Well-Being Freedom and The Possibility of Public-Provision Unit in Global Context

The purpose of this paper is, first, to investigate the interconnections of substantive freedoms, which are indispensable for every individual to ���lead the kind of lives they have reason to value��� (Sen, 1999b, p.10,18), and which have legitimate and ethical reasons to be publicly secured, second, to investigate a conception of public-provision unit that embodies ���the right to well-being freedom���, and a conception of decision-making unit that corresponds to it, based on the perspective of Sen���s capability theory and its extension, comparing with that of Rawls��� Theory of Justice and A Law of People. If we intend to construct such a public-provision unit, which conducts redistribution as a whole, and which receives every individual who cannot belong to any fixed local group, what kind of a body should we assume as a public-provision unit? And further, what kind of a body should we assume as a decision-making unit, which is responsible for deciding or revising the basic conceptions of public provision unit?

Paying for Higher Education: Are Top-Up Fees Fair?

This paper considers four institutional models for funding higher education in the light of principles of fairness and meritocracy, with particular reference to the debate in the UK over ���top-up fees���. It concludes that, under certain plausible but unproven assumptions, the model the UK government has adopted is fairer and more meritocratic than alternatives, including, surprisingly, the Graduate Tax.

An Egalitarian Argument in Favour of Free Access to Healthcare and Rationing

La pense��e e��galitariste a traditionnellement promu l���ide��al d���un syste��me de sante�� universel, gratuit et accessible a�� tous les membres de la socie��te��. J���appuie cette position en re��pliquant tout d���abord a�� la critique qui pre��tend que les riches tireraient plus d���avantages que les pauvres de la gratuite�� du syste��me de sante��. J���ouvre ensuite la re��flexion sur ce qui me semble e��tre un enjeu crucial pour l���avenir des syste��mes modernes de sante�� : le rationnement de l���offre. Cette ide��e ne plai��t ge��ne��ralement pas a�� la population, aux de��cideurs politiques et a�� de nombreux e��galitaristes. Je conside��re pourtant que les principaux arguments invoque��s contre le rationnement sont incohe��rents ou faussement e��galitaristes. La gratuite�� des services de sante�� n���est pas incompatible avec la limitation de l���offre publique.

���Bringing the Middle Classes Back In��� An Egalitarian Case for (Truly) Universal Public Services

Some egalitarians argue against public services that are free for all, on the grounds that free access appears to primarily benefit the middle classes. I advocate, instead, the inclusion of the middle classes in public services, arguing that only truly universal intake of public services prevents the inegalitarian effects of economic segregation. Such universal participation in public services is achieved, partly, through subsidies for, and regulation of, privately produced services.

L���acce��s gratuit a�� l���eau potable be��ne��ficie-t-il ne��cessairement au plus de��favorise�� ? Une discussion critique a�� l���aune du cas de la Flandre

This article discusses the 1997 Flemish reform in the domestic water sector (Belgium). It abolished a previously existing social correction of the wastewater charge. Instead, a tax exemption for some disadvantaged categories was introduced. Moreover, water consumers receive 15 m3 of drinking-water per person per year for free. This policy change was assumed to contribute better to social equity. However, the reform led to changes in the drinking water tariffs by the water companies. Furthermore, a study conducted by Van Humbeeck (1998) shows that the distributive impact of the new water regulation is negative. As a matter of fact, the water reform increased the regressivity of the total wastewater and drinking water expenses. The Flemish example shows that ex ante evaluation of any reform of public services is a prerequisite for more social justice in the provision of basic goods to underprivileged citizens.

Social Opportunities and Individual Responsibility: The Capability Approach and the Third Way

The fashionable widespreading of Sen���s ideas coincides with a new mood in the shaping of public policies in affluent societies. In Europe indeed, an ���opportunity���-based approach to social security has been implemented through the European Employment Strategy. Public action tends to rely on a procedural concern with individual opportunities or potentialities in the labour market. The underlying ethics is that individuals are then responsible to use these background opportunities in order to lead the kind of life they value most. More broadly, the discourse and practice of the so-called ���Third Way��� shares with the capability approach an appeal for a procedural and enabling depiction of the role of the State. The paper intends to clarify the relation between procedural and opportunity-based approaches to social justice, among them the capability approach, and these new patterns of public action. Our vision goes in the way of a yet renewed, but deeper action of the welfare state, where social agency is envisaged as the very condition of individual agency. Drawing on the various critics of mainstream equality of opportunity, two opposed approaches to responsibility are identified: on the one hand, responsibility is conceived of as i) a ���luck vs. choice��� fixed starting point, ii) a backward-looking conception and iii) a highly individualistic framework. On the other hand, responsibility is envisaged as i) an outcome of public policies rather than a starting point, ii) a forward-looking conception, and iii) a combined institutional-individual framework. We situate here Sen���s capability approach, as well as critics of the luck egalitarianism path. The Third Way rhetoric is assessed against both these perspectives. The issue eventually boils down to an ethical reflection on the articulation of responsibilities, and to a pragmatic and substantial concern for the content of what providing security should mean in practice.

Two approaches to stakeholder identification

The paper presents two fundamentally different ways to approach the identification of stakeholders. The first is the relationship approach. According to this approach, special obligations arise between individuals or groups only if a specific relationship exists between them. The rival approach is the assignment approach. This approach challenges the claim that obligations only arise if a particular relationship exists between the company and a group. It holds that the distribution of responsibilities should be viewed as a set of pragmatic rules derived from general moral considerations. The paper discusses the extent to which these two approaches can justify the main features of the traditional stakeholder model.

A Moral Stakeholder Theory of the Firm

To be a coherent and genuinely alternative conception to the shareholder model, any moral stakeholder theory must meet the following conditions: (1) It must be an ethical theory; (2) It must identify a limited group as stakeholders; (3) The group must be identified on morally relevant grounds; (4) Stakeholder claims must be non-universal; (5) And not held against everyone. A principle for identifying the stakeholder is suggested as a person who has much to lose ��� financially, socially, or psychologically ��� by the failure of the firm. The emerging picture contrasts sharply with the conventional conception of the firm.

What can the Stakeholder Theory Learn from Enron?

Roughly speaking, Enron has done for reflection on corporate governance what AIDS did for research on the immune system. So far, however, virtually all of this reflection on and subsequent reform of governance has come from those with a stake in the success of modern capitalism. This paper identifies a number of governance challenges for critics of capitalism, and in particular for those who urge corporations to voluntarily adopt missions of broader social responsibility and equal treatment for all stakeholder groups. I argue that by generally neglecting the governance relation between shareholders and senior managers, stakeholder theorists have underestimated the way in which shareholder-focused governance can be in the interests of all stakeholder groups. The enemy, if you will, is not capitalists (shareholders), but greedy, corrupt or incompetent managers. A second set of governance challenges for stakeholder theorists concerns their largely untested proposals for governance reforms that would require managers to act in the interests of all stakeholders and not just shareholders; in other words to treat shareholders as just another stakeholder group. I suggest that in such a governance regime it may be almost impossible to hold managers accountable to anyone ��� just as it was when state-owned enterprises were given ���multi-stakeholder��� mandates in the 1960s and 1970s.