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2024 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

15. Equal Opportunity in an Unequal Society

verfasst von : Eran Fish

Erschienen in: Law and Economics of Justice

Verlag: Springer Nature Switzerland

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Abstract

Many share the view that even though gross inequalities of wealth are something to worry about, it makes a difference whether or not they are accompanied by substantive equality of opportunity. If people or their children are able to climb up and down the economic hierarchy, inequality is no longer deemed so objectionable. In this chapter I examine the soundness of this common view. I argue that against the backdrop of acute economic inequality, equal opportunity and mobility might be less morally significant than we often assume.

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Vorheriges Kapitel The Ethics of Meritocratic Competition

Nächstes Kapitel Redefining a Normative Framework for Meritocracy in the Era of Generative AI: An Inter-Disciplinary Perspective

By ‘substantive equality of opportunity’ I mean a standard similar to Rawls’ ‘fair equality of opportunity’. According to Rawls, what this principle requires is that “…those who are at the same level of talent and ability, and have the same willingness to use them, should have the same prospects of success regardless of their initial place in the social system.” (1971), p. 73. This is to be contrasted with a policy of merely formal equality of opportunity, which enables everyone to compete for education and jobs on the basis of merit but takes no positive measures to equalize access to gaining the requisite merit.

Rawls (1971), p. 75.

Scanlon (2018), Ch. 9.

Anderson (1999), Scheffler (2003).

There is another important argument to that effect. According to Miller (1996), p. 299, merit is manifest in more ways, and more people are in fact meritorious, than the market economy recognizes. This speaks for a more equal distribution of rewards according to a theory of desert as properly understood.

Friedman (1962), Horwitz (2015), Persad (2015), Carroll and Chen (2016).

Persad (2015), p. 167.

Isaacs et al. (2008), p. 29.

This concern is at the heart of Markovits’ critique of present-day meritocracy (2019).

Horwitz (2015), p. 73.

Carroll and Chen (2016).

Scanlon (2018), Ch. 5.

Saunders (2008).

Broome (1990).

Scanlon (2018), p. 41.

Scanlon (2018), pp. 138 et seq.

According to Mishel and Davis (2015), p. 11: “CEO pay reflects rents, concessions CEOs can draw from the economy not by virtue of their contribution to economic output but by virtue of their position. Consequently, CEO pay could be reduced and the economy would not suffer any loss of output. Another implication of rising executive pay is that it reflects income that otherwise would have accrued to others”.

See also discussion in Scanlon (2018), pp. 143 et seq.

Scanlon (2018), p. 141.

Horwitz (2015), p. 73.

According to Brian Barry (2005), pp. 60 et seqq. with the decline of a middle class that can absorb the upward mobility of the working class, mobility is becoming zero-sum, such that moving on to an upper position requires that somebody else move downwards.

Harsanyi (1955).

Diamond (1967).

Broome (1991), Fleurbaey (2010), Risse (2002).

Neumann (2007). However, some theorists support de-dicto descriptions that are not explicitly normative. Sen (2002).

Rulli and Worsnip (2016).

Broome (1991).

Hooker (2005), pp. 335 et seq.

Harsanyi (1975), pp. 316 et seq.

Rawls (1971).

Sher (1979), Miller (1996).

Scanlon (2018), Cohen (2008), pp. 158 et seq.

It might be objected that had the athlete been somewhat less gifted—if her win were somewhat more down to effort—the medal would have been more deserved still. But that case is not easy to make. For one thing, the propensity to make effort is often an undeserved gift in and of itself.

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Titel: Equal Opportunity in an Unequal Society
verfasst von: Eran Fish
Verlag: Springer Nature Switzerland
Buch: Law and Economics of Justice
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-56821-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-031-56822-0

Copyright-Jahr: 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56822-0_15

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