Christian Socialism is a movement that arose in England in the mid-nineteenth century and continues into the twenty-first century. This form of socialism was aimed, in the first instance, not at institutional reform or the nationalization of the means of production but at what its proponents viewed as the moral rot that lay at the foundation of first industrial and then digital society. They opposed what we call neoliberalism and what was then known as political economy because supporters of these (...) ideologies believed that moral convictions had no proper place in the operation of markets. This conviction rested upon the false belief that people are essentially selfish, competitive individuals seeking personal happiness. The aim of Christian Socialists was to replace this “rotten” moral foundation with another based on the view that people are social and cooperative by nature rather than competitive. Their goal was nothing less than a new society built not upon selfishness and aggression but upon social virtues such as equality, fellowship, cooperation, service, and justice. They did not deny the presence of selfishness; however, they believed that the social nature of humankind lies deeper than egotism and conflict, and they sought a society built upon this belief. (shrink)

This essay brings together political theories of empire and racial capitalism to clarify the entanglements between socialist and imperial discourse at the turn of the twentieth century. I show that white labor activists and intellectuals in the United States and the British settler colonies borrowed from imperial scripts to mark non-white workers as a threat. This discourse was thus both imperial and popular, because it absorbed the white working class into settler projects and enlisted its support in defense of (...) imperial logics of labor control. While white workers’ demands of enfranchisement were part of a transnational imagination that was both imperial and narrowly emancipatory, this discourse reemerged as one of popular sovereignty and found channels and paths to institutionalization through national states. These institutional formations arose out of the encounter between capitalists interested in facilitating mobility of racialized laboring subjects around the globe, elite projects invested in sheltering settler spaces, and white workers concerned with protecting their own labor from competition by excluding exploitable non-white workers. White labor’s embrace of racial prejudice and the exclusion of workers of color created segregated labor spaces that fit neatly with both capitalist goals of labor control and the protection of the settler status of emerging polities. Bringing to the forefront the imperial genealogy of popular sovereignty and immigration control disrupts liberal political theory frameworks that condemn restrictions as well as those that find migration restrictions permissible. The analysis also illuminates contemporary immigration politics. (shrink)

In the 1920s, Austrian‐school economists began to argue that in a fully socialized economy, free of competitively generated prices, central planners would have no way to calculate which methods of production would be the most economical. They claimed that this “economic calculation problem” showed that socialism is “impossible.” Although many believe that the Austrian position was later vindicated by the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the Austrian school's own methodology disallows such a conclusion. And historical evidence suggests that poor incentives—not (...) lack of economic calculation—were the main source of the economic defects of “really existing socialism.”. (shrink)

Stephen Hood asks a number of interesting questions about which moral norms govern competition. Pace Hood, I argue that these questions have no bearing on the debate between G. A. Cohen and me, as either one of us could answer those questions any number of ways, without this changing our view on whether a fully just society would be socialist or capitalist.

Insofar as John Stuart Mill can be accurately described as a socialist, his is a socialism that a classical liberal ought to be able to live with, if not to love. Mill's view is that capitalist economies should at some point undergo a `spontaneous' and incremental process of socialization, involving the formation of worker-controlled `socialistic' enterprises through either the transformation of `capitalistic' enterprises or creation de novo. This process would entail few violations of core libertarian principles. It would proceed (...) by way of a series of voluntary transactions. Capitalists' property rights would be respected throughout. The process would take place within a national system of laws that permits private ownership of productive property and competition, and would not result in that system's overthrow. And, if we accept some basic tenets of Mill's social philosophy, the outcome at which we should expect the process to arrive is a `patchwork' economy in which capitalistic and socialistic enterprises exist side by side. Key Words: Ludwig von Mises • John Stuart Mill • socialism • capitalism • worker control. (shrink)

Morality, as a distinctive reflection of the needs, interests, and tasks of real groups and classes, changes with the change in their historical status and functions. Such change is also characteristic of the morality of the working class, which passes through a number of stages in its development: proletarian morality under capitalism, socialist morality in socialist society, and communist morality of the developed, communist social relationships of the future. Within these three major periods it is possible to identify (...) different phases corresponding to changing conditions, concrete tasks, and needs. Thus elements of proletarian morality, which took shape in the period of free capitalist competition, undergo a definite transformation in the epoch of imperialism and also change in a period of revolutionary enthusiasm. (shrink)

