Title: Principles of justice for a sustainable economy
Peter Dietsch (University of Victoria) and Thomas Rixen (Freie Universität Berlin)
Abstract:
Empirical evidence suggests that decoupling economic growth from greenhouse gases is impossible. If this is correct, a sustainable future will require zero economic growth or even degrowth. What principles of distributive justice does a zero-growth economy call for?
This paper focuses on two distribuenda in a zero-growth economy: income and emission rights. Concerning the former, we argue that the distribution of income in a zero-growth economy should respect a suitably re-interpreted version of John Rawls’s difference principle. While it would be misguided to forego the efficiency gains offered by the logic of the difference principle, we show that a zero-growth economy faces a trade-off between environmental and social sustainability. We argue that a firm limit on income inequalities represents a plausible normative response to this trade-off.
As to emission rights, the conventional wisdom both in the normative literature on emission rights and in the policy literature on carbon pricing suggests that emissions are peripheral from the perspective of justice, and that it does not matter who reduces their emissions. Contrary to this position, we argue that since emissions are akin to a ‘social primary bad’, those individuals with a larger ability to reduce their emissions, i.e. high emitters, have a stronger moral obligation to reduce their emissions. This obligation, we suggest, should be sensitive to various roles individuals play as consumers, as professionals, and as potential parents.
The paper closes with a brief section on what policies would be suitable to implement these normative requirements in practice.
Bio:
Peter Dietsch is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Victoria. His research focuses on issues of economic ethics, notably on tax justice, normative dimensions of monetary policy, and on income inequalities. In addition to numerous articles in academic journals as well as public media, Dietsch is the author of Catching Capital – The Ethics of Tax Competition (Oxford University Press, 2015), co-author of Do Central Banks Serve the People? (Polity Press, 2018), and co-editor of Global Tax Governance – What is Wrong with It and How to Fix It (ECPR Press, 2016).
