Bill Edmundson - What Is the Argument for the Fair Value of Equal Liberty

This lecture is part of the McMaster Department of Philosophy's Summer School in Capitalism, democratic solidarity, and Institutional design
www.solidaritydesign2019.com
This lecture addresses a fundamental problem for advocates of property-owning democracy. Namely, the apologists for this form of political economy have neither clearly demarcated it from alternative schemes (such as welfare-state capitalism), nor have they been sufficiently clear about the state’s role with respect to this economic system. Does property-owning democracy require the “big state” of traditional redistributive socialism with an extensive sector of public ownership? Is it the “small/smart” state of neo-liberalism, allied to a specific vision of globalization? By examining the role of the state in guaranteeing full employment, democratizing finance, directing public investment, underwriting key markets for essential goods, and the democratic co-opting of all major forms of capitalized institution (the open corporation, charitable trusts, pension funds), this lecture defends the distinctiveness of asset-based egalitarianism as a realistic utopia.