Individual Rights over Economic Equality

How Individual Rights and Property Stand in Opposition to Working Conditions and Equality
2024
ISBN: 978-3-031-75102-8
Verlag: Springer Nature Switzerland

Buch, Englisch, 168 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 356 g

Since the mid-1960s, citizens' rights in the United States have improved across many areas, including race, gender, sexuality, physical disabilities, age, consumption of goods, voting, and more. During this time, there has also been a degradation in economic rights, such as economic inequality. Is there a reason for this contradiction? Is it possible for American citizens to experience rights equality?

At the center of natural rights theories lies the “inalienable” right to private property, and the concepts and practices of the accumulation of private property always defeat personal liberties. Modern political philosophers who espouse natural rights, including liberal John Rawls and conservative James M. Buchanan, share nearly identical premises and goals. The two sides do not often recognize that the free-standing individual at the center of mainstream theorizing in economics and politics simply does not exist. We are social animals, all embedded in (unequal) networks of social and economic relations, requiring very different explanatory frameworks from those given by individual rights theorizing.

This book explores the ways in which the foundational ideology of individual rights belies the actualities of economic inequality. It argues that “individual rights” philosophy offers the main ideological basis for the astronomical accumulation of wealth that produces this inequality. Investigating the defects of rights theory, the book examines key concepts related to social progress and economic stability. The resulting text presents and analyzes the networks of contemporary corporate, business, and financial power that structurally and systemically limit the lives and choices of citizens in the United States.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mcdermott, John F. M.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Colatrella, Steven

Maher, Frances

Meeropol, Michael

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Wirtschaftstheorie, Wirtschaftsphilosophie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Wirtschaftspolitik, politische Ökonomie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Arbeitsmarkt

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction:  John McDermott’s Body of Work.- Chapter 1 As Rights Expand Equality Declines.- Chapter 2 Ours is Not a “Liberal Society”.- Chapter 3 Inalienable Rights and the Abortion Wars.- Chapter 4 Elements of a Theory of Social Rights.- Chapter 5 Looking at the Workplace.- Chapter 6 Interregnum.- Chapter 7 Afterword.

Über Autor(innen)

John F. M. McDermott (1932–2022) was Professor Emeritus of the State University of New York in Old Westbury, USA. He is the author of several books, including and .

Steven Colatrella taught sociology, international relations, and political theory at Bard College, The New School, the University of Padua, and the American University of Rome. Colatrella’s most recent book is .

Frances A. Maher is Professor Emerita of Education at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, USA. Maher’s most recent book is , which she coauthored with Mary Kay Thomson Tetreault. 

Michael Meeropol is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Western New England University. He previously taught at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York. An economist, author, and activist, he has published several books. Alongside Howard J. Sherman and Paul D. Sherman, Meeropol co-authored . He also co-authored with Robert Meeropol and is the sole author of .