How Rich Should the 1% Be? : Proportional Justice and Economic Inequality

How rich should the 1% be? And, most importantly, when does the distance in economic resources between the richest citizens and ‘us’, the average citizenry, become a concern for justice? This volume explores how excessive economic inequality gives the best-off considerably more political influence than average citizens, thereby violating political equality. It argues that the gap between the best-off and the worst-off should not be reduced because it is good, but rather as an inescapable instrument to protect citizens from the risk of material domination. For this reason, it defends the ‘principle of proportionality’: economic inequality should not exceed a certain range or proportion to enable both the best-off and the worst-off to be co-authors of the legal, political, and socioeconomic rules that govern the ‘social’ relations in which they are involved. Further, the book discusses material domination and explains how money influences politics and what are the remedies for this phenomenon; how social justice should face and harmonise power, poverty, efficiency, individual merit, and economic liberties; and, most importantly, how to determine income and wealth limit ratios in a liberal democracy. A thoughtful investigation on the interdependencies of money and justice and their influence our socio-political systems, this volume will be of great interest to students and researchers of political theory, political philosophy, economics and development, economics theory and philosophy, and social policy. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: What is Wrong, If Anything, with Economic Inequality? Why We Need Proportional Justice Power and Inequality: The Risk of Domination Proportional Justice as a Political Conception The Permissible Range: Towards a Definition Notes Bibliography Chapter 1: Who Has the Power to Establish and Shape Primary Rules?: Why the Size of Material Inequality Matters 1.1 How to Justify the Terms of Material Distribution? Taking Primary Rules Seriously 1.2 Oligarchy, Material Domination and How Money Influences Politics 1.3 ‘Keeping Money Out of Politics’: An Insufficient Strategy 1.4 Rescuing Proportional Justice: Back to the Future Notes Bibliography Chapter 2: What Does It Mean to Be Dominated? 2.1 Relational Domination: An Interagentive Notion of Power 2.2 Structural Domination: An Impersonal Notion of Power 2.3 Social Power: Taking Key Power Resources Seriously 2.4 The Risk of Domination and Its Different Forms Notes Bibliography Chapter 3: Inequality and Proportionality in Current Distributive Theories of Justice 3.1 A Political Conception of Distributive Justice 3.2 Rawls’ Difference Principle 3.3 Prioritarianism, Moderate Egalitarianism, and Sufficientarianism 3.4 Limit the Richness: Robeyns' Limitarianism Notes Bibliography Chapter 4: The Principle of Proportionality 4.1 Justice, Efficiency and Poverty 4.2 Economic Liberties as Basic Rights in a Liberal Democracy 4.3 Ideal Types of Social Systems and a Pluralistic Distributive Approach 4.4 How to Determine the Permissible Ratios for Income and Wealth Inequalities: The Case Study on the United States Notes Bibliography Conclusion Index "How Rich Should the 1% Be? And, most importantly, when does the distance in economic resources between the richest citizens and 'us', the average citizenry, become a concern for justice? This volume explores how excessive economic inequality gives the best-off considerably more political influence than average citizens, thereby violating political equality. It argues that the gap between the best-off and the worst-off should not be reduced because it is good in itself, but as an inescapable instrument to protect citizens from the risk of material domination. For this reason, it defends a 'principle of proportionality': economic inequality should not exceed a certain range or proportion to enable both the best-off and the worst-off to be co-authors of the legal, political, and socioeconomic rules that govern the 'social' relations in which they are involved. Further, the book discusses material domination and explains how money influences politics and what are the remedies for this phenomenon; how social justice should face and harmonize power, poverty, efficiency, individual merit, and economic liberties; and most importantly, how to determine income and wealth limit ratios in a liberal democracy. A thoughtful investigation on the interdependencies of money and justice and their influence our socio-political systems, this volume will be of great interest to students and researchers of political theory, political philosophy, economics and development, economics theory and philosophy, and social policy"-- Provided by publisher