While the idea of predistribution is gaining traction, it may seem inherently elusive. The source of confusion is the prefix ‘pre’, which denotes priority or prevention. This paper proposes a new functional definition of predistribution that is practically useful and unifies different predistributive policies. Through defending predistribution as policies of ex ante distribution, I offer a philosophically robust notion of priority (‘procedural priority’) and different functions of prevention that help make sense of predistribution. I also develop (...) typologies of different predistributive policies and explore justificatory grounds and strengths of predistribution. I emphasize instrumental reasons for supporting predistribution. (shrink)

The idea of predistribution has the potential to offer a valuable and distinctive approach to political philosophers, political scientists, and economists, in thinking about social justice and the creation of more egalitarian economies. It is also an idea that has drawn the interest of politicians of the left and centre-left, promising an alternative to traditional forms of social democracy. But the idea of predistribution is not well understood, and stands in need of elucidation. This article explores ways of (...) drawing the conceptual and normative distinction between predistribution and redistribution, examining those general categories when considering the roles of public services and fiscal transfers, and looking at the ways in which government policies can empower and disempower different individuals and groups within the economy. This article argues that the most initially plausible and common-sensical ways of drawing the distinction between predistributive and redistributive public policies collapse when put under analytical pressure. It concludes that the distinction between predistribution and redistribution is best seen in terms of the aims or effects of policies rather than a deeper division of policy types, and argues that, once seen in those terms, predistribution is a central concern of social justice. (shrink)

The distributive justice literature has recently formulated several tax proposals, with limitarians or property-owning democrats proposing new or higher taxes on wealth or capital income intended to decrease the growing wealth gap. This essay joins this debate on inequality and redistributive taxation through the lens of the “benefit principle for public policy.” This principle says that specific rules and institutions are acceptable to the extent that they create benefits for all individuals in society, or at least don’t make anyone worse (...) off. This benefit principle opposes wealth accumulation to the extent that wealth was generated through rent-seeking—that is, income unrelated to economic productivity, which is not embedded in mutually beneficial exchanges. I maintain, however, that ruling out rent-seeking requires not ex post taxation, but primarily a more “predistributive corrective policy,” that is, reconfiguration of market institutions to prevent wealth accumulation through rent-seeking in the first place. The alternative response is, thus, not to tackle inequality as such but to reform the market to promote the occurrence of mutually beneficial exchange. (shrink)

If pursued with serious intent, Pre-distribution has the capacity to create an exciting and radical new agenda for social democracy. But the politics of Pre-distribution cannot be innocuous or uncontroversial. -/- In its more radical forms, predistribution is a potentially radical and inspiring project for social democrats who have come to see the limitations of the old ways of doing things. It’s a project that promises a strategy to deliver abundantly on values of social justice, economic freedom, and equality (...) of opportunity. But it’s a project that involves going head-to-head with entrenched interests, breaking up existing concentrations of wealth and economic power. The politics of Pre-distribution, if taken seriously, simply cannot be a politics without enemies. Labour must decide whether its engagement with pre-distribution is to be limited to tinkering at the edges of neoliberalism, or whether it will instead fully embrace the opportunities of the present moment, decide to be radical, and realise the full promise of the politics of predistribution. -/- . (shrink)

This article outlines two distinct ways of conceptualizing the idea of predistribution which reflect two distinct perspectives from which regressive ‘neoliberal’ policies and institutions can be challenged. These critical perspectives support correspondingly distinct, though not necessarily mutually exclusive, agendas for progressive predistributive reform. One conception—‘social justice predistribution’—encourages progressives to focus their attention not on a narrow conception of ‘distributive justice’, but more broadly on the demands of social justice, which aims much more ambitiously to equalize market power and (...) provide individuals with greater security, independence and freedom outside the market. The second conception—‘market justice predistribution’—encourages progressives to pay attention not just to the idea of social justice, but also to that of ‘market justice’, which demands that the market distributes property as far as possible in line with the productive contributions of those responsible for its creation. It is argued that both forms of predistribution are central concerns of social justice because both offer options for progressive reform that are not offered by traditional redistribution, and both are less vulnerable to standard neoliberal criticisms of traditional redistribution (irrespective of the extent to which these criticisms may or may not be justified). (shrink)

