Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Jobs: A job refers to a specific role or position within an organization or profession that an individual performs in exchange for payment. It involves specific tasks, responsibilities, and requirements set by an employer. See also work, labour._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Philippe Van Parijs on Jobs - Dictionary of Arguments
Gaus I 128 Jobs/income/labour/Van Parijs/Gaus/Mack: the core of Van Parijs' argument for treating jobs as assets is that, for a variety of reasons, workers are paid above the market-clearing wage; this constitutes a rent, and should be considered an additional element of their endowment (Van Parijs, 1995(1): 108). >Income Va Parijs, >Income/Hillel Steiner. In our economies a worker's endowment can have a value of X (the income she would receive from her job given a market-clearing wage), but she may receive X+n; the value of n is a rent which Van Parijs counts as a social resource. Now suppose we are in a situation with a market clearing wage: the marginal entrant gets X and so collects no rent, but given uniform pricing all non-marginal entrants collect a surplus - they would work for X-m, but still receive X. Van Parijs, however, explicitly excludes these as rents (1995(1): 264, n35). His complaint, then, is not that many people get more than they require to do their job; Example: it is that if Marge the marginal worker gets more than she requires, there exists some unemployed person Maggie who would take the job at a lower wage than Marge, but Marge has claimed this scare resource and so effectively denies to it Maggie. Van Parijs sees everyone who gets rent n as having claimed a scarce social resource, and so their rent may be taxed away. WilliamsVsVan Parijs: However jobs cannot be considered simply as unalloyed resources to be distributed, but as packages of rights and liabilities (Williams, 2003)(2). Given these liabilities, many do not want a job even if it is offered to them: it does not count as a resource to them since they would not take it at any price because since they don't want to work. It looks as if Van Parijs is exploiting those who work to support those who do not want to: those uninterested in actually doing the job receive a sort of compensation for being excluded from it. Moreover, this is especially odd in a 'libertarian' theory: the benefits of an uncoerced agreement between two free agents employing their labour and property - an employment contract - is said to generate a social resource to which all others have something like an equal claim. 1. Van Parijs, Phillipe (1995) Real Freedom for All: What (If Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? Oxford: Clarendon. 2. Williams, Andrew (2003) 'Resource egalitarianism and the limits to basic income'. In Real Libertarianism Assessed: Political Theory after Van Parijs, ed. Andrew Reeve and Andrew Williams. Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave: Il 1—35. Mack, Eric and Gaus, Gerald F. 2004. „Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism: The Liberty Tradition.“ In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Van Parijs, Philippe Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
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