Equality, risks and certainty

Equality, risks, and certaintyTeppo Eskelinen

Presentation at ”Social equality” conference, Cape Town

Meaning of equality• Rejecting status-based hierarchies

• Modern society: equality = key value and starting point

• Interpretation:

• Libertarian = negative rights, equality before the law

• Social democratic / socialist: economic inequality needs to be adressed, class hierachies to be abolished

• Is redistribution & other economic policy necessary for equality?

Financial capitalism (1)• Outcome of deregulation, financial innovation, birth of offshore

finance etc.

• Not ”neo-liberal”:

• Particular form of power and governance

• Laissez-faire does not equal financialisation

Financial capitalism (2)• 1

• Relative size of finance to production.

• Relative size to capital gains to salaries.

• 2

• Financial imperatives deciding production decisions.

• Financial imperatives disciplining government consumption,

• 3

• The financial risk society.

• The birth of the speculative economy and its politics (bail-outs etc)

The temporal aspect of justice• Any society: implicit and explicit priority orders in exceptional

situations (who is protected?)

• Financial market:

• Explicit: Risks as commodified uncertainties sold on a (very complex) market

• Implicit: Financial interests and protected, ordinary workers vulnerable

• Financial capitalism:

• 1 Increasing number of ”exceptional situations”, exceptions to explicit rules (”financial crises”)

• 2 Increasingly hierarchial implicit risk allocations

• 3 Overturning the classical justification of capitalism

Theory of justice• Universal vs particular

• Marxist, communitarian etc critiques

• Accepting the critique (at least partially):

• 1 Theory of justice has to use concepts relevant to current society (today financial capitalism)

• 2 Hierarchies seek new forms

Conclusions• Problem: determining what is free and voluntary exchange

• Basic service provision important, but also the method of provision

• Abolishment of hierachies of risk/protection positions