The overwhelming majority of Albania’s urban population is located in Tirana, a city with a very dynamic socio-spatial reality, resulting as an entry point for people from various origins, including multicultural rural societies, and has significant concentrations of finance and other economic activities. Urban areas demonstrate the dynamics that impact society from many angles, including those related to technology, economics, demographics, and culture, via a diverse and changed perspective. Since 1991, there has been a growing separation between classes, genders, and (...) regions, as well as between individuals and vulnerable groups, due to a lack of social protection and governmental measures for these groups and individuals, and the unrestricted power of the free market. Today, there is a noticeable improvement in the real pattern of social group concentration. This paper focuses on various divisions of social groupings in Tirana, how they are reflected in the city’s everyday life, and how they trend to the fragmentation of contemporary urban regions. In order to comprehend the change over time and transition patterns of Tirana from sites of production to places of consumption, the process method is modified by concentrating on the main stakeholders. The background of enhancing cities’ mobility and competitiveness demonstrates the interaction between different social groups and different living patterns in Tirana. The study also shows the socio-spatial pattern of the new city. The significant level of social fragmentation in Tirana is evident from analysis that only investigated a certain percentage of the city’s social groupings. The new master plans predicted in the city will help to overcome the issue. (shrink)

David Schweickart has challenged a number of claims that are central to my argument that market socialism would probably degenerate into something only nominally distinguishable from capitalism. Chief among these is the claim that competitive pressures would force the workers in a worker-controlled firm to create pay and authority differentials that would make such firms structurally homologous to capitalist firms. Schweickart challenges this on two fronts: He argues that there is no good reason to believe that market forces under market (...) socialism would create the pay and authority differentials characteristic of capitalism. He further argues that certain structural features of market socialism would insure that competition would not be as intense as it is under capitalism. Consequently, even if capitalistically structured firms were more efficient, it would not make much difference, since no sword of Damocles would hang over the heads of those firms whose workers prefer more collectivist methods of control. Let us consider each of these points in turn. (shrink)

This article reconstructs and reflects on the 1989 debate between Jerry Cohen and myself on market socialism in the light of Cohen's ongoing defence of communitarian socialism. It presents Cohen's view of market socialism as ethically deficient but a modest improvement on capitalism, and outlines some market socialist proposals from the 1980s. Our debate centred on the issues of distributive justice and community. I had argued that a market economy might be justified by appeal to desert based on productive (...) contribution, but Cohen saw effort as the only relevant desert base, and claimed that only non-comparative judgements of economic desert were possible. Market-derived inequalities, therefore, could not be deserved. He also condemned markets for relying on the motives of greed and fear, and therefore as destructive of community. In reply, I asserted that markets also liberated people from fixed social roles, and that market competition could be viewed differently, as providing the most effective way for people to contribute to each other's welfare. In retrospect, this debate can be seen to raise questions about the nature of justice and the purpose of political philosophy that have come to the fore in recent exchanges between ‘realists’ and ‘idealists’. (shrink)

To what extent does the loosening of the ties between a social democratic party and its sister unions indicate a shift in the party's traditional objectives or bases of support? In this article it is argued that the estrangement between these parties and their unions is not always an indicator or a proof of the abandonment of workers and solidaristic goals by social democratic parties. The evolution of the party-union relationship is not only shaped by the economic and social policies (...) of the party but is also constrained by the organizational context of the trade unions. And when a close relationship exists in a context of competitive unionism and a growing economy, it is highly likely that the pressure and threats that unions direct at their social democratic parties are largely inspired by their need to maintain and enhance their organizational position vis-à-vis their union rivals rather than by a change in the goals and policies of their sister parties themselves. (shrink)

During the last two decades, the intra-industry trade between western companies and former socialist enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe gradually shifted from the subcontracting of marginal operations such as final assembly to the outsourcing of products and intermediate inputs. To further enhance their competitiveness, firms in Central and Eastern Europe have yet to take one more step forward: integrate services with manufacturing. Developing such capabilities hinges, aside from intensive training and learning on the existence of functional interactive knowledgebased (...) innovation systems. Whereas Central and East European economies exhibit conspicuous weaknesses in this last respect, they still possess a countervailing advantage that is apt to lure foreign investors into the region: lower wage rates relative to western countries across all industries and skill levels. Offshoring therefore seems to be the most appropriate means to reconcile the two sides of the coin. (shrink)

