by Laurent Dobuzinskis
I am grateful to Benjamin Studebaker for commenting on my essay in the last issue and formulating a rigorous analytical framework for starting a conversation on the potentials and limitations of what has come to be known as “predistribution” schemes (also known as “asset-based” approaches to social policy). I want to address three points in my response. The first one concerns the importance I attribute to these policy priorities. They are proposed as means, among others that could only be addressed in a book-length work, to uphold the Rule of Law and, thereby, strengthen the institutional foundations of liberal democracy by legitimizing the practices upon which they depend. The contemporary lack of trust in these institutions and the perception that—for reasons that are often antithetical—the law is biased toward certain interests, communities, or ideological creeds is what needs to be addressed. The second point concerns Studebaker’s analytical framework itself which, although logical and well thought-out, does not adequately match the normative premises from which I work. The third point concerns the practical obstacles that, I concede, lay in the path of the deployment of the various predistribution proposals that have been formulated in recent decades.
The Rule of Law comes a little closer to being an intrinsic value than predistribution schemes, even though it is itself instrumental in the sense that it is a condition for the existence of a political order that protects its members against the arbitrary uses of power and offers them opportunities for effectively voicing opinions about how it can better fulfill that crucial function. (Crucial because protection against the risk of political elites abusing their power is a precondition for a healthy political life, even if nowadays what the citizens of liberal democracies can aspire to will fall short of the loftier notion of eudaimonia that virtuous citizens were urged to aim for according to Aristotle.) Of course, in Athenian democracy, voicing one’s opinion could be understood literally. Such a practice is no longer possible. In contemporary liberal democracies, avenues for directly shaping the course of events are rare or if they occur at all, require an exceptional level of mobilization. But engaged citizens can insist on holding their representatives accountable for their actions. And this requires having access to sufficient resources for a) knowing how the political system is supposed to work; and b) acting upon that knowledge. This is where property come into the picture. Not a new idea, since it goes back to Aristotle. I am indebted to Studebaker for bringing into focus the question of how much citizens who own property—and whose rights were protected by the state (and arguably even more effectively in Ancient Rome than in Greece)—owe to the state in return. Modern liberals have answered that Aristotle expected too much from citizens in that respect, and he undeniably did. As Constant is well known to have argued, the liberty of the moderns is incompatible with the very onerous duties of the citizens of ancient city-states.1 Studebaker’s typology of their responses is insightful, but I would suggest is a little too rigid. For my part, I combine elements drawn from several of his “theories.”
From “theory #1,” I would retain the idea that civil organizations do indeed provide much of the “training” that property owning citizens need to acquit themselves of their obligations to the political community. And in that respect, the state can help by smoothing the way toward a polycentric political regime in which a variety of public bodies (e.g., municipalities) and non-state actors are encouraged to take charge of at least some of the social responsibilities of the modern welfare state; implementing a more advantageous fiscal regime for non-profits is one possible instrument (admittedly, tax rules are already providing assistance to civil society organizations, but there is room for further improvement, with the caveat that it should be done transparently).
From “theory #2,” I would cautiously retain the idea that citizens need to be given access to crucial basic goods. But I say “cautiously” because this theory looks very much like the redistributive approach my paper challenges on the grounds that i) it is very costly and result in bureaucratic excesses; and ii) has in recent years been used by populist demagogues as a pretext for scapegoating “foreigners” and other “parasites.” All the same, public goods such as high-quality education and, as is increasingly becoming urgent, affordable housing, which could take the form of innovative property sharing arrangements, are indeed indispensable resources.
From “theory #3,” I would retain the idea that “work itself provides the training.” But as I explain in my paper, this is done more appropriately within employees-owned firms; the German co-determination system is also an option. One should not be too optimistic or naïve (see below) about the extent to which such opportunities can be scaled up in the short term, which in a sense gets us back to “theory #1.”
