Research On The Thought Of Distributive Justice In British Classical Political Economic

Starting from ancient Greek philosophy,people have a common understanding of distributive justice: "Everyone should get what they deserve".However,what they deserve and how to realize it has different perspectives.Plato’s and Aristotle’s distributive justice emphasized that people with merit and virtue should be paid proportionally,aiming to pursue a harmonious and orderly political order.Christian doctrine and medieval thoughts include the idea of distributing on demand and according to work,and the idea that the poor should get help from the rich.The social scientists before Grotius have given birth to a state-centered distribution concept,that is,the state has an obligation to help the poor to obtain basic living security.The distributive justice of Hobbes and other modern philosophers affirmed the important role of society and the state on the basis of universally affirming individual rights.In order to further investigate how the country guarantees the realization of personal rights including personal survival right,it is necessary to deepen the research perspective into how to promote the increase of the country’s total wealth and production efficiency.It is in this sense that economists’ understanding of distributive justice is fundamentally different from before.Mercantilism advocated the concept of justice that gains wealth through trade;the physiocrats began to understand the distribution from the field of production and the division of income between different classes based on a more correct understanding of the source of wealth.British classical political economics created a more mature value theory-based distribution theory on the basis of absorbing previous economic thoughts.It also essentially touches on the relevant thinking about whether and how economic agents can get what they deserve.Under this theory,the three classes should get their distributions according to the exchange value of their own factors of production in a fair and free market exchange.However,it is necessary to go deep into economics in order to truly understand the idea of distributive justice in economics.Distribution is an important part of economic operation.And the theory of distribution has occupied an important place since the beginning of the development of economics.The first chapter of “the wealth of Nations” demonstrated the natural order of the distribution of wealth.The core of British classical political economics represented by Smith is that a market economy with natural order characteristics can maximize the growth of national wealth in a freely competitive environment.They went deep into economic production,started their economic studies from the labor production of material wealth,measuring the value in terms of labor time,and they believed the exchange will be fair and equivalent if people exchange according to the exchange value.So the three-factor distribution theory that they insist on is also based on market exchange,and distribution based on factor contribution is actually based on the exchange value of factors in the market.Therefore,we cannot understand the idea of distributive justice in British classical political economics without the perspective of production and exchange.And its distributive justice achieved itself by the justice of exchange.The meaning of their distributive justice is utilitarian,that is,they pursued a method of distribution that can promote the economic development and achieve the greatest increase in national wealth,and on the other hand it also contained the traditional philosophical thought of "everyone gets what they deserve".However,the deserved amount here is measured by the justice of exchange and realized through the market exchange.Therefore,production and exchange are the decisive factors of the realization of distributive justice in British classical political economics.“If distribution could be understood as a basic dimension of economic activity,like production and exchange,this means to open up a broad and comprehensive field of distributive justice for economic ethics.” This is a very important view expressed by Georges Enderle in The Great Dictionary of Economic Ethics(2001),which is also the first important perspective of this thesis to study the distributive justice of British classical political economics.The premise of the distributive justice of British classical political economics is the private property rights,which is our second perspective.John Locke demonstrated the reasonableness and justice of property rights,and David Hume analyzed the equality of private rights and justice.There is no doubt that the market mechanism is the core of Smith’s economic theories,but we also need to pay special attention to the default premise of the market exchange: private property,which is also an important premise of factor allocation.The exchange of elements,contribution measurement and compensation requirements are all based on the private right.In addition,the private property system and the concept of "self-interest" are mutually reinforcing,that is,self-interest is for private,and the private ownership promotes self-interest.It is an important philosophical change when the concept of self-interest gained its moral recognition.In the context of the economic development,Smith eventually defended the public’s pursuit of private interests from the perspective of exchange,and finally separated economics and ethics.It is under the important purpose of maintaining private ownership that the justice of factor distribution through the exchange of justice is established.We also should make some other reflections.The difference in the degree of scarcity of factors will bring about a significant difference to the distribution of factors.The greater the scarcity of elements,the greater the value of it,and the greater distribution it can be obtained.David Ricardo’s land rent theory illustrated this view,but Thomas Piketty believed that this principle has not received enough attention.This essay believes that this is an important reason for the gap between the rich and the poor widened inevitably under the development of the market economy,and it is worth more considerations.The market mechanism defended by British classical political economics includes not only the logic of exchange value and the logic of private ownership,but also the logic of internal and external order required for the operation of the market economy,such as economic freedom,natural order,fairness and justice.Smith believed that the operation of the market economy itself will be guided by an invisible hand to automatically maximize social benefits because of the "natural order" force behind it.This essay elaborates the origin of the "natural order" and the inherent tension in it,that is,the social aspect of human