Against the anticosmopolitan basic structure argument: the systemic concept of distributive justice and economic divisions of labor

ABSTRACT

I examine the main anticosmopolitan Rawslian argument, the ‘basic structure argument.’ It holds that distributive justice only applies to existing basic structures, there are only state basic structures, so distributive justice only applies among compatriots. Proponents of the argument face three challenges: 1) they must explain what type of basic structure relation makes distributive justice relevant only among compatriots, 2) they must explain why distributive justice (as opposed to allocative or retributive) is the relevant regulative concept for basic structures, and 3) they must put forth a plausible concept of distributive justice. I show that Rawlsians support what I will call the ‘division of labor thesis’ to answer the first two challenges. Briefly, the division of labor thesis holds that distributive justice only becomes relevant where members of a division of labor jointly produce some socioeconomic product. To meet the third challenge, Rawlsians seem to accept what Elizabeth Anderson calls the ‘modern systemic concept of distributive justice’ – the idea that distributive justice organizes entire economic systems with respect to their distributive consequences or the relationships they maintain. I argue that if Rawlsians accept the systemic concept, they should reject the anticosmopolitan basic structure argument.

KEYWORDS:

• The scope of distributive justice
• John Rawls
• distributive justice
• the basic structure
• cosmopolitanism
• distributive justice

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Cynthia Stark, Darrel Moellendorf, Chrisoula Andreou, Leslie Francis, Erin Beeghly, Kyle Barrett, and an anonymous referee for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I say ‘for the scope of distributive justice’ since there is also a Rawlsian basic structure argument for the ‘site’ of justice. Abizadeh (2007) disambiguates the Rawlsian site and scope arguments.

2. Abizadeh shows that to be valid, the basic structure must make distributive justice ‘relevant’ as an ‘existence condition,’ which is a state of affairs or relationship that must occur for the virtue of distributive justice to arise or be applicable.

3. For arguments against the claim that the basic structure relation only applies to the state, see for instance Abizadeh (2007), Buchanan (2000), Caney (2005), Cohen and Sabel (2006), Hassoun (2014), Moellendorf (2002), Pogge (1989).

4. For example, see Freeman (2013, p. 201), Moellendorf (2009, Ch., p. 2). Caney (2005, p. 111) also argues that institutions are not relevant to the concept of distributive justice.

5. Nagel (2005) makes the stronger claim that justice only applies within states. The stronger claim makes his view especially susceptible to the three challenges. For a critique, see Julius (2006).

6. See, for example, Abizadeh (2007, pp. 348–349), Cohen and Sabel (2006), Julius (2006), Moellendorf (2009, Ch., p. 2), Valentini (2011), Van Parijs (2011).

7. Aaron James (2012) argues that this is the purpose of international institutions.

8. Rawls (1999, pp. 117–118) is explicit that ‘peoples’ are partly politically autonomous and so economically distinct, but there is debate on what his anticosmopolitan argument ultimately rests on.

9. Aaron James (2012, p. 190) offers a global version of this claim. He says that non-trading countries do not have an equal claim to national gains on trade since the gains of trade are socially created by the cooperation of trading countries.

10. He claims that global cooperation depends on intrastate cooperative institutions, so each practice produces different social products. International principles would fairly regulate the distribution of the burdens and benefits of the returns gained on trade (Freeman, 2013, p. 210).

11. Reciprocity accounts are often criticized for being ‘pernicious’ and ‘arbitrarily favoring the status quo’ since they restrict the scope of justice by using a moral relation. For example, Abizadeh says that such an account ‘perversely implies that demands of distributive justice arise only between persons whose social interactions are already conducted on fair [reciprocal] terms’ (2007, pp. 313 & 330). For a similar charge, see Forst (2015, pp. 99–100). In response, reciprocity accounts can be interpreted as ‘practice dependent.’ According to James, the method starts with examining existing social practice, such as social cooperation (2005, p. 282). The method interprets social practices since principles of justice are justified, in part, from and for the social practices they are supposed to regulate (James, 2005, pp. 282–86, 300; 2012, pp. 27–31; Sangiovanni, 2008, p. 6). As Sangiovanni’s ‘Practice-dependence Thesis’ states, ‘The content, scope, and justification of a conception of justice depends on the structure and form of the practices that the conception is intended to govern’ (2008, p. 2). As practice dependence accounts, reciprocity arguments use the social interpretation of state economic practice as a reciprocal division of labor among members for joint production of necessary economic resources. Reciprocity is taken to be the relevant moral ideal for cooperative social practices, so the account seems to avoid the charge of perniciousness.

12. For instance, see Abizadeh (2007), Brock (2009), Buchanan (2000), Cohen and Sabel (2006), Hassoun (2014), Moellendorf (2009), Pogge (1989), Tan (2004).

13. However, she notes that there is often a tension between systemic and local concerns in many theories including Paine’s (Anderson, in press, 2017). Also see Sean Monahan (2015).

14. Fleischacker (for example, 2004, Ch., p. 1) contrasts ‘commutative justice’ with the modern concept.

15. Also see Anderson (in press), Ronzoni (2008).

16. Our interconnected fates put pressure on moralized conceptions of poverty and local principles of justice. For example, it is obvious to those whose poverty was caused by unemployment due to recession or disability due to pollution that their poverty was not their fault (Anderson, 2017, p. 73).

