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Mackinnon: What´s Economic Justice?

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Mackinnon: What´s Economic Justice?
Economic Justice, what is economic justice, and is it truly just? MacKinnon opens this chapter with a conversation between two people who have different views on the subject. One believes that wealthy citizens have a right to keep the wealth that they obtain; while the other believes that it is the responsibility of the wealthy to share their good fortune. This conversation raises the questions; what does society owe its citizens, and what do citizens owe society. One issue that is raised while discussing economic justice is income inequality. MacKinnon addresses this issue by pointing out that according to inequality.org the richest one percent of households now owns 34.3 percent of the nation’s private wealth. (MacKinnon p.283) She also …show more content…
This view holds that the way people obtain their wealth is not the only issue to be considered. Believers in this view think it is also important to look at the end results of the distribution and evaluate its fairness. Radical egalitarians believe that there is no just reason for one person to have greater wealth than another. Still they must pose the question; what should be equal, wealth and income, or satisfaction and welfare. Egalitarians point out that although a person may be wealthy it does not mean that the said person is happy, moreover; many people have little or no monetary wealth but are still quite happy. In other words “money can’t buy happiness”, therefore, we ask the question what is needed for a person to obtain happiness and can it be …show more content…
(MacKinnon p. 291) In order for this idea to work the people involved would have to be free from bias, in other words they must not be able to tip the scales in their favor by knowing their positions in life. Rawls points out that people consider liberty to be particularly important and would therefore choose a society that supported equal rights. However wealth is not as important and therefore it is easier to accept inequality in wealth so long as ones basic needs are met. Rawls believes that people would choose the society that better serves the poorest citizens and provides them with equal opportunity to obtain
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