Abstract

John Rawls argued this conception of justice as fairness could be equally well expressed by one of two social systems: a property-owning democracy or liberal market socialism. This chapter argues that this claim needs to be disambiguated: a property-owning democracy must be implemented first or market socialist schemes will become illiberal over time. The chapter evaluates two form of mandatory market socialism: one in which worker cooperatives lease their capital from the state and one in which workers hold capital as partners in their workplace. Both schemes, it is argued, generate new forms of exploitation compared to either free market capitalism or a property-owning democracy. A property-owning democracy is further compared with John Roemer’s coupon socialism as a policy approach in transitional justice and with Robert Hockett’s proposal to expand asset-based egalitarianism via state underwritten insurance.