Can liberal egalitarians protect the occupational freedom of the economically talented?

Mazor, Joseph (2016) Can liberal egalitarians protect the occupational freedom of the economically talented? Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. pp. 1-23. ISSN 1369-8230

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Abstract

This article considers and ultimately rejects three prominent liberal egalitarian strategies for safeguarding the occupational freedom of the economically talented. First, Dworkinian concerns regarding the envy of the talented for the less talented are shown to be insufficient to rule out occupationally coercive taxation. Second, Rawlsian arguments about the priority of basic liberties in general and freedom of occupation in particular are shown to be unsuccessful, primarily because Rawls lacks the theoretical resources to protect freedom of occupation as a basic liberty. Finally, concerns about the practical difficulty and moral undesirability of gathering the information necessary to implement occupationally coercive taxation are shown to be insufficient to rule out such taxation. The aim of the article is not to lead liberal egalitarians to reject freedom of occupation. Rather, the aim is to highlight the difficulties in protecting freedom of occupation and to motivate work on alternative liberal egalitarian strategies for safeguarding this important economic liberty. At the end of the article, a hypothesis is put forward for why occupationally coercive taxation should be rejected that appeals to the prohibition on using people as means.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fcri20/current
Additional Information:	© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Divisions:	Government
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) J Political Science > JC Political theory
Date Deposited:	08 Dec 2016 11:19
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 01:16
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/68560

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