A new traditional economy combines elements of traditional culture, such as Confucianism, with a modern, technologically advanced economy, while a new institutional economy minimizes transactions costs through its institutional structure. South Korea has enhanced its competitive edge by drawing on Confucian elements such as respect for education and the search for family-like harmony in chaebol corporations that can reduce transactions costs (despite problems) in an open system. Despite also emphasizing respect for education, North Korea has drawn on anti-mercantile elements of (...) the Confucian tradition such as the excessive authoritarianism of its command socialism and the hermit-like closure induced by its juche policy of self-reliance. (shrink)

The paper addresses the scarcity of research on the new rich in urban anthropology. It argues that sumptuary spending is meant to establish and display an honourable ascendancy, and stems from a need for public recognition. This is particularly visible in the palaces of the nouveau riche in Eastern Europe. Too often, these buildings are unduly ethnicized; the paper claims that this ideological approach aims at denying Easter European Roma the possibility of taking part in the urban competition of (...) the new rich and at excluding them from the wider urban context of the new rich in the post-Socialist territories, from Bucharest to Batumi and Astana. From Roma businessmen to a parvenu doctor in Cluj, the identity strategies of the new rich resemble each other. They draw on universal artistic heritage to create an image of ancient virtue for their owners. (shrink)

The paper addresses the scarcity of research on the new rich in urban anthropology. It argues that sumptuary spending is meant to establish and display an honourable ascendancy, and stems from a need for public recognition. This is particularly visible in the palaces of the nouveau riche in Eastern Europe. Too often, these buildings are unduly ethnicized; the paper claims that this ideological approach aims at denying Easter European Roma the possibility of taking part in the urban competition of (...) the new rich and at excluding them from the wider urban context of the new rich in the post-Socialist territories, from Bucharest to Batumi and Astana. From Roma businessmen to a parvenu doctor in Cluj, the identity strategies of the new rich resemble each other. They draw on universal artistic heritage to create an image of ancient virtue for their owners. (shrink)

The paper addresses the scarcity of research on the new rich in urban anthropology. It argues that sumptuary spending is meant to establish and display an honourable ascendancy, and stems from a need for public recognition. This is particularly visible in the palaces of the nouveau riche in Eastern Europe. Too often, these buildings are unduly ethnicized; the paper claims that this ideological approach aims at denying Easter European Roma the possibility of taking part in the urban competition of (...) the new rich and at excluding them from the wider urban context of the new rich in the post-Socialist territories, from Bucharest to Batumi and Astana. From Roma businessmen to a parvenu doctor in Cluj, the identity strategies of the new rich resemble each other. They draw on universal artistic heritage to create an image of ancient virtue for their owners. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, in a liberal society that confines itself solely to providing free basic education, children from the higher strata are systematically subjected to developmental opportunities that can reliably be expected to give them an advantage in the process of meritocratic competition. I will show how enforcing the universal education policy can include children from the least fortunate families in the process of meritocratic competition. I make a case for a commitment to the extensive (...) redistributive tax measures needed to ensure truly universal education as the condition of equal opportunity. I argue that this proposal is, in fact, consistent with real egalitarians' aim to achieve equality, and consistent with their principle of fair equality of opportunity. Providing an equal opportunity in an educational programme could possibly be an attempt to attain equality. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.24(3) 2005: 189-199. (shrink)

From the 1990s, during and after the post-communist transitions in Eastern Europe, different self-help texts advancing spiritual or personal well-being continue to be a highly popular discourse in Slovenia. In this article we examine the appropriation of self-help discourse in one of Slovenia's most influential management magazines, Manager. On the basis of a critical discourse analysis of Manager's articles, we argue that the magazine predominantly uses spiritual self-help vocabulary and accordingly transforms definitions of basic business vocabulary. It offers a spiritual (...) self-growth discourse as a solution to any current management or social problems and in doing so supports the liberal capitalism. This discourse attempts to advise managers as to how to adapt to the new competitive business environment. It furthermore promotes the belief that solely spiritual self-growth will help managers and their business partners to resist political and economic barriers and assure the business success in times of global corporate `survival'. (shrink)

v. 1. De la Renaștere la epoca "Luminilor".

