The global order: A case of background injustice? A practice-dependent account

Philosophy and Public Affairs

Volumn 37, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 229-256

  Ronzoni, Miriam ^a  

^a Centre for the Study of Social Justice   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 69249148727     PISSN: 00483915     EISSN: 10884963     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1088-4963.2009.01159.x     Document Type: Article

References (48)

1. I use the term "socioeconomic justice," rather than "distributive justice," because some potential problems of transnational justice concerning socioeconomic issues are not directly of a distributive nature. I am referring, in particular, to relational problems raised by potentially problematic power and bargaining-power relationships. One might say that, whereas distributive justice concerns the allocation of burdens and benefits of social cooperation, socioeconomic justice is a broader category, roughly equivalent to what is more commonly called "social justice," and regards the fundamental terms of social cooperation, which in turn include both distributive and nondistributive factors, such as empowerment, status, decision-making power, and bargaining stands.
2. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 6; henceforth TJ.
3. I have expressed my view on this issue in Miriam Ronzoni, "Two Concepts of the Basic Structure, and their Relevance to Global Justice," Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric 1 (2008): 68-85.
4. For the distinction between a concept and a conception of justice, see TJ, p. 5.
5. Aaron James, "Constructing Justice for Existing Practice: Rawls and the Status Quo," Philosophy & Public Affairs 33 (2005): 281-316; Samuel Freeman, "Distributive Justice and The Law of Peoples," in Rawls's Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia? ed. Rex Martin and David A. Reidy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006); Andrea Sangiovanni, "Global Justice, Reciprocity, and the State," Philosophy & Public Affairs 35 (2007): 3-39; and "Justice and the Priority of Politics to Morality," Journal of Political Philosophy 16 (2008): 137-64; Saladin Meckled- Garcia, "On the Very Idea of Cosmopolitan Justice: Constructivism and International Agency," The Journal of Political Philosophy 16 (2008): 245-71.
6. TJ, p. 6.
7. See G. A. Cohen, "Where the Action Is: On the Site of Distributive Justice," Philosophy & Public Affairs 26 (1997): 3-30. For the debate that Cohen's article contributed to starting, see Andrew Williams, "Incentives, Inequality, and Publicity,"Philosophy&Public Affairs 27 (1998): 225-47; David Estlund, "Liberalism, Equality, and Fraternity in Cohen's Critique of Rawls," Journal of Political Philosophy 6 (1998): 99-112; Thomas W. Pogge "On the Site of Distributive Justice: Reflections on Cohen and Murphy," Philosophy & Public Affairs 29 (2000): 137-69; A. J. Julius, "Basic Structure and the Value of Equality," Philosophy & Public Affairs 31 (2003): 321-55. The list is by no means exhaustive. I shall not enter this debate in this article; for a discussion of some of its aspects, see Miriam Ronzoni, "What Makes a Basic Structure Just?" Res Publica 14 (2008): 203-18.
8. Sangiovanni, "Justice and the Priority of Politics to Morality," p. 138. I take Sangiovanni's view to be a good approximation of the methodology of the whole practice-dependent camp.
9. John Rawls, Collected Papers, ed. Samuel R. Freeman (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 20.
10. Sangiovanni talks about states and not about basic structures, but what he identifies as morally salient in states are their goods-allocating institutions, namely their basic structures.
11. Sangiovanni, "Global Justice, Reciprocity, and the State."
12. Ibid., p. 4, n. 5.
13. Meckled-Garcia, "On the Very Idea of Cosmopolitan Justice."
14. Arash Abizadeh, "Cooperation, Pervasive Impact, and Coercion: On the Scope (not Site) of Distributive Justice," Philosophy & Public Affairs 35 (2007): 318-58, at pp. 3-4.
15. It is not my intention to lump together three different and sophisticated views like those put forward by James, Sangiovanni, and Meckled-Garcia, respectively. The authors differ in their interpretation of the practice-dependence view, and in their normative recipes for the global order. In particular, James is more sympathetic than both Sangiovanni and Meckled-Garcia to the idea that there are global practices that raise problems of distributive and socioeconomic justice, and Sangiovanni more than Meckled-Garcia. However, all three share the view that existing practices with clear structures and systems of rules are the only sources of problems and claims of justice.
16. I will here refer to the version published in Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 257-88; henceforth PL.
17. PL, pp. 265-66.
18. Ibid., emphasis added.
19. With the important exception of Abizadeh, "Cooperation, Pervasive Impact, and Coercion."
20. I am grateful to an Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs for pressing for clarification of my interpretation of these passages.
