Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T08:04:53.169Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rethinking the Very Idea of Egalitarian Markets and Corporations: Why Relationships Might Matter More than Distribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2015

Pierre-Yves Néron
Pierre-Yves Néron*
Affiliation:
Université Catholique de Lille
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

What kinds of markets, market regulations, and business organizations are compatible with contemporary egalitarian theories of justice? This article argues that any thoughtful answer to this question will have to draw on recent developments in political philosophy that are concerned not only with the equality of the distribution of core goods (or as John Rawls famously put it, with the “distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation”) but also with the requirements for equality of status, voice, and so on, in the relations between individuals and within organizations. The dominance of theories of distributive justice in egalitarian political philosophy since Rawls may have contributed, on the one hand, to the oft-recognized gulf between these theories and their theorists and, on the other, to discussions of corporate governance and business ethics. The main purpose of this article is to introduce business ethicists to some of the less-familiar features of recent relational theories of justice and equality, and to suggest that some of these notions may help bridge the gap between business ethics and political philosophy more generally.

Keywords

Egalitarianismjusticeeconomic democracymanagementcorporate governancerelational egalitarianismdistributive egalitarianism
Type
Special Section: Social Justice and the Corporation
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 93 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aiello, Antonio, Pratto, Felicia, and Pierro, Antonio. 2013. “Framing Social Dominance Orientation and Power in Organizational Context.” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 35: 487–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alchian, Armen A., and Demsetz, Harold. 1972. “Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organizations.” American Economic Review 62(5): 777–95.Google Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 1999. “What Is the Point of Equality?” Ethics 109(2): 287–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 2004. “Ethical Assumptions in Economic Theory: Some Lessons from the History of Credit and Bankruptcy.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 7(4): 347–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 2007. “How Should Egalitarians Cope with Market Risks?” Theoretical Inquiries in Law 9(1): 239–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 2008. “Expanding the Egalitarian Toolbox: Equality and Bureaucracy.” Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 82(1): 139–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 2009. “Toward a Non-Ideal, Relational Methodology for Political Philosophy: Comments on Schwartzman’s Challenging Liberalism.” Hypatia 24(4): 130–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 2010. The Imperative of Integration. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arneson, Richard. 2013. “Egalitarianism.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.. Available athttp://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/egalitarianism/.Google Scholar
Arnold, Samuel. 2012. “The Difference Principle at Work.” Journal of Political Philosophy 20(1): 94–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652 (1990).Google Scholar
Blanc, Sandrine, and Al-Amoudi, Ismael. 2013. “Corporate Institutions in a Weakened Welfare State: A Rawlsian Perspective.” Business Ethics Quarterly 23(4): 497–525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boatright, John. 1999. “Does Business Ethics Rest on a Mistake?” Business Ethics Quarterly 9(4) 583–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boatright, John. 2004. “Employee Governance and the Ownership of the Firm.” Business Ethics Quarterly 14(1): 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boatright, John. 2012. Ethics and the Conduct of Business. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Bowie, Norman, and Werhane, Patricia. 2005. Management Ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bowles, Samuel, and Gintis, Herbert. 1987. Democracy and Capitalism: Property, Community, and the Contradictions of Modern Social Thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Brennan, Jason, and Jaworski, Peter. 2016. Markets without Limits: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2751.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. 1977. The Visible Hand. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Child, John. 2009. “Challenging Hierarchy.” In The Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies, ed. Alvesson, Mats, Bridgman, Todd, and Willmott, Hugh, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 510–14.Google Scholar
Chuang, Kimberly. “A Relational Egalitarian Defense of Usury Laws.” Unpublished manuscript, presented at the MANCEPT Political Theory Workshop, University of Manchester, Sept. 2014.Google Scholar
Ciepley, David. 2004. “Authority in the Firm (and the Attempt to Theorize It Away).” Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 16(1): 81–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ciepley, David. 2013. “Beyond Public and Private: Toward a Political Theory of the Corporation.” American Political Science Review 107(1): 139–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010).Google Scholar