What is the connection between the surge of populism and the deflation of electoral support to traditional left-leaning ideological positions? How can we explain the downfall of the Left in conditions that should be propelling it to power? In its reaction both to the neo-liberal hegemony and to the rise of populism, I claim that the Left is afflicted by what Nietzsche called ‘a democratic prejudice’ – the reflex of reading history as the advent of democracy and its crisis. As (...) a result, the Left now undertakes to recover democracy by resurrecting the growth-and-redistribution policy set that was a trademark of the ‘golden age’ of social democracy in the three post-war decades. This nostalgic gesture, however, is leading the Left into another predicament, which I call the ‘paradox of emancipation’ – while fighting for equality and inclusion as essential conditions for democratic citizenship, the Left is validating the social order within which equality and inclusion are being sought – namely, order shaped by the competitive production of profit which is the root cause of our societies’ plight. The analysis concludes with a proposal for building a counter-hegemony against neo-liberal capitalism by means of enlarging the Left’s focus beyond its traditional concerns with inequality and exclusion, to address also the injustice of growing social and economic insecurity – a harm whose reach surpasses the working poor. Reformulating an agenda of social justice around issues of economic insecurity that cross the ‘class divide’ would allow the Left to mobilize a broad coalition of social forces for radical and lasting change in the direction of socialist democracy. (shrink)

A half-century of Rawls interpreters have overemphasized economic equality in A Theory of Justice, slighting liberty—the central value of liberalism—in the process. From luck-egalitarian readings of Rawls to more recent claims that Rawls was a “reticent socialist,” these interpretations have obscured Rawls’s identity as a philosopher of freedom. They have also obscured the perhaps surprising fact that Rawlsian liberties (basic and non-basic) restrain and even undermine that same economic equality. As I will show in this article, such undermining occurs (...) in three areas: first, in the lexical priority of the basic liberties; second, in the (underappreciated) role played by free and competitive markets in Rawls’s theory; and third, in the structure and functioning of Rawls’s preferred economic institutions, viz., liberal socialism and property-owning democracy. (shrink)

The article analyzes the phenomenon of ownership in its legal, economic, political and philosophical perspectives. Ownership is considered as an opportunity and as a guarantee of sustainable development. Comparative context is used to identify the specificity of the bourgeois model of owners’ power (social state) and the domestic concept of power-ownership (including socialist state). The author draws conclusions about ways to overcome the competition between the state and the market for the human resource and proposes to explore the (...) ideological provision of power-ownership in order to appreciate its progressive potential and predilection in relation to the liberal model of social development . (shrink)

In the “Principles of the Civil Code,” Jeremy Bentham identifies four “principles subsidiary to utility”: subsistence, abundance, equality, and security. Whereas these subsidiary principles form part of the bedrock of classical liberalism, in this essay I show that in the hands of his friend and disciple William Thompson, they are transformed into the foundations for socialism. Where Bentham prioritizes security over equality, and security of property takes a preeminent role, Thompson shows that the system of individual competition and private (...) property—his way of describing capitalism—is best characterized by the “inequality of security.” Based on the labor theory of property, Thompson argues that the system that assigns ownership to the providers of capital violates the workers’ security—the right to have the full produce of their labor secured to them. Thompson then reconciles security and equality, understanding them as mutually constitutive instead of in conflict. From his work... (shrink)

First published in French, Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) was composed during his years in Brussels, when he was developing his economic views and, through confrontations with the chief leaders of the working-class movement, establishing his intellectual standing. In this classic work, which laid the foundation of ideas later developed in Capital, Marx polemicized against then premier French socialist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon wanted to unite the best features of such contraries as competition and monopoly. He hoped to (...) save the good features of economic institutions while eliminating the bad. Marx, however, declared that no equilibrium was possible between the antagonisms in any given economic system. Social structures were transient historical forms determined by the productive forces: "The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the stream mill, society with the industrial capitalist.". (shrink)

First published in French, Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) was composed during his years in Brussels, when he was developing his economic views and, through confrontations with the chief leaders of the working-class movement, establishing his intellectual standing. In this classic work, which laid the foundation of ideas later developed in Capital, Marx polemicized against then premier French socialist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon wanted to unite the best features of such contraries as competition and monopoly. He hoped to (...) save the good features of economic institutions while eliminating the bad. Marx, however, declared that no equilibrium was possible between the antagonisms in any given economic system. Social structures were transient historical forms determined by the productive forces: "The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the stream mill, society with the industrial capitalist.". (shrink)

