Egalitarian Perspectives

This book presents fifteen essays, written over the past dozen years, on egalitarianism. The essays explore contemporary philosophical debates on this subject, using the tools of modern economic theory, general equilibrium theory, game theory, and the theory of mechanism design. Egalitarian Perspectives is divided into four parts: on the theory of exploitation, on equality of resources, on bargaining theory and distributive justice, and on market socialism and public ownership. The first part presents Roemer's influential reconceptualization of the Marxian theory of exploitation as a theory of distributive justice. The second part offers a critique of Ronald Dworkin's equality-of-resources theory, and puts forth a new egalitarian proposal based upon a specific method of measuring individual responsibility. The third part introduces a novel application of the theory of mechanism design to the study of political philosophy, and raises new concerns about the limitations of that application. The fourth part presents the author's views on market socialism and public ownership, and demonstrates that Professor Roemer is at the forefront of refining new theories and conceptions of market socialism.

First sentence: The essays in this part develop the claim that the Marxian concept of exploitation, defined as the extraction of surplus labor at the point of production, should be replaced by a definition which gives priority to property relations.

Year

1994

Language

English

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Editions

1

Pages

368

ISBN

9780521574457

Data source: Wikidata