17. Thomas Piketty explains that inequality has recently increased in the United States because of changes in pay norms allowing for the pay of top managers to greatly increase relative to workers (2017, Ch., p. 9). Joseph Stiglitz (2013) agrees and adds that many forms of rent seeking are to blame. Competitive markets drive prices down, so businesses create barriers to entry in their market (e.g., through patents), exploit market power or market imperfections, gain monopoly control over a market through buying or selling to governments at above or below market price, and so on. In short, rent-seeking is how the political process helps the well-off exploit the poor, and how people gain in a market without laboring or producing. For example, Carlos Slim acquired a large share of Mexico’s telecommunications when it privatized at well below market price (Stiglitz, 2013, p. 52), banks exploit the less educated through predatory lending (p. 50), and banks use the creation of the opaque derivatives market to gain an advantage over buyers since it is difficult for consumers to get a good deal because sellers know the market much better and the sellers are constantly selling so they have more information (p. 44). The last example led to instability and ultimately the crash of 2008. Piketty also argues that when the rate of return on investments outpaces the rate of growth (r > g), inequality increases as it has done in Europe. He (2017, p. 6–8) also thinks that Ricardo’s principle of scarcity – the prices for scarce goods will grow ever higher as population and wages increase – makes r > g even worse since it can increase the rate of return on investment in scarce goods, such as land. Branko Milanovic proposes the idea of ‘Kuznets waves’ to explain inequality. Kuznets argued that inequality is low at low levels of income, it then rises as the economy develops, and it falls at high income levels. Kuznets waves are alternating increases and decreases in inequality driven both by malign (e.g., wars) and benign (e.g., increasing levels of education) forces that are both economic (e.g., forces of supply and demand) and political (creating opaque markets and tax havens). Milanovic says, for example, ‘It is the interplay between economic and political factors that drives Kuznets waves…Income inequality is, almost by definition, an outcome of social and political struggles, sometimes violent ones’ (2016, p. 86). The wave must replace the Kuznets curve because the curve does not explain the recent rise in inequality (2016, Ch., p. 2). He thinks that often the causes of increasing inequality are overdetermined (for example, 2016, p. 109).

18. Samuel Scheffler (2006) offers an explanation of these three reasons. For more on these reasons for Rawls’s claim that the basic structure is the primary subject of justice, see Anderson (in press), Ronzoni (2008).

19. Rawls’s normative ‘central organizing idea’ of society as a fair system of social cooperation among free and equal persons (2001, §2.2) also corresponds to Anderson’s explanation of the economic productive process above.

20. Buchanan offers an interpretation of reciprocity conceptions as local principles of justice (e.g., 1990, p. 229). He thinks reciprocity is owed from one worker to other workers. However, reciprocity is part of conceptions of social justice, which means that it must apply throughout the course of our lives and so is not what I as a worker owe to other current workers. It is a systemic virtue that organizes functional roles, the fruits of functional roles, and lifetime opportunities.

21. For example, Rawls does this in several places. He assumes, for instance, that cooperation means full participation in the competitive market. Cf. Rawls (2001, p. 179).

22. For this argument, see Daniels (2012, Ch., p. 2). Daniels defines health needs as those necessary for ‘normal species functioning’ (2012, p. 34). Following Boorse, Daniels defines ‘health’ as the absence of pathology, or ‘any deviation from the natural functional organization of a typical member of a species’ (2012, p. 37) This need not be completely naturalistic, but Daniels rejects the strongly normative conceptions of health. All Daniels requires is that normal and abnormal function be ascertainable by public methods including biomedical methods (2012, p. 42).

23. According to Daniels, Rawls takes some natural distribution of talents as a baseline. His difference principle ‘mitigates’ the effects of natural talents on the distribution, but it does not seek to eliminate the effects of natural talents on the distribution. Daniels also holds that FEO should structure the institutions that determine health. Health care is like education in that FEO must structure these institutions to fairly correct for special social circumstances, such as effects of race and family background on opportunity. Opportunity in these areas cannot be equalized by fairly distributing ‘primary goods,’ such as wealth. See Daniels (2012, pp. 53–61).

24. I have argued that if we accept the systemic concept of distributive justice, we should reject the division of labor thesis as determining the scope of distributive justice. However, one could accept the systemic concept and use the division of labor thesis not to determine the scope of distributive justice but to explain why the justice required by certain institutions is in part distributive in character. On such an account, duties of justice are only owed to comembers of an association of the kind that triggers norms of justice, so existing associations determine the scope of justice. The fact that an association is an economic one – it defines property rights, divides labor, and so on – is then used to claim that the justice owed to each member should be at least in part distributive. Distributive justice, on this account, can assess the nature and scope of current divisions of labor among those subject to justice since a current division of labor does not determine the scope of distributive justice. For example, see Nagel’s account discussed in footnote 5, and Moellendorf (2009).

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Edward Andrew Greetis

Edward Andrew Greetis is a lecturer of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He completed his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Utah. He has published articles on the site of distributive justice, the priority of liberty, and other topics.