These essays defend Christian, socialist and realist positions against Nietzsche’s critiques. Each essay addresses a problem in Nietzsche’s work. The first deals with perspectivism. On his view, the idea of objectivity disappears, becoming no more than simply a multiplicity of perspectives. The essay shows how Nietzsche’s approach to knowledge commits the epistemic fallacy, i.e. evades questions about truth by collapsing them into questions about knowing. The second essay addresses Nietzsche’s moral psychology in which there is no being behind doing, (...) no agent distinct from her actions. The essay demonstrates how this actualist account of persons is false by showing that the distinction between agent and action is needed for any understanding of moral action. The final essay concerns the history of ideas, rather than philosophical analysis. First, it looks at Nietzsche’s account of slave morality couched in terms of envy. Social justice, however, cannot be understood in this way. A section on class, religion and morality in late antiquity reinforces this with evidence that it was far more likely to find vindictiveness in the master class than the servant. The section on theism and ethics deals with Nietzsche’s notion of ‘eternal recurrence’: the idea that everything that happens will happen again an infinity of times, a notion that sustains an ethic of passive acceptance. The final part decries contemporary attachments to the Nietzschean virtues of pride, self-assertiveness, competitiveness and contempt for the less successful, preferring a Christian path to self-perfection through the pursuit of goals outside ourselves. (shrink)

The thesis of the present volume is critical and dual. (1) Present day philosophy of man and sciences of man suffer from the Greek mis taken polarization of everything human into nature and convention which is (allegedly) good and evil, which is (allegedly) truth and fal sity, which is (allegedly) rationality and irrationality, to wit, the polar ization of all fields of inquiry, the natural and social sciences, as well as ethics and all technology, whether natural or social, into the (...) totally positive and the totally negative. (2) Almost all philosophy and sci ences of man share the erroneous work ethic which is the myth of man's evil nature - the myth of the beast in man, the doctrine of original sin. To mediate or to compromise between the first view of human nature as good with the second view of it as evil, sociologists have devised a modified utilitarianism with deferred gratification so called, and the theory of the evil of artificial competition (capitalist and socialist alike) and of keeping up with the Joneses. Now, the mediation is not necessary. For, the polarization makes for abstract errors which are simplistic views of rationality, such as reductionism and positivism of all sorts, as well as for concrete errors, such as the disposition to condemn repeatedly those human weaknesses which are inevitable, namely man's inability to be perfectly rational, avoid all error, etc. , thus setting man against himself as all too wicked. (shrink)

The Christian-democrat/socialist government Martens IV resigned at the end ofMarch 1981, because the socialist party could not agree with an urgency plan to reorganize the public finances. Mark Eyskens, Minister of Finance in that cabinet, put together a new government as soon as April 6 of the same year. He succeeded as Prime Minister while all the other resigning ministers remained in their function. Minister Robert Vandeputte, an extra-parlementarian and honorary governor of the Central Bank, became the new (...) Minister of Finance. Like the preceding governments, the Eyskens cabinet was strongly hampered by deep mistrust between the coalition partners, opposing views between the two communities of Belgium and by disagreements about the way to deal with the socio-economic crisis.The Eyskens cabinet was particularly confronted with the organization of the restructured steelmill Cockerill-Sambre and with the absolute low point of the economic crisis. The budget was strongly affected by the increasing unemployment benefits and the collapse of the fiscal revenues. Due to the continuing protest of the trade unions, Mark Eyskens did not succeed to adapt the automatic wage indexation in order to improve the competitive position ofthe Belgian enterprises. He did however manage to prevent the devaluation of the Belgian franc, which had come under pressure regularly on the financial markets.By the middle of September 1981 the Eyskens government fell as a result of disagreements between the coalition partners about the financing ofthe money loosing steelmill Cockerill-Sambre in Wallonia. Parliamentary elections were advanced to November 8, 1981. The Christiandemocrats lost a considerable number of seats. A Christian-democrat/liberal cabinet, again headed by Wilfried Martens, emerged by mid December. It would carry out a neoliberal policy. Mark Eyskens became the Minister of Economicaffairs in the new government. (shrink)