Coase, Ronald. 1937. “The Nature of the Firm.” Economica 4(16): 386–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Gerald A. 2001. If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Gerald A. 2008. Rescuing Justice and Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Gerald A. 2009. Why Not Socialism? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Marc A. 2010. “The Narrow Application of Rawls in Business Ethics: A Political Conception of Both Stakeholder Theory and the Morality of Markets.” Journal of Business Ethics 97(4): 563–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Alison, and Glass, Christy. 2014. “Above the Glass Ceiling: When Are Women and Racial/Ethnic Minorities Promoted to CEO?” Strategic Management Journal 35(7): 1080–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crane, Andrew, Matten, Dirk, and Moon, Jeremy. 2008. Corporations and Citizenship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dietsch, Peter. 2010. “The Market, Competition, and Equality.” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 9(2): 213–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dow, Gregory K. 2003. Governing the Firm: Workers’ Control in Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 2002. Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easterbrook, Frank H., and Fischel, Daniel R.. 1991. The Economic Structure of Corporate Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Forbath, William E. 1991. Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fourie, Carina. 2012. “What Is Social Equality? An Analysis of Status Equality as a Strongly Egalitarian Ideal.” Res Publica 18(2): 107–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry. 1987. “Equality as a Moral Ideal.” Ethics 98(1): 21–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, R. Edward, and Evan, William M.. 1990. “Corporate Governance: A Stakeholder Interpretation.” Journal of Behavioral Economics 19(4): 337–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, Samuel. 2011. “Capitalism in the Classical and High Liberal Traditions.” Social Philosophy and Policy 28(2): 19–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrau, Marie, and Laborde, Cécile. 2015. “Relational Equality, Non-domination, and Vulnerability.” In Social Equality. On What It Means to Be Equals, ed. Fourie, Carina, Schuppert, Fabian, and Wallimann-Helmer, Ivo, 65–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grant, Ruth. 2011. Strings Attached: Untangling the Ethics of Incentives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy, and Thompson, Dennis. 2012. The Spirit of Compromise: Why Governing Demands It and Campaigning Undermines It. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, Andrew. 2003. Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar
Hansmann, Henry, and Kraakman, Reiner R.. 2004. “What Is Corporate Law?” In The Anatomy of Corporate Law, ed. Kraakman, Reiner R.. et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Healy, Kieran. 2006. Last Best Gifts: Altruism and the Market for Human Blood and Organs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Joseph. 2006. “Business Ethics Without Stakeholders.” Business Ethics Quarterly 16(3): 553–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Joseph. 2007. “An Adversarial Ethic for Business: Or, When Sun-Tzu Met the Stakeholder.” Journal of Business Ethics 72(4): 359–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Joseph. 2011. “Business Ethics and the ‘End of History’ in Corporate Law.” Journal of Business Ethics 102(1): 5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Joseph. 2013. “Market Failure or Government Failure: A Response to Jaworski.” Business Ethics Journal Review 1(8): 50–56.Google Scholar
Heath, Joseph. 2014. Morality, Competition, and the Firm: The Market Failures Approach to Business Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Joseph, Moriarty, Jeffrey, and Norman, Wayne. 2010. “Business Ethics and (or as) Political Philosophy.” Business Ethics Quarterly 20(3): 427–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Joseph, and Norman, Wayne. 2004. “Stakeholder Theory, Corporate Governance and Public Management: What Can the History of State-Run Enterprises Teach Us in the Post-Enron Era?” Journal of Business Ethics 53: 247–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsieh, Nien-hê. 2005. “Rawlsian Justice and Workplace Republicanism.” Social Theory and Practice 31(1): 115–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsieh, Nien-hê. 2006. “Justice, Management, and Governance.” Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society 6(3): 261–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsieh, Nien-hê. 2008. “Justice in Production.” Journal of Political Philosophy 16(1): 72–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsieh, Nien-hê. 2010. “The Normative Study of Business Organizations: A Rawlsian Approach.” In Normative Theory and Business Ethics, ed. Smith, Jeffery, 93–117. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Kibe, Takashi. 2011. “The Relational Approach to Egalitarian Justice: A Critique of Luck Egalitarianism.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 14(1): 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, Frank. 1997. The Ethics of Competition. New Brunswick, NJ: Transactions Publishers.Google Scholar
Kymlicka, Will. 2002. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Malleson, Tom. 2014. After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Dominic. 2013. “The Contained-Rivalry Requirement and a ‘Triple Feature’ Program for Business Ethics.” Journal of Business Ethics 115(1): 167–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1953/1993. Grundrisse. Repr. New York: Penguin Classics.Google Scholar
