Law Commons^™

Entender Los Males Económicos Modernos A La Luz De La Doctrina Social Católica, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

In a general sense, St. Thomas Aquinas predicted the paralysis and chaos of the financial and economic systems in America and Europe which occurred in 2008, when he predicted that in a society where unjust exchanges dominate, eventually all exchanges will cease. St. Thomas also points out that although human law cannot prohibit all injustice, society cannot escape the consequences of transgressing the divine law which leaves “nothing unpunished.” Thus, at least part of the explanation for that crisis whose effects remain with us today lies in continuous violations of natural justice by our economic system. Neither one product nor …

Entender Los Males Economómicos Modernos A La Luz De La Doctrina Social Cátolica (Understanding Modern Economic Woes In Light Of Catholic Social Doctrine), Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

En sentido general, Santo Tomás Aquino predijo la parálisis y el caos del sistema financiero económico en Estados Unidos y Europa que ocurrió en 2008, cuando predijo que en una sociedad donde los intercambios injustos dominan, eventualmente todos los intercambios podrán cesar. Santo Tomás también señala que aunque la ley humana no pueda prohibir todas las injusticias, la sociedad no puede escapar de las consecuencias de trasgredir la ley divina que no deja nada en la impunidad. Así, al menos una parte de la explicación para esta crisis cuyos efectos permanecen con nosotros en la actualidad se encuentra en las …

Voice Without Say: Why Capital-Managed Firms Aren’T (Genuinely) Participatory, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Why are most capitalist enterprises of any size organized as authoritarian bureaucracies rather than incorporating genuine employee participation that would give the workers real authority? Even firms with employee participation programs leave virtually all decision-making power in the hands of management. The standard answer is that hierarchy is more economically efficient than any sort of genuine participation, so that participatory firms would be less productive and lose out to more traditional competitors. This answer is indefensible. After surveying the history, legal status, and varieties of employee participation, I examine and reject as question-begging the argument that the rarity of genuine …

Quas Primas And The Economic Ordering Of Society For The Social Reign Of Christ The King; A Third Perspective On The Bainbridge/Sargent Law And Economics Debate, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

How can it be that respected Catholic legal scholars can reach seemingly opposite conclusions about “Law and Economics?” Stephen Bainbridge has argued that both the descriptive and normative aspects of the Law and Economics movement are consistent with and even demanded by the Catholic understanding of the nature of the human person in a fallen world and our historical experience with totalitarian regimes. Mark Sargent, on the other hand, argues that at least the normative, and perhaps aspects of the descriptive, side of Law and Economics are not completely consistent with the nature and purpose of the human being as …

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …

What's Wrong With Exploitation?, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Abstract: Marx thinks that capitalism is exploitative, and that is a major basis for his objections to it. But what's wrong with exploitation, as Marx sees it? (The paper is exegetical in character: my object is to understand what Marx believed,) The received view, held by Norman Geras, G.A. Cohen, and others, is that Marx thought that capitalism was unjust, because in the crudest sense, capitalists robbed labor of property that was rightfully the workers' because the workers and not the capitalists produced it. This view depends on a Labor Theory of Property (LTP), that property rights are based ultimately …

In Defence Of Exploitation, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

The concept of exploitation is thought to be central to Marx's Critique of capitalism. John Roemer, an analytical (then-) Marxist economist now at Yale, attacked this idea in a series of papers and books in the 1970s-1990s, arguing that Marxists should be concerned with inequality rather than exploitation -- with distribution rather than production, precisely the opposite of what Marx urged in The Critique of the Gotha Progam.

This paper expounds and criticizes Roemer's objections and his alternative inequality based theory of exploitation, while accepting some of his criticisms. It may be viewed as a companion paper to my What's …

The Paradox Of Ideology, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A standard problem with the objectivity of social scientific theory in particular is that it is either self-referential, in which case it seems to undermine itself as ideology, or self-excepting, which seem pragmatically self-refuting. Using the example of Marx and his theory of ideology, I show how self-referential theories that include themselves in their scope of explanation can be objective. Ideology may be roughly defined as belief distorted by class interest. I show how Marx thought that natural science was informed by class interest but not therefore necessarily ideology. Capitalists have an interest in understanding the natural world (to a …