This piece is a reply to a promising attempt to revise and refine our understanding of predistribution. This is a proposal advanced by Martin O’Neill. It summarises that proposal and, subsequently, presents three objections to it. It concludes that we should ultimately reject the proposal. The piece then advances a positive proposal about how to cash out the egalitarian ideal of predistribution. Among other strengths, it is more likely to be more appealing to a broader array of egalitarian (...) doctrines. (shrink)

The first book length study of property-owning democracy, Republic of Equals argues that a society in which capital is universally accessible to all citizens is uniquely placed to meet the demands of justice. Arguing from a basis in liberal-republican principles, this expanded conception of the economic structure of society contextualizes the market to make its transactions fair. The author shows that a property-owning democracy structures economic incentives such that the domination of one agent by another in the market is structurally (...) impossible. The result is a renovated form of capitalism in which the free market is no longer a threat to social democratic values, but is potentially convergent with them. It is argued that a property-owning democracy has advantages that give it priority over rival forms of social organization such as welfare state capitalism and market socialist institutions. The book also addresses the currently high levels of inequality in the societies of the developed West to suggest a range of policies that target the "New Inequality" of our times. For this reason, the work engages not only with political philosophers such as John Rawls, Philip Pettit and John Tomasi, but also with the work of economists and historians such as Anthony B. Atkinson, François Bourguignon, Jacob S. Hacker, Lane Kenworthy, and Thomas Piketty. (shrink)

If solutions to the problem of inequality are to be as radical as reality now demands, what is instead required is a reimagining of what would be involved comprehensively to tame capitalism through democratic means. This will involve much further development of the kind of plurality of institutional and policy proposals sketched by Meade, and will involve both the private and public – individual and collective – forms of capital predistribution that Meade advocated. Piketty, like Meade, sees the need (...) for both redistribution and predistribution, and both see that the institutional means necessary to create a more equal society will involve pursuing a plurality of parallel paths. It is closely in keeping with the spirit of Piketty’s Capital that the political and intellectual agenda ahead will be one that economics on its own cannot hope to encompass. It’s a vital agenda, with high stakes, and presents challenges to both academic researchers and political activists. On the success of this endeavour depends nothing less than the prospects for legitimate continuation of our economic system. (shrink)

The distinction between redistribution and predistribution is now embraced by many political philosophers, like Jacob Hacker or Martin O’Neill. This distinction, we could think, is particularly important for the question of how we react to crises, like the current coronavirus pandemic. If the policies take the form of taxes and transfers, like cash-flow assistance, it is redistribution, one could argue. If the policies are meant to alter pretax incomes, as policies changing the conditions for bankruptcy are, it is (...) class='Hi'>predistribution. This paper shows why that is not so. Re- and predistribution are only techniques of presentation. They are meant to put the emphasis on different ways we can depict the consequences of policies. Both the “pre-” of predistribution and the “re-” of redistribution are misnomers. This paper argues that we cannot establish a strong distinction between policies that are re- and those that are predistributive, as the case of the basic income will show. Given that classical liberals endorsed egalitarian policies, moreover, the idea of predistribution cannot be used by progressives who want to differentiate their social justice platforms from the classical liberal program. (shrink)

Much of the recent discussion in progressive circles [e.g., Stiglitz; Galbraith; Piketty] has focused the obscene mal-distribution of wealth and income as if that was "the" problem in our economic system. And the proposed redistributive reforms have all stuck to that framing of the question. To put the question in historical perspective, one might note that there was a similar, if not more extreme, mal-distribution of wealth, income, and political power in the Antebellum system of slavery. Yet, it should be (...) obvious to modern eyes that redistributions in favor of the slaves, while leaving the institution of owning workers intact, would not address the root of the problem. The system of slavery was eventually abolished in favor of the system we have today which differs in two important respects: the workers are only rented, hired, or employed ; and the rental relationship between employer and employee is voluntary. Today, the root of the problem is the whole institution for the voluntary renting of human beings, the employment system itself, not the terms of the contract or the accumulated consequences in the form of the mal-distribution of income and wealth. (shrink)

