Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T02:12:53.410Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public Goods and Social Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2020

Margaret Kohn Open the ORCID record for Margaret Kohn [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why should the state provide public goods? I explore this question by focusing on the example of public parks. It examines the three most influential approaches to public goods (the market failures, the normative, and the democratic) and concludes that they fail to explain why parks should be public. I propose an alternative that I call solidarism, a social justice-based approach that provides a response to liberal arguments about the neutrality of the state. Solidarism emphasizes that modernity gives rise to growing levels of interdependence that generate benefits and burdens that are not shared fairly. Public goods as such are a way of compensating for the negative externalities of urbanization and industrialization. Left libertarians argue that such compensation should exclusively take the form of individual benefits. I challenge this view and provide three reasons for building public infrastructure that is shared among people who live together in a physical space: solidarity, decommodification, and politics. Exploring the publicness of parks provides a window into the broader question about the limits of the market and the importance of public space for democracy.

Type
Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 2020 , pp. 1104 - 1117
Copyright
© American Political Science Association 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, Jeffrey. 2006. The Civil Sphere. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195162509.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth S. 1999. “What Is the Point of Equality?” Ethics 109(2): 287–337.10.1086/233897CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle. 1941. Ed. McKeon, Richard. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Peter. 1990. The Politics of Social Solidarity: Class Bases of the European Welfare State, 1875–1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511586378CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banting, Keith G. and Kymlicka, Will, eds. 2017. The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198795452.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauböck, Rainer and Scholten, Peter. 2016. “Introduction to the Special Issue:‘Solidarity in Diverse Societies: Beyond Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Welfare Chauvinism.’” Comparative Migration Studies 4(1): 1–7.10.1186/s40878-016-0025-zCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beerbohm, Eric. 2016. “The Free Provider Problem: Private Provision of Public Responsibilities.” Philanthropy and Democratic Societies: 207–25. (https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/beerbohm/files/07_beerbohm_free_provider_problem.pdf).Google Scholar
Berman, Marc G., Jonides, John, and Kaplan, Stephen. 2008. “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature.” Psychological Science 19(12): 1207–12.10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02225.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biebricher, Thomas. 2019. The Political Theory of Neoliberalism. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Blais, Marie-Claude. 2007. La solidarité: Histoire d’une idée. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Bouglé, Célestin Charles Alfred. 2010. Le Solidarisme. Charleston: Nabu Press.Google Scholar
Bourgeois, Léon. 2013. Solidarité. Paris: Hachette Livre BNF.Google Scholar
Bratman, Gregory N., Daily, Gretchen C., Levy, Benjamin J., and Gross, James J.. 2015. “The Benefits of Nature Experience: Improved Affect and Cognition.” Landscape and Urban Planning 138: 41–50.10.1016/j.landurbplan.2015.02.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brighouse, Harry. 1995. “Neutrality, Publicity, and State Funding of the Arts.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 24(1): 35–63.10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00021.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 2015. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, James M. and Musgrave, Richard A.. 1999. Public Finance and Public Choice: Two Contrasting Visions of the State. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/5688.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlton, Jim. 2016. “City Parks Become Privatization Battlegrounds.” Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 12, 2018 (http://www.wsj.com/articles/city-parks-become-privatization-battlegrounds-1473448450).Google Scholar
Carr, David and Hurka, Thomas. 1995. “Perfectionism.” Philosophical Quarterly 45(178): 115.10.2307/2219860CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Claassen, Rutger. 2013. “Public Goods, Mutual Benefits, and Majority Rule.” Journal of Social Philosophy 44(3): 270–90.10.1111/josp.12031CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Gerald Allan. 1995. Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511521270CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Gerald Allan. 2000. “If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich.” Journal of Ethics 4(1–2): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 2017. “A Democratic Sensibility Shaped Central Park, a Truly Great Public Good.” Boston Review. Retrieved July 16, 2019 (http://bostonreview.net/forum/losing-and-gaining-public-goods/joshua-cohen-beautiful-public-good).Google ScholarPubMed
Davis, Mike and Morrow, Robert. 2006. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. 1 edition. London: Verso.Google Scholar
De Jongh, Maurits. 2019. “The Primacy of Public Goods.” Doctoral thesis. Paris: Sciences Po.Google Scholar
