Liberty and its economies

Politics, Philosophy and Economics 14 (4):365-390 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The revival of classical liberal thought has reignited a debate about economic freedom and social justice. Classical liberals claim to defend expansive economic freedom, while their critics wish to restrict this freedom for other values. However, there are two problems with the role ‘economic freedom’ plays in this debate: inconsistency in the use of the concept and indeterminacy with respect to its definition. Inconsistency in the use of the concept ‘freedom’ has mistakenly made a certain kind of ‘left-wing’ critique of poverty, and of markets generally, appear to be a concern with inequality in means to enjoy freedom, not with freedom itself. Indeterminacy about which beings and doings the basic liberties protect misrepresents the left-wing position as about something other than economic freedom. Inconsistency and indeterminacy lead to artificial narrowness in current debates and to a failure to see that disagreement is based not just on moral differences but also on conceptual confusion. This confusion leads both classical liberals and their critics to claim more than they may legitimately do, and to ignore a position that accepts the standard of definition of freedom but arrives at different institutional conclusions about what secures that freedom.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 100,733

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-01-02

Downloads
80 (#259,759)

6 months
8 (#557,205)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Freedom, money and justice as fairness.Blain Neufeld - 2017 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 16 (1):70-92.
Socialism and non-domination: a relational egalitarian approach.Callum Zavos MacRae - forthcoming - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.
Welcome to the Dark Side: A Classical-Liberal Argument for Economic Democracy.Alex Gourevitch - 2014 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 26 (3-4):290-305.
Neo-classical liberalism, ‘market freedom’, and the right to private property.Gavin Kerr - 2023 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 26 (6):855-876.

View all 6 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Anarchy, State, and Utopia.Robert Nozick - 1974 - New York: Basic Books.
A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition.John Rawls - 1999 - Harvard University Press.
An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.Adam Smith - 1976 - Oxford University Press. Edited by R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner & W. B. Todd.
Justice as fairness: a restatement.John Rawls (ed.) - 2001 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Political Liberalism.J. Rawls - 1995 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 57 (3):596-598.

View all 24 references / Add more references