21. Nozick's narrowest definition of patterned principles identifies as patterned those principles that specify that the distribution of goods in society "is to vary along with some natural dimension" (Anarchy, State, and Utopia [Oxford: Blackwell, 1974], p. 156). However, he often uses the term more broadly, to identify those principles that are not purely historical, but which rather aim at maintaining a certain distribution or a certain system of social relationship within society. The issue whether Rawls's principles of justice are truly patterned principles is contentious. Whereas some Rawlsian and other egalitarian theorists embrace the label and try to defend the moral justifiability of patterned principles, especially with regard to respect for rights (see in particular G. A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995], pp. 19-37; Cheyney C. Ryan, "Yours, Mine and Ours: Property Rights and Individual Liberty," Ethics 87 [1977]: 126-41, at p. 133; Thomas Pogge, Realizing Rawls [Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989], pp. 29-30), others argue that Rawls's principles of justice do not qualify as patterned (Alexander Kaufman, "The Myth of the Patterned Principle: Rawls, Nozick and Entitlements," Polity 36 [2004]: 559-78). I shall remain silent with respect to such a dispute. I only adopt Nozick's jargon for the sake of simplicity, in order to refer to principles of justice that are not purely historical, and do not take a stand as to whether Rawls's principles are patterned in Nozick's narrower sense.
22. Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 161-64
23. PL, p. 265.
24. Ibid., emphasis added. Admittedly, Nozick believes that aminimal state (the "dominant protection agency") may force independent individuals, who insist on protecting their rights by themselves, to join in, thus acquiring monopoly over the legitimate use of force (Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 10-53). However, the right of the minimal state to do so is grounded in its obligations to protect its existing "clients" from random and unjustified punishment; that is, the birth of the state is itself justified within an entirely voluntaristic framework, unlike in the Rawlsian background justice argument.
25. Ibid.
26. The idea that background justice offers a justification for the idea of a basic structure, rather than presupposing its existence, can already be detected in TJ. Here Rawls connects the concept of background justice to that of pure procedural justice, the latter being an account of justice where a just outcome is defined entirely on the basis of being the result of a just procedure. In some cases, such as the allocation of income and wages in a free society, pure procedural justice is the appropriate criterion of justice: We should not judge the outcome (such as wages inequalities), but only the procedure according to which it was generated. However, Rawls remarks, "if the notion of pure procedural justice is to succeed, it is necessary ... to set up ... a system of surrounding institutions" (p. 268, emphasis added).
27. PL, p. 267.
28. Pure procedural justice describes an account of justice whereby what constitutes a just outcome is entirely determined indirectly, that is, by its being the outcome of a procedure that is itself just; there is no independent assessment of the intrinsic justice of the outcome. The justice of the procedure, however, can be characterized by substantial as well as formal aspects (such as the effective bargaining powers of the actors engaging in it), and by its likelihood to produce outcomes of a certain kind, or within a certain range. See TJ, pp. 73-78.
29. An unregulated market with no antitrust and no mechanisms of protection against cartels or monopoly will, for instance, create problems of background justice between enterprises.
30. PL, p. 267.
31. A natural objection at this point would be that claims of the kind "justice requires x" are ambiguous. In particular, authors committed to the view that only perfect duties are duties of justice proper argue that the statement "justice requires x" means that specific agents are under a stringent (perfect) duty to undertake clearly specified courses of action, and clear agents whose rights are violated if the duty is not discharged (see, for instance, Meckled-Garcia, "On the Very Idea of Cosmopolitan Justice: Constructivism and International Agency"). Otherwise, they claim, we are not talking of justice proper, but rather of general moral aspirations. However, in cases of background injustice, it is not perfectly clear what kind of action is required by whom for the new practice to be established. I cannot address this important issue here. However, for the sake of clarity, it is worth noting that Rawls himself does not seem to be committed to the view that only perfect duties are duties of justice, for his natural duty of justice, as "the duty to support and to comply with just institutions that exist and apply to us, [and] to further just arrangements not yet established" (TJ, p. 99), is not a perfect duty under any intelligible account.
32. PL, p. 267.
33. This idea has been most clearly formulated in these terms by Meckled-Garcia in "On the Very Idea of Cosmopolitan Justice: Constructivism and International Agency" see also Freeman, "Distributive Justice and The Law of Peoples," and, for a reconstructive but critical account, Abizadeh, "Cooperation, Pervasive Impact, and Coercion."
34. Meckled-Garcia, "On the Very Idea of Cosmopolitan Justice: Constructivism and International Agency."
35. See in particular Meckled-Garcia, "On the Very Idea of Cosmopolitan Justice."
36. "A problem of choice is well defined only if the alternatives are suitably restricted by natural laws and other constraints, and those deciding already have certain inclinations to choose among them. Without a definite structure of this kind the question posed is indeterminate. For this reason we need have no hesitation in making the choice of the principles of justice presuppose a certain theory of social institutions. Indeed, one cannot avoid assumptions about general facts" (TJ, p. 138).