During the period of competitive capitalism legal theory understands by law only the general rule and not every command of the sovereign. To say that the law is general is to give not only a description of its formal structure but also to indicate that it has a minimum of material content in that it guarantees a minimum of freedom. General law alone makes possible the independence of judges. It provides regulations for human spheres of freedom (personal, political, economic, and (...) social) and for human institutions. The main institution of modern society, private property in the means of production, is surrounded by supplementary liberties, namely, freedom of contract and of trade which serve to protect it and to implement its operation. In the period of competitive capitalism the legal system is considered to be a closed system of general norms which are to be applied by the judge ; the interpretation of law is therefore dogmatic.Legal theory and legal practice undergo decisive changes in the stage of monopoly capitalism. The German republic, based upon a series of social contracts, attempted to realize the principle of pluralism, that is to say, a parity between workers and employers, between Reich and federal states, between church and state. The very nature of this pluralistic structure, however, strengthened the power of the bureaucracy and thereby weakened the rule of law. Although the theory of the generality of law had disappeared from German constitutional theory during the Bismarckian period, it was restored in the Weimar Republic. This period is also characterized by the victory of the school of free discretion which demands that the judge is freed from the fetters of positive law and shifts the center of gravity of the legal system to those legal standards of conduct which grant to the judge considerable free discretion. These legal standards of conduct are stressed since they are an excellent means for furthering monopolistic interests to which rational law merely constitutes an obstacle. The administrative act which, as the command of the sovereign, directly protects monopolistic situations, became the new supplementary institution of property. The legal theory of monopoly capitalism is the institutionalism which National Socialism calls „thinking according to concrete orders and structures.“ Institutionalism hypostatizes the concept of institution and divorces it from the property owner. The reason for this change is that the concept of the legal person facilitates the discovery of the fact that only a few people exercise economic power. At the same time law becomes an arcanum dominationis, that is to say, a mere command of the Leader. If we understand by law a system of norms distinguished from the will or command of the sovereign, then we must deny a specific legal character to the legal system of the authoritarian state.Pendant la période du capitalisme de concurrence, la théorie du droit réserve le nom de loi à la seule loi universelle et non pas à tout commandement du souverain. La généralité ne caractérise pas seulement la structure formelle de la loi, elle implique aussi un certain contenu, en ce sens qu'elle garantit un minimum de liberté. Car seule la loi générale rend possible la véritable indépendance du juge. La loi générale règle les sphères de la liberté (personnelle, politique, économique et sociale) et les institutions humaines. L'institution fondamentale de la société bourgeoise, la propriété privée dés instruments de production, est entourée de libertés connexes, à savoir celles du contrat et de l'activité économique, nécessaires à la protection et à l'exercice de la propriété. Dans le capitalisme de concurrence, le système juridique est un système fermé, sans lacunes, de normes générales que le juge n'a qu’à appliquer. Aussi, la jurisprudence est, elle aussi, dogmatique.Dans le capitalisme de monopole, théorie et pratique juridiques subissent une transformation décisive. La république allemande qui reposait sur une multiplicité de contrats sociaux, avait tenté de réaliser le principe du pluralisme, c'est-à-dire de mettre sur le même plan travailleurs et entrepreneurs, Reich et pays, État et Église. Mais précisément cette construction pluraliste accrut la puissance de la bureaucratie et affaiblit ainsi l'autorité de la loi. L'idée de l'universalité de la loi, disparue pendant la période bismarckienne de la théorie allemande de l'État, fut restaurée durant la République de Weimar. En même temps, l'école du droit libre triomphe, école qui veut libérer le juge des chaînes de la loi positive et qui met l'accent sur les formules générales qui laissent une large place à la libre appréciation du juge. Ces formules sont maintenant au centre de la théorie aussi bien que de la pratique, parce qu'elles sont pour les intérêts de monopole un excellent instrument, tandis que le droit rationnel constitue pour ceux-ci un obstacle. Désormais c'est l'acte d'administration par lequel la souveraineté de l'État protège directement les situations de monopole, qui devient l'annexe institutionnel de la propriété privée. La théorie juridique du capitalisme de monopole est l'institutionalisme qui, dans le national-socialisme, prend le nom de „pensée concrète de l'ordre et de l'organisation“. L'institutionalisme donne une valeur absolue au concept de l'institution et le détache du propriétaire. Car le concept juridique de la personne permet de découvrir qu'un petit nombre d'individus exercent une énorme puissance économique. En même temps l'autorité devient mystère, pur et simple commandement du chef.Si l'on entend par droit un système* de normes, qui se distingue de la volonté du souverain, il faut refuser au droit de l'État autoritaire le caractère spécifiquement juridique. (shrink)

