What Is Economic Liberty

Bibliographic Data

ID21507201
AuthorsTom O’shea (0000-0002-4558-878X, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume48
Issue2
Pages203-222
Publication date2020-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophical Topics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0276-2080 • E-ISSN: 2154-154X
PublisherPhilosophy Documentation Center (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5840/philtopics202048220
OpenAlexW4230824265
LanguageEN
Citations received5

Economic liberty is best understood in opposition to economic domination. This article develops a radical republican conception of such domination. In particular, I argue that radical republicanism provides a more satisfactory account of individual economic freedom than the market-friendly liberties of working, transacting, holding, and using championed by Nickel and Tomasi. So too, it avoids the pitfalls of other conceptions of economic liberty which emphasize real freedom, alternatives to immiserating work, or unalienated labor. The resulting theory holds that economic domination occurs when someone’s access to civic capabilities is contingent on the arbitrary economic power of others. Socialist institutions—suitably configured—can deliver on this individual economic freedom, allowing the dominating power of proprietors, shareholders, landlords, and managers to be kept in check, and providing an unconditional minimum that allows individual citizens to be less beholden to others in meeting many of their most fundamental civic needs. Thus, I conclude that socialism can be championed as a politics of individual economic liberty

Communism · Economic freedom · Economic power · Economics · Individualism · Law and economics · Neoclassical economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Shareholder · Socialism · Sociology · Law · Political Economy and Marxism · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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