37. Note how my argument differs from the one put forward by Arash Abizadeh. Abizadeh also explicitly uses the background justice argument to claim that global justice might require that we create new institutions. However, his use of the argument, and the (admittedly brief) normative implications that he draws from it are significantly different from the ones put forward in this article. He contends, in what he calls the "cooperation theory" of justice, that the proper subject of justice is the fundamental terms of social cooperation ("Cooperation, Pervasive Impact, and Coercion," p. 325), and moves on to argue that the cooperation theory supports an instrumentalist justification of the basic structure (p. 327). He then claims, if socioeconomic interaction takes place at the global level, and thus a problem of global background justice arises, then principles of social justice that we so far thought to apply only to national institutions now become global in scope. The view put forward in this article, instead, is grounded on the idea that problems of background justice, and their correspondent solutions, come in different shapes and sizes, and that conceptions of justice are constructed on the basis of these problems. Thus, on my account, the mere fact of global and international interaction does not necessarily give rise to unjust background conditions (this needs to be carefully assessed) and, even if it does, it does not ground the case that our principles of domestic social justice should automatically apply to global institutions.
38. The Law of Peoples, pp. 119-20.
39. An interpretive objection may be raised at this point. Abizadeh claims (pp. 4-5, p. 41) that an appropriate understanding of the concept of basic structure, and of background justice in particular, necessarily entails a rejection of Rawls's approach in The Law of Peoples, for Rawls rejects permanent global redistributive measures of whatever kind. Ad hoc international redistribution, Rawls argues, can be justified in terms of fulfillment of a "duty of assistance" towards "burdened societies" (The Law of Peoples, p. 106). Such redistribution, however, would end as soon as burdened societies achieve the sufficient level of wealth and human capital that allows them to be internally just. On the contrary, an ongoing international distributive scheme would be disrespectful of the diversity of choices that lead different societies to have different levels of wealth. By concentrating on the necessity to respect the choices of different societies, Rawls seems to suggest that such choices are to be considered as relatively autonomous and self-contained. This very point, however, makes the exportation of the concept of background justice into the international arena less problematic, in that it shows Rawls's perplexity towards international patterned principles to be based mainly on empirical reasons. Rawls's examples refer to independent societies that take autonomous decisions, as a result of which their level of wealth ends up differing greatly. Hence, he does not claim that no redistribution ought to apply to the global order because there is no global basic structure, but rather assumes that there is no need for one. Rawls claims that the duty of assistance is a "principle of transition" that ensures "the essentials of political autonomy" (p. 118, emphasis added); it is aimed at raising the world's poor until they are reasonably free from distress and can start work at the establishment of their own just domestic institutions. Rawls assumes, therefore, that there is a cutoff point after which a society can be said to be free from extreme poverty and "a people can stand on its own" (Ibid.). However, if the global order raises issues of background justice, there is no point at which "a people can stand on its own" without a system of just background conditions preserved by international institutions. Hence, if the global order is a case of background justice, this might prove a case of grave political shortsightedness on Rawls's part; for our purposes here, however, this is good news, in that it also shows that the Rawlsian framework offers no principled reason to reject the export of the language of background justice into the global justice debate.
40. Of course, states may have such power and use it to implement uncontroversially unjust policies. Indeed, the current international human rights system is taken as having the protections of individuals against the potentially oppressive power of states as its main point. However, while too much sovereignty may create problems, too little sovereignty may, too, for it deprives states of their problem-solving capacities, especially when it comes to regulating markets and socioeconomic issues more broadly. I do not challenge the need to control and limit the power of the state in this article, but rather only engage with the opposite issue, namely the problems created by the lack of sufficient power of state institutions against problematic transnational trends.
41. I am grateful to Christian Schemmel for suggesting this term.
42. Rawls, Law of Peoples, p. 118.
43. Ngaire Woods and Amrita Narlikar, "Global Governance and the Limits of Accountability: The WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank," International Social Science Journal 53 (2001): 569-83.
44. For a better understanding of the empirical phenomena, see Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, "Globalization, Tax Competition, and the Fiscal Crisis of the Welfare State," Harvard Law Review 113 (2000): 1573-1676.
45. Rawls, Law of Peoples, p. 119.
46. Philipp Genschel, "Globalization, Tax Competition and the Welfare State," Politics & Society 30 (2002): 245-72.
47. Nick Stern, "Cutting Agricultural Subsidies," 〈globalenvision.org/library/6/309〉.
48. I am grateful to an Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs for suggesting this formulation of the problem.