This chapter brings Karl Polanyi into dialogue with Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The dialogue is intended to make visible key aspects of Polanyi’s theoretical framework while also suggesting limitations in Piketty’s approach to political economy. Specifically, the authors use the concept of ‘predistribution’ – implicit in Polanyi – to critique Piketty’s emphasis on redistribution as the solution to growing wealth and income inequality. Predistribution conveys the idea that the initial market distribution of income (...) is not natural but is shaped by the systematic exercise of political and economic power. (shrink)

The term ‘predistribution’ draws attention to the need for policies and institutions that are designed to improve the position of the least advantaged members of society by generating a fairer distribution of opportunities and benefits from the operation of the free market system, with less reliance on redistributive tax-and-transfer mechanisms. Although the idea of progressive predistribution has only recently begun to attract the attention of politicians and commentators in the mainstream media, there is an older and more philosophically (...) grounded predistributive approach that goes back to the idea of the property-owning democracy proposed by Economist James Meade and further developed by liberal political philosopher John Rawls. In this article, I argue that neither the Meadeian/Rawlsian POD model, nor the more recent analysis of the idea of progressive predistribution, provide a clear and convincing account of the distinction between predistributive and redistributive mechanisms. I then argue that a more promising account of this distinction is provided by the idea of the socialization of economic rent through taxation of the rental value of land, and that there are good reasons to think that a shift in the burden of taxation away from production and employment and on to the rental value of land might turn out to be both more genuinely predistributive and more effectively progressive than other possible predistributive mechanisms that have recently been proposed, most notably the aggressive taxation of private inheritances as a means to broaden the distribution of privately owned capital and productive property. (shrink)

It is frequently objected that the pursuit of equality involves objectionable interference with individual liberty, depriving individuals of options that they have reason to want and putting them under the control of others in an objectionable way. The pursuit of equality seems most clearly in conflict with liberty when equality is to be promoted through redistributive taxation, taking income from some in order to give it to others. But the main means of promoting equality lies in changing the institutions of (...) property and exchange that generate inequality in pretax incomes. These institutions of predistribution also determine the extent of legitimate taxation: how much of what is gained from various transactions individuals are entitled to keep. These institutions need to be justified, taking into account considerations of liberty, as well as objections to inequality, among other factors. (shrink)

Limitarianism holds that there is an upper limit to how many resources, such as wealth and income, people can permissibly have. In this article, I examine the conceptual structure of limitarianism. I focus on the upper limit and the idea that resources above the limit are ‘excess resources’. I distinguish two possible limitarian views about such resources: (i) that excess resources have zero moral value for the holder; and (ii) that excess resources do have moral value for the holder but (...) that their claim to such resources is outweighed by other normative concerns. Moreover, I argue that, depending on the values limitarianism seeks to promote, limitarians should care about the number of people with excess resources or the total amount of excess resources (or both), that they can adopt redistributive measures and/or predistributive measures, and that some versions of limitarianism should take into account the distribution of risk among those above the riches line. (shrink)

Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Ideology constitutes a landmark achievement in furthering our understanding of the history of inequality, and presents valuable proposals for constructing a future economic system that would allow us to transcend and move beyond contemporary forms of capitalism. This article discusses Piketty’s conceptions of ideology, property, and ‘inequality regimes’, and analyses his approach to social justice and its relation to the work of John Rawls. I examine how Piketty’s proposals for ‘participatory socialism’ would function not only to (...) redistribute income and wealth, but also to disperse economic power within society, and I discuss the complementary roles of redistribution and predistribution in his proposals, and Piketty’s place in a tradition of egalitarian political economy associated with James Meade and Anthony Atkinson. Having elaborated on Piketty’s account of the relationship between economic policy and ideational change, and his important idea of the ‘desacralization’ of private property, I develop ‘seven theses’ on his proposals for participatory socialism, examining areas in which his approach could be enhanced or extended, so as to create a viable twenty-first century version of democratic socialism. (shrink)

Alan Thomas’ Republic of Equals: Predistribution and Property-Owning Democracy sets itself the ambitious task of synthesising neo-republican political theory and Rawlsian justice as fairness. It is...

