios suggest high variability and limited short-term impact on poverty alleviation. (shrink)

The global inequality in the distribution of vaccines is unjust. As countries scrambled to ensure enough vaccines, the world’s poorest were left to fend for themselves, and the generosity meant to mitigate this through COVAX was not sufficiently forthcoming. In light of this, I proposed a vaccine tax, which obligates those willing and able to pay to protect their own population to contribute to protecting those residing in the world’s low-income countries. Petrovic has offered an important critique of this proposal, (...) questioning both the fairness and the efficiency of the tax. However, when properly specified, the vaccine tax is not vulnerable to these critiques. (shrink)

In response to calls for greater interdisciplinary involvement from the social sciences and humanities in the development, governance, and study of artificial intelligence systems, this paper presents one sociologist’s view on the problem of algorithmic bias and the reproduction of societal bias. Discussions of bias in AI cover much of the same conceptual terrain that sociologists studying inequality have long understood using more specific terms and theories. Concerns over reproducing societal bias should be informed by an understanding of the ways (...) that inequality is continually reproduced in society—processes that AI systems are either complicit in, or can be designed to disrupt and counter. The contrast presented here is between conservative and radical approaches to AI, with conservatism referring to dominant tendencies that reproduce and strengthen the status quo, while radical approaches work to disrupt systemic forms of inequality. The limitations of a conservative approach to racial bias are discussed through the specific example of biased criminal risk assessments and Indigenous overrepresentation in Canada’s criminal justice system. This illustrates the dangers of treating racial bias as a generalizable problem and equality as a generalizable solution, emphasizing the importance of considering inequality in context. Societal issues can no longer be out of scope for AI and machine learning, given the impact of these systems on human lives. This requires engagement with a growing body of critical AI scholarship that goes beyond biased data to analyze structured ways of perpetuating inequality, opening up the possibility for interdisciplinary engagement and radical alternatives. (shrink)

The author uses census data to assess the consequences of two alternative theoretical formulations of care work for understanding the intersections of gender, race, and economic inequalities in paid care. The nurturance conceptualization focuses on care as relationship while the reproductive labor framework includes both relational and nonrelational jobs that maintain and reproduce the labor force. An empirical application of both models to the labor market shows that placing increasing theoretical emphasis on nurturant care privileges the experiences of white (...) women and excludes large numbers of very-low-wage workers from consideration. (shrink)

Is the family subject to principles of justice? In "A Theory of Justice", John Rawls includes the (monogamous) family along with the market and the government as among the, "basic institutions of society", to which principles of justice apply. Justice, he famously insists, is primary in politics as truth is in science: the only excuse for tolerating injustice is that no lesser injustice is possible. The point of the present paper is that Rawls doesn't actually mean this. When it (...) comes to the family, and in particular its impact on fair equal opportunity, (the first part of the Difference Principle, Rawls' second principle of justice), he abandons the priority of justice. I also argue that he is right to do so. -/- The central argument is simple. As Rawls admits, what family one is raised by profoundly affects one's life chances: a child raised by a family has far greater life chances on every dimension than one raised in a poorer family that may lack books, education, and time to give the child attention. But the prevailing family arrangements in the industrialized West, assigning children to be raised by their biological parents, is guaranteed to perpetuate this injustice. While Rawls says an unjust institution in the basic structure of society, in which he includes the family, must be, "reformed or abolished," he refrains from calling for the reform or abolition of the family. We must simply work around it to compensate for the injustices he admits it involves. And this despite the fact that alternative arrangements involving communal child-rearing (Plato) or assigning children to those best qualified to raise them (Rousseau) are common in the philosophical literature. Moreover, the practice of having children raised by their biological parents is a relatively recent one, at least in the West, where, before the late 18th century, fostering-out or apprenticeship arrangements were normal and expected for both rich and poor for centuries. -/- Much of the paper is devoted to fine-grained textual analysis of Rawls' attempts to avoid the devastating implications of this argument for his theory of justice -- much of which are stated only in the original edition of "A Theory of Justice" and simply deleted, without substitution by anything better, in the second edition. In the end, Rawls has no way out. He cannot keep the priority of justice, fair equality of opportunity, and the monogamous family in which children are raised by their biological parents. As he admits, these are mutually inconsistent. -/- In the final part of the paper, I argue that Rawls should give up on the priority of justice. While child-rearing by the biological parents is a historical anomaly, in the real modern world it would be politically unfeasible to institute Platonic, Rousseauean, or similar legislation that purportedly assigned children to those best able to raise them, regardless of biological relationship. Since Rawls is committed to principles of political stability and feasibility, as he should be, and since ought implies can, such proposals are off the table. I concur with Rawls that we must work around this injustice, even those there are more just arrangements available in principle. But the cost of this -- less high than Rawls suggests -- is abandoning the principle of the priority of justice. Justice is one of a number of considerations that we must or may balance in deciding on the best attainable social relations. It is not a trump. However, this comes a great cost for Rawls: he must also abandon the lexical ordering of principles of justice or, in general, right or good principles of social order, in favor of the messy intuitionist balancing that his theory is designed to avoid. -/- One feature of the paper that is worth independent attention is a discussion of Marx's rejection of justice in the Critique of the Gotha Program, which I explicate, and urge, without adopting it, that it has a great deal more force than is widely understood. (shrink)