McMahon, Christopher. 1994. Authority and Democracy: A General Theory of Government and Management. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 2008. Principles of Political Economy and Chapters on Socialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, David. 1983. “Constraints on Freedom.” Ethics 94(1): 66–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Gary. 1993. Managerial Dilemmas: The Political Economy of Hierarchy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moriarty, Jeffrey. 2005. “On the Relevance of Political Philosophy to Business Ethics.” Business Ethics Quarterly 15(3): 455–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moriarty, Jeffrey. 2012. “Justice in Compensation: A Defense.” Business Ethics: A European Review 21(1): 64–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Néron, Pierre-Yves. 2010. “Business and the Polis: What Does It Mean to See Corporations as Political Actors?” Journal of Business Ethics 94(3): 333–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Néron, Pierre-Yves. 2013. “Toward a Political Theory of the Business Firm?: A Comment on ‘Political CSR.’” Business Ethics Journal Review 1(3): 14–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Néron, Pierre-Yves. 2014. “Egalitarianism and Executive Compensation: A Relational Argument.” Journal of Business Ethics. doi: 10.1007/s10551-014-2312-7.Google Scholar
Néron, Pierre-Yves. 2015. “Social Equality and Economic Institutions: Arguing for Workplace Democracy.” In The Equal Society, ed. Hull, George. New York: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Néron, Pierre-Yves. Forthcoming. “Rethinking the Ethics of Corporate Political Activities in a Post-Citizens United Era: Political Equality, Corporate Citizenship and Market Failures.” Journal of Business Ethics.Google Scholar
Norman, Wayne. 2011. “Business Ethics as Self-Regulation.” Journal of Business Ethics 102(S1): 43–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Neill, Martin. 2008. “Three Rawlsian Routes toward Economic Democracy.” Revue de philosophie économique 8(2): 29–55.Google Scholar
O’Neill, Martin, and Williamson, Thad, eds. 2012. Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond. Boston: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orren, Karen. 1991. Belated Feudalism: Labor, the Law, and Liberal Development in the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Orts, Eric W. 2013. Business Persons: A Legal Theory of the Firm. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parfit, Derek. 1997. “Equality and Priority.” Ratio 10(3): 202–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, Martin. 2002. Against Management: Organization in the Age of Managerialism. Oxford: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, Anne. 2008. “Egalitarians and the Market: Dangerous Ideals.” Social Theory and Practice 34(3): 439–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Anne. 2013. Our Bodies: Whose Property? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John. 2001. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosanvallon, Pierre. 2011. La société des égaux. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Rosenblum, Nancy. 2008. On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rothkopf, David J. 2012. Power, Inc.: The Epic Rivalry between Big Business and Government—And the Reckoning That Lies Ahead. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Sandel, Michael J. 2012. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Satz, Debra. 2010. Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheffler, Samuel. 2010. Equality and Tradition: Questions of Value in Moral and Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schemmel, Christian. 2011. “Why Relational Egalitarians Should Care about Distributions.” Social Theory and Practice 37(3): 365–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schemmel, Christian. 2012. “Distributive and Relational Equality.” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 11(2): 123–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schuppert, Fabian. 2015. “Being Equals: Analyzing the Nature of Social Egalitarian Relationships.” In Social Equality: On What It Means to Be Equals, ed. Fourie, Carina, Schuppert, Fabian, and Wallimann-Helmer, Ivo. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Segall, Shlomi. 2009. Health, Luck, and Justice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 1980. “Equality of What?”, in: The Tanner Lecture on Human Values, vol. I, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 197–220.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 2011. The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sidanius, J., and Pratto, F.. 1999. Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, Abraham. 2015. “There is No Rawlsian Theory of Corporate Governance.” Business Ethics Quarterly doi:10.1017/beq.2015.1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Ryan A. 2002. “Race, Gender, and Authority in the Workplace: Theory and Research.” Annual Review of Sociology 28: 509–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, Kok-Chor. 2008. “Liberal Equality: What, Where, and Why.” In The Oxford Handbook of American Philosophy, ed. Misak, Cheryl. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasi, John. 2012. Free Market Fairness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valentini, Laura. 2012. “Ideal vs. Non-ideal Theory: A Conceptual Map.” Philosophy Compass 7(9): 654–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wade, Cheryl L. 2003. “Attempting to Discuss Race in Business and Corporate Law Courses and Seminars.” St. John’s Law Review 77(4): 901–18.Google Scholar
Williamson, Oliver. 1983. Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Wolff, Jonathan. 2010. “Fairness, Respect and the Egalitarian Ethos Revisited.” Journal of Ethics 14(3–4): 335–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 2011. Justice and the Politics of Difference. New ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar