Frontiers of Socioeconomic Justice

MA-level seminar (PT-MA-2, PT-MA-5a, PT-MA-5c, PT-MA-7, PW-MA-2a, PW-MA-3a, PW-MA-4a, SOZ-MA-8, SOZ-MA-5, SOZ10-BA-SP, SOZ-BA-SP, PW-BA-SP)

This seminar will survey contemporary normative theories of justice in economic relationships and organization. The years since the 2008 crisis have brought a flurry of creative thinking about socioeconomic justice, opening up a variety of new and exciting domains in normative theorizing. After reviewing core statements by John Rawls, Robert Nozick, GA Cohen, Iris Young, Thomas Piketty, and others, we will look at innovations that push beyond conventional paradigms of distributive justice, such as the idea of a universal basic income, the ethics of debt, central banking as a problem for justice, corporations as “political” entities, and the right to strike.