Research in the cognitive sciences indicates that metaphors significantly shape perceptions and approaches to problem solving. With this in mind, this essay argues that it is problematic for ethicists that mainstream economics and other social scientific literature relies on naturalistic metaphors to describe markets. These imply an inaccurate picture of economic phenomena and rhetorically frame many solutions to problems such as inequality as interventionist. This essay proposes that religious ethicists may find resources for avoiding this conceptual hazard in emerging fields (...) of heterodox economics that are attentive to the role of culture and human agency in shaping markets. It introduces feminist, behavioral, institutional, and Austrian economics in particular and highlights some of the specific approaches to inequality adopted in these fields. It then suggests that engaging heterodox perspectives more generally may help ethicists keep in view the full complexity and social nature of the economic problems they analyze. (shrink)

This article assesses the changing economic status of women, the forces driving it, and its implications for inequality between women and men and among women. Section 2 reviews women's growing labour market participation and its changing occupational structure. Section 3 analyzes the extent and sources of the gender pay gap. Section 4 reviews two of the major drivers of recent economic change for women: the transformation of their educational status, and the impact of technology. Section 5 addresses the implications (...) of women's rising employment and earnings for household inequality and their changing fertility patterns. Section 6 examines the contribution of the legal framework to reducing inequality. Section 7 concludes with pointers to areas for further research. (shrink)

Income inequality in democratic societies with market economies is sizable and growing. One reason for this growth can be traced to unequal forms of compensation that employers pay workers. Democratic societies have tackled this problem by enforcing a wage standard that all workers are paid regardless of education, skills, or contribution. This raises a novel question: Should there be equal pay for all workers? To answer it, we need to investigate some factors that are relevant to the unequal conditions (...) of power and authority in which wage offers are made. By clarifying these, we can determine whether wage inequality is morally permissible. If not, then a case might be made to pay all workers the same regardless of education, skills, or contribution. Even if it is permissible, another question worth considering is whether there are limits to how much inequality is acceptable. The argument here proceeds along the following lines. First, I summarize the economic and non-economic factors that determine the value of wages in labor markets. Second, I examine a particular problem that concerns whether the conditions of wage labor are coercive because they restrict alternatives or otherwise include threats to the welfare of workers. If there is coercion, we have good reasons to establish a standard that improve these conditions. Finally, I claim that establishing this standard requires increasing the value of low-wage work. Doing so will not only expand alternatives that are available to these workers, it will also diminish the potential threat to their welfare. (shrink)

In this article, I will argue that early post-Apartheid South Africa adopted certain neoliberal principles which compromised the efforts to combat economic inequality. In particular, I will show that the economic policies that South Africa adopted during its early democracy reflect core neoliberal principles which promote a neoliberal political rationality. These economic policies indicate a pivotal approach from the African National Congress government in addressing economic inequality in South Africa. The dramatic shift from traditional Marxist policies to neoliberal policies reveals (...) the significant influence of a neoliberal global market system during South Africa’s early democracy. However, the neoliberal policies failed to address the problem of economic inequality in South Africa. Instead, these policies seem to have deepened the existing economic inequality in contemporary South African society. (shrink)

This paper develops a critique of cause-related marketing and other forms of ‘compassionate consumerism’, which draws attention to the mobilisation of jouissance – or enjoyment – within this ideological formation. I explore three cases of compassionate consumerism – Table for Two, Toilet Twinning, and Sir Richard’s Condoms. In each case, I show how an explicit ethical appeal to assist those less fortunate than ourselves is underwritten by an invitation to participate in a disavowed enjoyment of relations of inequality. This enjoyment (...) is procured, not through the manipulation of ‘natural’ pleasures, but through the staging of specific fantasies, which make pleasure possible through their framing of the alien materiality of the bodily drives. (shrink)

(Purpose) The purpose of the study is to present Thomas Piketty’s demand view on the issue of growing income and wealth inequalities in highly industrialized countries. It should be indicated here that in his research, Piketty not only explains the mechanism of growing inequalities, but also defines the tools to tackle inequalities (a combination of theoretical and pragmatic views). (Methodology) The aim of the study is achieved through the literature review method as well as the descriptive methods, complemented by comparative (...) analysis. (Results) Piketty’s considerations clearly show that the problem of income and wealth inequalities will not disappear spontaneously, so market automatism will not only not eliminate their causes, but also will not create conditions for a fair distribution of production outcomes between capital and labor. Therefore, reducing the level of inequality requires a return to the concept of the welfare state. (Contribution to the discipline) The conducted analysis may become part of a larger research project showing the relationship between the level of economic development and its impact on the scale of income and wealth inequalities. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s political philosophy has enjoyed renewed attention as an egalitarian alternative to contemporary inequality since it seems to uncompromisingly reassert the primacy of the state over the economy, enabling it to defend the modern welfare state against encroaching neoliberal markets. However, I argue that, when understood as a free-standing approach to politics, Kant’s doctrine of right shares essential features with the prevailing theories that legitimate really existing economic inequality. Like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Kant understands the state’s function (...) as essentially coercive and, in justifying state coercion, he adopts a narrow conception of political freedom that formally preserves the right to choose while denying that the range of choices one actually has can be a matter of justice. As a result, Kant cannot identify various forms of social pressure as potential injustices even as he recognizes their power to create and sustain troubling inequalities. For both Kant and the neoliberals, the result is that economic relations almost never count as unjust forms of coercion, no matter how unequal they are. Views that identify coercion as the trigger for duties of justice are thus particularly ill-suited to orient us to contemporary inequality. (shrink)

Using a new typology based on information available from the Labour Force Survey, the authors analyse how job quality evolved in Québec for both women and men over the last decade (1997-2007). Results show that family situation and educational attainment are two important factors in the determination of gender inequality in the labour market. The analysis emphasizes the very significant decline in gender differences with regard to job quality (from 23% to 35% according to groups), especially for persons without (...) children and individuals who achieved higher education. The changes represent a definite progress in the status of women in general, although some indicators also reveal degradation with respect to job quality in some of the sub-groups. (shrink)