> I oscillate back and forth between John Rawls's social welfare
> function (social welfare is the utility of a member of the most
> disadvantaged class) and the belief that social welfare values each
> doubling of individual or household material welfare equally--that
> social welfare is raised by as much when a Bengali peasant's lifetime
> income doubles from $6000 to 12000 as when Bill Gates's lifetime
> income doubles from $50 billion to $100 billion.
>
> After all, if you don't have a vision of what a good distribution
> would be, it's kinda hard to criticize current arrangements...
>
>
> Brad DeLong
*********
Visions we have; you claim to take your cue from JR. While I prefer a combo of Brian Barry [of the last few chapters of "Democracy, Power and Justice], IM Young, Elanor Ostrom, Bill Mollison, Arturo Escobar, Daniel Bromley and the great stuff in Andrew Dobson's "Fairness and Futurity" -- not to mention Old Whiskers, I do think there's lots of potential for rapprochement on these issues. It's getting what Leslie Sklair calls the "transnational capitalist class" to forgo their narcissism and embrace Einstein's comments on ego [with apologies on the gender ig-norance]:
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the "Universe," a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."
Maybe then we'll see the euthanasia of the rentier class.
Ian