Desai, Maghnad. 2003. “Public Goods: A Historical Perspective.” In Providing Public Goods: Managing Globalization, ed. Kaul, Inge, Conceição, Pedro, Katell, Le Goulven, and Mendoza, Ronald U., 63–77. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0195157400.003.0003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durkheim, Emile. 1960. The Division of Labor in Society. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1985. A Matter of Principle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ege, Ragip and Igersheim, Herrade. 2010. “Rawls’s Justice Theory and Its Relations to the Concept of Merit Goods.” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 17(4): 1001–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emerson, Michael O. and Smiley, Kevin T.. 2018. Market Cities, People Cities: The Shape of Our Urban Future. New York: New York University Press.10.18574/nyu/9781479856794.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epple, Dennis and Romano, Richard E.. 1996. “Public Provision of Private Goods.” Journal of Political Economy 104(1): 57–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fabre, Cécile. 2000. Social Rights Under the Constitution: Government and the Decent Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0198296754.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinberg, Joel. 1994. “Not with My Tax Money: The Problem of Justifying Government Subsidies for the Arts.” Public Affairs Quarterly 8(2): 101–23.Google Scholar
Ferdman, Avigail. 2017. “Why the Intrinsic Value of Public Goods Matters.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 21(5): 1–16.Google Scholar
Fouillée, Alfred. 1908. Morale des Idées-Forces. Paris: F. Alcan.Google Scholar
Franken, Leni. 2016. “John Rawls: Liberal Neutrality and Subsidizing Art.” In Liberal Neutrality and State Support for Religion, 53–59. (http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-319-28944-1_6).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galston, William A. 2010. “Realism in Political Theory.” European Journal of Political Theory 9(4): 385–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelissen, John. 2000. “Popular Support for Institutionalised Solidarity: A Comparison between European Welfare States.” International Journal of Social Welfare 9(4): 285–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1985. The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter. 2017. “The Political Sources of Social Solidarity.” In The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies, ed. Kymlicka, Will and Banting, Keith G., 201–32. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198795452.003.0008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrington, James. 1992. The Commonwealth of Oceana and A System of Politics. ed. Pocock, J. G. A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139137126CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartig, Terry, Mitchell, Richard, Vries, Sjerp de, and Frumkin, Howard. 2014. “Nature and Health.” Annual Review of Public Health 35: 207–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hayward, Clarissa Rile and Swanstrom, Todd, eds. 2011. Justice and the American Metropolis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.10.5749/minnesota/9780816676125.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayward, Jack Ernest S. 1961. “The Official Social Philosophy of the French Third Republic: Léon Bourgeois and Solidarism.” International Review of Social History 6(1): 19–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Joseph. 2011. “Three Normative Models of the Welfare State.” Public Reason 3(2): 13–43 Google Scholar
Holcombe, Randall G. 1997. “A Theory of the Theory of Public Goods.” Review of Austrian Economics 10(1): 1–22.10.1007/BF02538141CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honan, Thomas. 2015. “These Parks Are Our Parks: An Examination of the Privatization of Public Parks in New York City and the Public Trust Doctrine’s Protection.” City University of New York Law Review 18(2): 107–36.Google Scholar
Honig, Bonnie. 2017. Public Things: Democracy in Disrepair. New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Hussain, Waheed. 2018. “Why Should We Care about Competition?” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 21(5): 570–85.Google Scholar
Johnston, Richard, Wright, Matthew, Stuart, Soroka, and Jack, Citrin. 2017. “Diversity and Solidarity: New Evidence from Canada and the US.” In The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies, ed. Kymlicka, Will and Banting, Keith G., 152–76. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 152–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kallhoff, Angela. 2011. Why Democracy Needs Public Goods. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Kallhoff, Angela. 2014. “Why Societies Need Public Goods.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 17(6): 635–51.10.1080/13698230.2014.904539CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, Cindi. 1998. “Whose Nature, Whose Culture? Private Productions of Space and the ‘Preservation’ of Nature.” In Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millenium, ed. Braun, Bruce and Noel, Castree, 46–63. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kingwell, Mark and Turmel, Patrick, eds. 2009. Rites of Way: The Politics and Poetics of Public Space. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.Google Scholar
Klosko, George. 1987. “Presumptive Benefit, Fairness, and Political Obligation.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 16(3): 241–59.Google Scholar
Kohn, Margaret. 2016. The Death and Life of the Urban Commonwealth. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, Roger. 1979. Violent Death in the City: Suicide, Accident, and Murder in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, Henri, Hess, Remi, Deulceux, Sandrine, and Weigand, Gabriele. 2009. Le droit à la ville. Paris: Economica.Google Scholar
Levy, Jacob T. 2017. “What Do We Want in a Provision of Public Good?” Boston Review. Retrieved July 16, 2019 (http://bostonreview.net/forum/losing-and-gaining-public-goods/jacob-t-levy-all-good-things).Google ScholarPubMed