This paper considers an argument that justice as fairness requires liberal socialism as opposed to a property-owning democracy. It analyses the arguments for departing from Rawls’s principled agnosticism over the choice between liberal market socialism and property owning democracy. It questions the extension of Rawls’s fair value guarantee for the political liberties to all liberty and suggests an alternative interpretation of the kind of predistributive egalitarianism represented by a property-owning democracy.

Este artículo analiza en cuatro tiempos el potencial del acceso incondicional a recursos en la conformación de relaciones productivas libres. En primer lugar, defiende una noción de democracia que exige la presencia de recursos incondicionalmente predistribuidos. En segundo lugar, explora el vínculo entre predistribución y poder de negociación. En tercer lugar, presenta el derecho a la existencia como condición para una cooperación social efectiva que merezca la pena ser cuidada. En cuarto lugar, discute el papel de la renta básica en (...) procesos de nacionalización de la vida económica entendidos como expresión de la voluntad democrática de la ciudadanía. This article analyses in four stages the potential of unconditional access to resources in the conformation of free productive relations. Firstly, it defends a notion of democracy requiring the presence of unconditionally predistributed resources. Secondly, it explores the link between predistribution and bargaining power. Thirdly, it presents the right to existence as a condition for an effective social cooperation worth taking care of. Fourthly, it discusses the role of basic income in processes of nationalisation of economic life understood as the expression of the democratic will of citizenry. (shrink)

Welfare capitalism is going through a deep crisis, and alternative models to welfare state capitalism such as liberal socialism and property-owning democracy are once again becoming prominent in public debates. The aim in this article is to compare the merits and the limits of liberal socialism and of property-owning democracy through the specific case of the distribution of educational capital, by comparing two educational systems: the Pay It Forward (PIF) system and the Tax-subsidy scheme (TS) system. Based on the analysis (...) of these two educational systems, we provide three arguments in favor of liberal socialist institutions in general and the PIF educational system in particular: (1) the individual common assets argument, (2) the principle of reciprocity argument, and (3) the predistribution argument. (shrink)

The paper provides theoretical and practical examination of economic injustice. In the first part of the paper the specific conception of a property-owning democracy is developed. Strategically combining two institutional models – worker-controlled economic democracy for small and medium enterprises and broadly distributed coupon capitalism for large corporations – the dual approach to property-owning democracy addresses the limitations of each model when implemented separately. In the second part of the paper, employee buyouts are evaluated, particularly through the employment of the (...) eurESOP model, as a concrete transition mechanism toward property-owning democracy. Using Serbia’s post-transition economy as a case study, where small and medium enterprises face imminent succession crises, the analysis demonstrates how employee ownership can simultaneously solve business continuity challenges while advancing economic democracy. In conclusion, the required legal and fiscal reforms for the improvement of the enabling institutional environment for democratic ownership transitions are spelt out. (shrink)

There are three distinct forces that conspire to produce a great deal of economic misery. We can refer to them, for convenience, as misfortune, unfairness, and improvidence. Political philosophers have often shown an interest in one or another of these, but seldom all three. Furthermore, those who do acknowledge all three have often felt driven to collapse them into one root cause of inequality. My goal in this essay will be to argue that the three are independent of one another, (...) but more importantly, that they each require distinct remedies. This is important for egalitarians because it defeats any attempt to develop a “one-size-fits-all” policy aimed at creating a more equal society. This analysis helps us to understand several of the tensions that arise in our attempts to combat inequality that are often obscured by an overemphasis on the power of redistributive taxation as well as generalized inattention to the way that successful welfare states achieve meaningful progress in promoting greater equality. (shrink)