“Theory #4” can be interpreted in several ways. One is simply to equate it with “laissez-faire” or “free markets” or “neoliberalism.” This particular interpretation is at the farthest end of the spectrum of approaches consistent with, supportive of, the sort of isonomia/isokratia I have briefly sketched out in my essay. Not that this interpretation is inconsistent with the rule of law, but it does little to legitimize it in the eyes of sceptical public. As I have attempted to argue, however, there is another interpretation of free markets which can be articulated in the light of the Italian civil economy tradition or (albeit in a less far-reaching manner) of Sugden’s 2018 book Community of Advantage.2 From this standpoint, which can be traced back to Antonio Genovese, the market economy is a sphere that has an intrinsic value, namely moving toward the Genovesian ideal of “public happiness.” The “market” is actually a generic concept that encompasses different markets with their specific characteristics, but what unites them is that they create opportunities for reciprocal exchanges among people who are not motivated by myopic self-interest and who are instead aware of their interdependence and normally treat each other fairly. (Fraud and other abuses occur, of course, and prudence requires caution, but it is remarkable that they never are regarded by ordinary people as “what to expect” when they enter the market in a democratic context where trust in institutions and fellow citizens is a reasonable belief.) The philosophy of economics and political theory have a crucial role to play in bringing this perspective to light. Of course, awareness of the implicit moral worth of properly functioning markets is not enough to counteract the dysfunctional aspects of contemporary political economy and to put an end to populist reactionary politics. I mean that some concrete measures are required to accompany the “discourse” of moralists and well-intentioned theorists. But as philosophers, we have our part to play in the domain of ideas. The strictly negative vision of capitalism preached by critics of “neoliberalism” has made considerable inroads in the public consciousness, especially in younger generations. A different “discourse” is very much necessary—one that is not narrowly utilitarian but is inspired by virtue ethics.
Coming now to the concrete reforms that, I have argued, could in fact accompany and support this new consciousness of what it means to be the citizen of a liberal democracy and a participant in free markets, I agree with Studebaker that they all have their weaknesses. In spite of excellent arguments put forward by original theorists in favour of employee-owned firms, there are indeed immovable obstacles that account for the fact that Mill’s prediction that by now we should be living in a world where cooperatives are the dominant mode of organization, has not come true. But my response is i) that these obstacles could be at least partly overcome if there is a political will to overcome them and that will is perhaps more likely to emerge in the present context of growing scepticism toward both crony-capitalism and old-style socialism; and ii) the civil economy perspective cannot be reduced to this particular recommendation, Indeed Bruni & Zamagni, Calvo, and other advocates of this paradigm are careful to recommend a wide range of more or less radical, more or less feasible, more or less context dependent reforms. I would personally welcome a more pronounced move toward employees-owned firms, but if the civil economy paradigm gains ground among political economists, I am confident that several other policy instruments can emerge from future debates.
As for the basic income, I admit that it is a rather impractical idea. In spite of all its impressive merits. There are alternatives. At the theoretical level, S-C. Kolm’s 2004 Equal Labour Income Equalization proposal is arguably a more efficient scheme because it does not discourage work—one of the main criticisms raised by the critics of the basic income—but it too has yet to be implemented, probably because it presupposes the average wage rate can easily be measured, which is questionable. But there are various second-best practices based on the concept of a refundable tax credit that have been implemented in several countries (e.g., Canada, the US, etc.); this is a mechanism that ought to be further expanded and, as it becomes more universal could be a stepping stone toward a basic income. From the standpoint of “predistribution,” any predictably stable and unconditional source of income is a way to make saving money and building assets achievable for all. If the semantics of a “basic income” is a political encumbrance, then a substantial tax credit, which is psychologically appealing, is the way to go!
To conclude, the point I am trying to make is that neither redistribution nor predistribution are ends in themselves, unless one is a radical egalitarian. (Not that aiming for a fairer society is not a justifiable concern, but fairness is a complex notion which is not reducible to “levelling down.”) From a classical liberal or, for that matter, a civic republican standpoint, they are instrumental in legitimizing a political order combining isonomia and isokratia in ways that empower citizens to exercise their rights and freedoms within a well-ordered polity where such rights and freedoms are valued. The argument I was making in my essay was focused on the opportunities to participate more actively in the market that predistribution provides by facilitating access to property or other valuable assets in a more general sense. I also argued that they not only enable people to take advantage of the economic opportunities that markets provide but also that doing so greatly enhances their ability to play a more active role in the public sphere. I am grateful to Studebaker for pointing out that from an Aristotelian perspective, the focus should shift from the market to the polity. I agree with Studebaker that the predistributive schemes that I allude to fall short of the Aristotelian ideal in that respect. But I would say that a) the Aristotelian perspective on the civic “training” of property-owners is not fully achievable in contemporary societies; and b) that the notion of predistribution still needs to be fleshed out more thoroughly and that much research is needed in that respect. It is possible that innovative policy instruments could be developed that would be an improvement upon the ones that Studebaker finds insufficient. But old-style redistributive policies are very unlikely to “move the needle” in that respect.
NOTES
- Constant’s ideas in that respect were more nuanced than is sometimes assumed by those who only know them second hand. Constant was a republican thinker who also insisted that citizens have an obligation to be vigilant and hold public officials to account. ↩︎
- See also this 2002 article by Robert Sugden for an original reinterpretation of Adam Smith’s often oversimplified if not caricatured vision of human psychology and life in a modern (commercial) society. ↩︎
Laurent Dobuzinskis is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Simon Fraser University. Send him mail.
Isonomia Quarterly 