To say that a the effects of policy prescription is "pareto efficient" means that to undertake it will leave some better off, but none worse off, correct? I think you may be misunderstanding me. I'm not asking you "Should we judge public institutions solely by efficiency standards commonly applied (without any notion of justice, etc.) to private sector institutions?". My take is that efficiency is important, no matter how just the system is.
If you think Pareto efficiency is not compatible with economic justice, why not? Can we concern ourselves with efficiency in a just economy at all? If so, how would you otherwise capture notions of efficiency?
How about idle productive resources, inefficient technologies, "misaligned" inputs, undistributed consumption goods, "misaligned" outputs, etc.?
> ... I was on a
>panel with Hahnel on environmental policy once and was surprised and struck
>at how neoclassical his paper was.
Actually, I find his arguments about environmental policy stronger for his appreciation of market forces. I think his arguments are designed to give decent solutions under current conditions, generally (if I remember correctly) arguing for taxes as opposed to trade-able pollution permits.
Bill