This chapter presents the history of the ideal of a property-owning democracy. It opens by justifying this tradition’s focus on capital, before examining the internally complex history of the ideal. The egalitarian form of a property-owning democracy reaches its culmination in the work of mid-twentieth-century economist James Meade. The transposition of his ideas into John Rawls’s work is described. It is then argued that these ideas have continuing relevance to policies that address the New Inequality of the present day. In (...) particular, the views of Meade and Rawls are compared and contrasted with those of a recent predistributionist, Jacob S. Hacker, and a proponent of an expanded form of welfare-state capitalism for the United States, Lane Kenworthy. Only Meade and Rawls seek globally to restructure the market and incentives so as to make domination of one economic actor by another structurally impossible. (shrink)

There has been a persistent confusion between the different ideas of ideal versus nonideal theory and realistic versus unrealistic utopianism. In this chapter, this methodological issue is discussed and the use of these terms disambiguated. It is suggested that an analogy with a parallel discussion in ethics helpfully resolves some of the problems that arise in understanding both sets of terms. It is explained why John Rawls was correct to emphasize that nothing less than justice as a whole should be (...) aimed at and that, in particular, aiming at comparative improvements between two social states may be a mistake. The chapter concludes by explaining how, under a property-owning democracy, capital will be dispersed to as to change our conception of the “interests of capital”. Control of capital will converge with social democratic values as opposed to being in conflict with them. (shrink)

John Tomasi has defended a free market fairness research program with one specific approach that best realizes its values: market democracy. The key to this program is that economic liberty is given a “robust” protection so that it is analogous to religious liberty. Tomasi argues that John Rawls failed to give the economic liberties of the individual sufficiently strong protection. In this chapter it is argued both that Tomasi was wrong about Rawls and that the only stable implementation of the (...) free market fairness research program will be the egalitarian form of a property-owning democracy defended in this book. Like G. A. Cohen, Tomasi does not consider Rawls’s views in their fully specified form. Within a liberal-republican framework economic liberty is robustly protected. Tomasi’s view, by contrast, is unrealistically utopian about the historical development of capital and without the correct background context market democracy will be unstable in the long run. (shrink)

This chapter discusses G. A. Cohen’s critique of Rawlsian justice. Cohen’s critique was that John Rawls inadvertently permits special incentives under the difference principle that “overspill” to corrode social solidarity. That undermines Rawls’s principles as a whole. Focusing on the putative restriction of Rawls’s focus to the basic structure of society alone, Cohen argues that Rawls’s principles must be complemented by an ethos of justice located within the personal. The chapter isolates two key components of this critique and argues that (...) Cohen’s argument about the scope of justice is the more important. The grounds for attributing this position to Rawls are weak on both interpretative and philosophical grounds. It is argued that Cohen has mistaken a part of Rawls’s view for the whole: when fully specified against the correct background context Rawls seeks to eliminate the structural sources of domination. Liberal-republicanism emphasizes this interpretation of his view. (shrink)

A liberal-republican approach to global justice shares John Rawls’s statist, as opposed to cosmopolitan, focus. It is argued that this does not mean that any domestic nation-state has lost the “elbow room” to implement a domestic form of egalitarianism—such as a property-owning democracy. The process of globalization enables, as well as constrains, and accentuates pressures that were present in any case. Comparing inequality within and between countries, it is not true that domestic inequality is the price that must be paid (...) for a more globally just world. Particular attention is paid to the financial sector as a potential source of global instability or constraints on domestic policy; it is argued that effective or expanded regulation is an appropriate response combined with progressive taxation as a measure in transitional justice. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the democratic responsibilities of those who control large-scale holdings of capital. (shrink)