'Altruism' was coined by the French sociologist Auguste Comte in the early 1850s as a theoretical term in his 'cerebral theory' and as the central ideal of his atheistic 'Religion of Humanity'. In The Invention of Altruism, Thomas Dixon traces this new language of 'altruism' as it spread through British culture between the 1850s and the 1900s, and in doing so provides a new portrait of Victorian moral thought. Drawing attention to the importance of Comtean positivism in setting the agenda (...) for debates about science and religion, this volume challenges received ideas about both Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer as moral philosophers. Darwin saw sympathy and love, not only selfishness and competition, throughout the natural world. Spencer was the instigator of an Anti-Aggression League and an advocate of greater altruism in Britain's dealings with the 'lower races'. It also sheds light on the rise of popular socialism in the 1880s, on the creation of the idealist 'altruist' in novels of the 1890s, and on the individualistic philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, and G. E. Moore - authors considered by some to be representative of fin de siècle 'egomania.' This wide-ranging study in the history of ideas is highly relevant to contemporary debates about altruism, evolution, religion, and ethics. (shrink)

Hailed as the most influential book ever written in favor of freedom, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty is a contradictory and imprecise work. Mill’s notion of liberty coexists with anti-liberal ideas. He defended the private property of capitalists, but not of landowners. He criticized protectionism, but made an exception for infant industries. He defended competition, but set limits on it. He criticized general public education, but allowed the State to force citizens to study. He defended women and men’s freedom, (...) but not the freedom to choose the number of children they wanted to have, or decide about their education, or bequeath goods to them. He said parting from laissez faire was bad unless it produced some good. This admired friend of liberty could not find the logic in family, marriage, religion, tradition, morality, custom; he saw them only as repressive obstacles to freedom. A book supposedly upholding liberty ignores or disdains natural or pre-legal rights, and directs the bulk of its criticism not against the legal or political power of the State but against the tyranny of public opinion. (shrink)

Political parties have been the subject of a recent resurgent interest among political philosophers, with prominent contributions spanning liberal to socialist literatures arguing for a more positive appraisal of the role of parties in the operation of democratic representation and public deliberation. In this article, I argue for a similar re-evaluation of the role of political parties within contemporary republicanism. Contemporary republicanism displays a wariness of political parties. In Philip Pettit’s paradigmatic account of republican democracy, rare mentions of political (...) parties often stress their tendency to lead to factionalism or corruption. Others working in the republican tradition such as Richard Bellamy and Ian Shapiro provide more extended discussion of the role of parties, but limit their theoretical function to enabling electoral competition. I argue that political parties play a far more significant role in promoting non-domination than this. In addition to enabling electoral competition, I show that political parties are also essential to the effective operation of two other components of republican democracy: contestation and interest-formation. I further argue that understanding political parties in these terms is compatible with republican democracy more generally, addressing the worry that parties will produce factional rather than common-good oriented public decisions. (shrink)

Distributive justice, defined as justice in distribution of income and wealth, is impossible. Income and wealth are distributed either unequally or equally. If unequally, then those with less are unjustly subject to social contempt. But equal distribution is impossible because it is inconsistent with bargaining to advance our own good. Hence justice in distribution of income and wealth is impossible. More generally, societies where social relations are mediated by money are necessarily unjust, and Marx was wrong to think a (...) class='Hi'>socialist society which retained money would lead to communism. Contributive justice proposes that each flourishes by advancing the flourishing of others. To achieve this goal all labor, both simple and complex, must be shared among all capable of doing it. The good of contributing our abilities to benefit others is then available to all non-competitively. (shrink)

This paper shows how John R. Commons’ analysis of a firm’s goodwill value gives analytical support to Professor Amartya Sen’s contention (BEQ, 1993) that business ethics makes economic sense. A firm’s market value consists of the value of both tangible and intangible capital, including the goodwill value of ongoing customer relations. If a firm is to defend its goodwill value, it needs to have the protection of the courts and to pursue ethical practices. The courts defend fair competition by (...) giving protection from unethical competitors while the firm defends its reputation with honest dealings.By implication, firms which depend on ongoing customer relations will tend to engage in more ethical business practices than firms which do not. Even a firm which makes a mistake that compromises its product’s safety may reduce the loss of goodwill value over time by admitting the mistake early rather than hiding it.Also by implication, the transition from a command socialist economy to a market economy cannot be made instantaneously since trust, reputation, and these ongoing customer relations-key institutions of market economics-cannot be generated instantaneously. (shrink)