nature.At the same time,we believe that the realization of the "natural order" cannot be achieved without the protection of the legal system and the government intervention.The third perspective is based on the internal and external order required for the operation of the market mechanism.Smith analyzed the construction of the guarantee system for the operation of the market mechanism from multiple perspectives such as morals,law and national policy.For example,Smith’s smallest government does not completely exclude the role of the government.On the contrary,the government needs to take many policy measures to ensure that the market mechanism can freely achieve its "natural order".J.S.Muller had many ideas of happiness and restrictive freedom that we need to analyze again.Rather than merely pursuing self-interest and maximizing social wealth,Mueller emphasized a lot of the spirit of fairness,selflessness,self-sacrifice,and good-neighborliness.Corresponding to this,he also proposed many government intervention policies in order to improve fairness of opportunity and fairness of results,such as education equity,restriction of inheritance,assistance to the poor and public product management of public goods.The above three discussions compose the construction of the distributive justice thought of British classical political economics from the standpoint of affirming that economics itself contains the distributive justice thought and pursues distributive justice.In order to get better understanding of the meaning of distributive justice of British classical political economics,we still require reflections from two dimensions.One dimension comes from the argumentation,justification,reflection and correction of the above three important logics in important theories related to contemporary Western liberalism.It includes the justice theory of right supremacy,which is particularly emphasized by the contemporary western political philosophy on private rights,the development and reflection of new demonstrations of the exchange of justice and market mechanisms by mainstream economics and liberal philosophy,and the important theory of contemporary political philosophy on distribution correction.Although the factions are different,the theoretical views and arguments are also very different,they established theory of justice,with different correction methods and different correction level,basically based on the maintenance of capitalist private property rights and aiming at solving the distribution problems brought about by the operation of the market economy.The study of the distributive justice of British classical political economics also needs a critical reflection from the perspective of Marxist political economy,which is the reflection of the second dimension.Unlike the correctors of Western political philosophy,Marx belongs to the subversive transcendence.He disdained to give corrective guidance to the unfair distribution caused by the market mechanism but hopes to fundamentally solve the problem of distributive injustice.From the perspective of economics,Marx talked about distribution and distributive justice from the relationship between the production,exchange,and distribution.He mainly criticized the justice of exchange and private ownership.In the first critique,Marx pointed out that the exchange justice in British classical political economics is essentially injustice.From the field of exchange to the field of production,the injustice in the production stage was pointed out with the distinction between labor and labor man as a breakthrough.On this basis,it criticized the injustice of the distribution of British classical political economics and the establishment of distributive justice oriented to the liberation of the working class.The second logic is based on the historical materialism and criticism of the fundamental contradiction of the capitalist system.Marx believed that the root of distributive injustice under the capitalist system lies in the capitalist private ownership of the means of production,which determines that the fundamental solution is the subversion of the property of the means of production.In this way,the ultimate goal of the critical study of Marx’s political economics is to establish communism,which points to the all-round and true free development of human beings,and the goal of distributive justice based on this purpose is to achieve every effort and distribute as needed.This is a transcendence of the distributive justice discussed under the current system.Nowadays,we are still in the business society,and the market economy is an important system we adopted.The idea of the distributive justice in British classical political economics has important theoretical implications to us.For example,to pay more attention to the important role of market exchange value in the realization of exchange justice and distributive justice,to attach importance to the improvement of a clear property right system,the cultivation of human morality,and the improvement of the legal system.And we also should realize its limitations,such as,the fairness of market exchange value in an imbalanced state and the widening gap between the rich and the poor caused by private accumulations or the unequal factor status.The theory needs to return to reality.The purpose of the study is not just to demonstrate whether the market mechanism can achieve distributive justice,nor to completely transcend the market mechanism by Marxism theory,but to return to the China’s socialist market economic system.Developing the market economy is the only way to increase productivity,but it will definitely cause a series of problems such as uneven income distribution.The socialist system is China’s fundamental political system.Under the combination of the socialist system and the market economic system,how to solve the problem of the distribution of wealth and income in the reality is a hard problem.This requires us to study and reflect from the British classic political economic theory that demonstrates the superiority of the market mechanism,from the contemporary Western political philosophy thoughts,and from the critique of Marx’s political economics.We believe that the distributive system of the socialist market economy must ensure the socialist nature,make good use of the market mechanism and give play to the incentive mechanism of distribution,and learn from the contemporary Western political philosophy on the correction arrangement of the distribution of market mechanisms.The Marxist philosophy of practice tells us that we cannot understand the issue of socialist fairness and justice only from the field of social production relations,nor do we realize distributive justice in theoretical analysis.Instead,we should combine the laws of economic development to tend to achieve distributive justice in the practice of China’s deepening reform.