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Economic Welfare and Social Justice*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Nicholas Barr
Nicholas Barr
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science.
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Abstract

Two results are established in this paper. First, economic efficiency is an appropriate aim of policy under most definitions of social justice, including those of libertarians, utilitarians, Rawls and socialists; an increase in efficiency, in other words, can raise social welfare under all these theories of social justice. Second, when production is fixed, no distribution can be socially just unless it is also efficient. Though the weight it is given will vary under different definitions of social justice, economic efficiency is therefore not simply a constituent aim of utilitarianism, but an important goal, whatever one's ideology. Considerations of efficiency are therefore of general relevance to the formulation of social policy.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , April 1985 , pp. 175 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

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