This chapter sets out the details of John Rawls’s theory of justice and explains why his view includes a concern with regulating the “top end” of any distribution. It is not simply concerned with maximizing the position of the relatively worst-off. Alternative interpretations of Rawls are discussed and the importance of the assumptions of chain-connectedness and close-knittedness is emphasized. In a just society the interests of different classes will be interconnected, which explains why a property-owning democracy is one of Rawls’s (...) preferred social systems. The chapter discusses both why inequality is bad for its own sake and why it is instrumentally undesirable because of its bad effects. These arguments draw on the importance of positional goods. The account of inequality’s bad effects is extended to its impact on social solidarity and the fracturing of American society along class lines. The chapter concludes by considering issues of transitional justice. (shrink)

John Rawls issued a fair value proviso for the political liberties alone to avoid the Marxist critique that the formal equality granted to all citizens by liberalism is practically undermined by the material inequality permitted under Rawls’s principles. It is argued that the republican component of liberal-republicanism offers a more robust defense of the political liberties than Rawls’s “insulation strategy” of keeping money out of politics. By presenting the example of an authoritarian form of capitalism under which some citizens sacrifice (...) some of their basic liberties further to dominate other social groups, it is argued that only a property-owning democracy places a limit on capital-based inequalities. So the commitment to a property-owning democracy can be derived from the fair value proviso; it is then shown that it also follows from the fair equality of opportunity principle. So a property-owning democracy is derivable from all of Rawls’s principles. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

This chapter examines John Rawls’s critique of welfare-state capitalism. The republican focus on liberty as non-domination that Rawls shares with liberal-republicanism explains its most controversial claims. An argument is identified that has been used to deflate the originality and significance of a property-owning democracy. It has been argued that, given that it shares so many features with a welfare state, a property-owning democracy can be only an expansion of welfare-state capitalist institutions with some ad hoc asset-based policies. This argument is (...) undermined and the difference between the basic minimum payable under justice as fairness and a universal unconditional basic income is explained. Both are compared and contrasted with the liberal-republican restructuring of the market as a whole. Attempts to revise welfare-state capitalism so that it is equally capable of realizing justice are criticized and the concept of reciprocity clarified. (shrink)

This chapter sets out the idea of a creative synthesis between the Roman republican and politically liberal traditions. It considers arguments from Philip Pettit that the two traditions are inherently rivalrous, before endorsing Charles Larmore’s interpretation that Pettit’s “third” concept of liberty thematizes distinctions about which political liberals have been silent. It is not, however, inconsistent for liberal-republicanism to take over this conception of liberty for its own ends. It is also argued that there is no basis for claiming that (...) John Rawls was solely a “negative liberty” theorist. The chapter also considers whether there must be an inherent contrast between the two views when it comes to the goals of any egalitarian view or its constituency. It is argued that Rawls’s approach to these two issues does converge with that of the Roman republican. (shrink)

For many commentators, workplace democracy lies at the very heart of a property-owning democracy. The chapter criticizes Samuel Freeman’s suggestion that a democratic citizen must be given a right to workplace democracy; the associational democracy of G. A. Cohen and Elizabeth Anderson; and the neo-Corporatism of Waheed Hussain. This chapter continues the argument that while liberal-republicanism gives each worker the right to contest managerial decisions it does not mandate workplace control as of right. But if a workplace can be in (...) a democratic deficit, then that deficit must be paid off somewhere: a liberal-republican conception of civil society is explained and defended. A property-owning democracy will, indirectly, shape the background distribution of social capital and contribute to, in Mark Warren’s word, a balanced “ecology” of associations. (shrink)

This chapter compares and contrasts three republican strategies for implementing egalitarianism. Cass Sunstein and Frank Michelman’s juridical republicanism, in the case of the United States, seeks to entrench a form of welfare-state capitalism by constitutional amendment. Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstot’s individual demogrant scheme is, by contrast, to be secured by legislation. It is argued that the liberal-republicanism defended here will pursue the constitutionalization project of the former group, but seek to implement the asset-focused egalitarianism of the latter. A distinction (...) is drawn between constitutionalizing the difference principle and the generic form of social system against which it can operate without generating impermissible inequalities. The difference principle itself is not redundant; it both crystalizes and entrenches the very ethos of justice expressed by our institutions. It will function as a legislative fundamental. (shrink)