Property-Owning Democracy

Rawls and Beyond

O'Neill, Martin / Williamson, Thad (Editor)

1. Edition March 2012
336 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd

ISBN: 978-1-4443-3410-4

John Wiley & Sons

Short Description

Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond is a collection of original essays, by philosophers, political scientists, economists, and historians, that provides the first extended treatment of the influential political philosopher John Rawls' key concept of a property-owning democracy, and which examine in detail a number of questions regarding the institutional structure of a just society. Bridging the gap between political philosophy and concrete issues of public policy, institutional design, and political agency, it considers radical alternatives to existing forms of capitalism and provides a major contribution to debates among progressive policymakers and activists about the programmatic direction politics should take in the near future.

Further versions

Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond features a collection of original essays that represent the first extended treatment of political philosopher John Rawls' idea of a property-owning democracy.
* Offers new and essential insights into Rawls's idea of "property-owning democracy"
* Addresses the proposed political and economic institutions and policies which Rawls's theory would require
* Considers radical alternatives to existing forms of capitalism
* Provides a major contribution to debates among progressive policymakers and activists about the programmatic direction progressive politics should take in the near future

Preface by Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers
Introduction by Martin O'Neill and Thad Williamson

Part One: Property-Owning Democracy: Theoretical Foundations
Chapter 1: Justice or Legitimacy, Barricades or Public Reason? The Politics of Property-Owning Democracy Simone Chambers
Chapter 2: Property-Owning Democracy: A Short History Ben Jackson
Chapter 3: Public Justification and the Right to Private Property: Welfare Rights as Compensation for Exclusion Corey Brettschneider
Chapter 4: Free (and Fair) Markets without Capitalism: Political Values, Principles of Justice and Property-Owning Democracy Martin O'Neill
Chapter 5: Property-Owning Democracy, Liberal Republicanism and the Idea of an Egalitarian Ethos Alan Thomas
Chapter 6: Property-Owning Democracy and Republican Citizenship Stuart White

Part Two: Interrogating Property-Owning Democracy: Work, Gender, Political Economy
Chapter 7: Work, Ownership, and Productive Enfranchisement Nien-hê Hsieh
Chapter 8: Care, Gender and Property-Owning Democracy Ingrid Robeyns
Chapter 9: Nurturing the Sense of Justice: The Rawlsian Argument for Democratic Corporatism Waheed Hussain
Chapter 10: Property-Owning Democracy or Economic Democracy? David Schweickart

Part Three: Towards a Practical Politics of Property-Owning Democracy: Program and Politics
Chapter 11: Realizing Property-Owning Democracy: A Twenty Year Strategy to Create an Egalitarian Distribution of Assets in the United States Thad Williamson
Chapter 12: The Empirical and Policy Linkage between Primary Goods, Human Capital, and Financial Capital: What Every Political Theorist Needs to Know Sonia Sodha
Chapter 13: The Pluralist Commonwealth and Property-Owning Democracy Gar Alperovitz
Chapter 14: Is Property-Owning Democracy a Politically Viable Aspiration? Thad Williamson

Martin O'Neill is Lecturer in Political Philosophy in the Department of Politics at the University of York. He has previously been Hallsworth Research Fellow in Political Economy at the University of Manchester, a Research Fellow in Philosophy and Politics at St John's College, University of Cambridge, and a Hoover Fellow in Economic and Social Ethics at the Université catholique de Louvain. He is co-editor (with Shepley Orr) of a forthcoming book, Taxation and Political Philosophy.

Thad Williamson is Associate Professor of Leadership Studies and Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Law, University of Richmond. He is the author of Sprawl, Justice and Citizenship: The Civic Costs of the American Way of Life, co-author (with Gar Alperovitz and David Imbroscio) of Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era, and co-editor (with Douglas Hicks) of the upcoming Leadership and Global Justice.

M. O'Neill, University of York, UK; T. Williamson, University of Richmond, UK