A. Two conceptions of moral legitimacy Socialism, understood as the rejection of markets based on private property in favor of comprehensive centralized economic planning, is no longer a serious political option. If the core of capitalism is the organization of the economy primarily through market competition based on private property, then capitalism has certainly defeated socialism. Markets have been accepted—and central planning abandoned—throughout most of the “third world” and the formerly Communist states. In the advanced industrial states of the (...) West, Labor and “democratic socialist” parties have rejected socialism, having deregulated markets and privatized industries, utilities, and transport. The United Kingdom Labour Party’s 1945 manifesto declared it to be a “Socialist Party, and proud of it. Its ultimate aim is the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain.”1 Today it insists that markets are a given. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the question of how the social and economic structure of cities affects the degree of political competition and how in turn these factors affect the degree of a political stability. It isbased on a comparative empirical study of the outcomes of the communal elections of 1952, 1958 and 1964 in 147 Belgian cities that had a population size of 10.000 or more in 1947.In the first place the following generalizations are made with regard to (...) the election outcomes in these cities during the 1952-1964 period. 1. A general proliferation of lists or parties participating in the elections from 1952 to 1964.2. A trend from one-party-control over the college of the city council toward coalition-control.3. A net increase in the number of catholic lists and a net decrease in the number of socialist and liberal lists participating in the colleges of these townships.4. An increase in the number of cities in which newer, smaller and nontraditional parties or lists participated in the college of the city council.Three measures of politica! competitions are employed :1. The average number of parties or lists, that entered the communal election of 1952, 1958 and 1964.2. The average number of lists that received at least ten per cent of the vote in these three elections, and3. The presence or absence of a coalition on the college of the city council in 1952.The two measures of politica! stability, which are also based on the results of the same elections, are :1. The degree of stability in the lists and parties participating in the college of the city council, and2. The degree of stability in the list or party controlling the college of the city council.In general, measures of structural differentiation, linguistic diversity, industrial diversity, and social heterogeneity are found to be positively related to the degree of competition in local politics. In turn, measures of each of these structural factors and the measures of political competition are found to be negatively related to measures of political stability. Regression analysis supports the interpretation that diversity and heterogeneity in the social structure of cities - specifically, population size, density, and the presence of many persons with high occupational status - contribute to greater politica! competition in local polities, but that it is the degree of political competition that most strongly affects the degree of political stability.The conclusion is drawn that cities with a high degree of social and economic heterogeneity have a greater amount of conflict and cleavage. This results in greater competition in the political arena whichin turn predisposes such cities to have a high degree of instability in the control of their city governments. (shrink)

Economic models, like scientific paradigms, predispose actors towards certain patterns of behavior or practices. Over time these become accepted as normal practice which everybody is expected to observe or to follow. This is how theoretical orthodoxies are established. However, even orthodoxies rely on refinement of techniques. In economics this is widely recognized, as it guarantees competitiveness among various practitioners. The context within which this occurs is often taken for granted since it is implicit in given theoretical models. For instance, in (...) development theory it is assumed that the prevailing Euro-American economic model is universally valid. It is more than likely that this itself has become a social value which the West wants to maintain. Consequently, as a scientific proposition, it cannot be clarified since the West uses its political and military power to guarantee the necessary conditions for the reproduction of the same globally. Insofar as this is true, it is only reasonable to grant the fact that economic models inevitably carry with them unacknowledged normative presuppositions. This is best illustrated by the fierce ideological battle that occurred between the so-called socialist and “free market” adherents during the cold war. (shrink)

Conceptions of self? management and the labor managed firm have not been well received by economists. They have, however, proved to be a continuing interest in the socialist movement from Marx onwards. Prychitko claims that by examining the humanist side of Marx, a socialist case can be made both for the LMF and markets in a postmodern world. Such a case rests upon an assumption that self? management confers competitive advantage by enhancing information sharing. The case, though interesting, (...) is not yet made. (shrink)