Maller, Cecily, Townsend, M., Pryor, A., Brown, P., St. Leger, L.. 2006. “Healthy Nature Healthy People: ‘Contact with Nature’ as an Upstream Health Promotion Intervention for Populations.” Health Promotion International 21(1): 45–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mawani, Renisa. 2005. “Genealogies of the Land: Aboriginality, Law, and Territory in Vancouver’s Stanley Park.” Social & Legal Studies 14(3): 315–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, David. 1979. Social Justice. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Mills, Charles W. 2005. “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology.” Hypatia 20(3): 165–83.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Don. 2003. The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Murphy, Liam and Nagel, Thomas. 2001. “Taxes, Redistribution, and Public Provision.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 30(1): 53–71.10.1111/j.1088-4963.2001.00053.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Musgrave, Richard A. 1957. “A Multiple Theory of Budget Determination.” Finanzarchiv 17(3): 333–43.Google Scholar
Myers, Phyllis. 1999. Livability at the Ballot Box: State and Local Referenda on Parks, Conservation, and Smarter Growth, Election Day 1998. Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. Retrieved April 23, 2017 (http://www.iandrinstitute.org/docs/Myers-Livability-at-the-Ballot-Box-IRI.pdf).Google Scholar
Olmsted, Frederick Law. 1997. The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted: The Formative Years, 1822–1852. Ed. McLachlin, Charles Capen. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
O’Neill, John. 1992. “The Varieties of Intrinsic Value.” The Monist 75(2): 119–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettigrew, Thomas F. and Tropp, Linda R.. 2005. “Allport’s Intergroup Contact Hypothesis: Its History and Influence.” On the Nature of Prejudice 50: 262–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettigrew, Thomas F. and Tropp, Linda R. 2006. “A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90(5): 751.10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.751CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pettit, Philip. 2013. “Two Republican Traditions.” In Republican Democracy, eds. Niederberger, Andreas and Schink, Philipp, 169–204. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 2007. “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century.” The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture. Scandinavian Political Studies 30(2): 137–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John. 2001. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Ed. Kelly, Erin I.. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 2009. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, Roy and Blackmar, Elizabeth. 1992. The Park and the People: A History of Central Park. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Retrieved May 23, 2017 (https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=sp93FnkRKiIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=people+and+the+park+central+park&ots=7ws29LdQ-j&sig=I0ASxXWRI22CxWv02HO3Gg78vNw).Google Scholar
Roulier, Scott. 2010. “Frederick Law Olmsted Democracy by Design.” New England Journal of Political Science 4(2): 311–42.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean. 1984. A Discourse on Inequality. London: Penguin Classic.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1972. The Government of Poland. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Rybczynski, Witold. 2000. A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Samuelson, Paul A. 1954. “The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure.” Review of Economics and Statistics 36(4): 387–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandel, Michael J. 2013. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. Reprint edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Satz, Debra. 2010. Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, David T. 1995. “Can Intrinsic-Value Theorists Justify Subsidies for Contemporary Art?” Public Affairs Quarterly 9(4): 331–43.Google Scholar
Sekera, June A. 2016. The Public Economy in Crisis: A Call for a New Public Economics. Springer International Publishing. Retrieved July 16, 2019 (https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319404868).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shanahan, Danielle F., Fuller, Richard A., Bush, Robert, Lin, Brenda B., and Gaston, Kevin J.. 2015. “The Health Benefits of Urban Nature: How Much Do We Need?” BioScience 65(5): 476–85.10.1093/biosci/biv032CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sher, George. 1997. Beyond Neutrality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511609169CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shue, Henry. 1996. Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy. 2nd edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sluga, Hans. 2014. Politics and the Search for the Common Good. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Adam. 2012. The Wealth of Nations. Simon & Brown.Google Scholar
Spence 1999 – see p. 22Google Scholar
Spence, Mark David. 1999. Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, William C., Kuo, Frances E., and Depooter, Stephen F.. 2004. “The Fruit of Urban Nature: Vital Neighborhood Spaces.” Environment and Behavior 36(5): 678–700.10.1177/0193841X04264945CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. and Ullmann-Margalit, Edna. 2001. “Solidarity Goods.” Journal of Political Philosophy 9(2): 129–49.10.1111/1467-9760.00121CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surico, John. 2018. A New Leaf: Revitalizing New York’s Aging Parks Infrastructure. New York: Center for an Urban Future.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 2002. “Modern Social Imaginaries.” Public Culture 14(1): 91–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Touffut, Jean-Philippe. 2006. Advancing Public Goods. Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Parijs, Philippe. 1991. “Why Surfers Should Be Fed: The Liberal Case for an Unconditional Basic Income.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 20(2): 101–31.Google Scholar
Van Parijs, Philippe. 1998. Real Freedom for All: What (if Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Van Parijs, Philippe. 2004. “Basic Income: A Simple and Powerful Idea for the Twenty-First Century.” Politics & Society 32(1): 7–39.10.1177/0032329203261095CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1984. Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. Revised edition. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Weinstock, Daniel M. 2011. “How Should Political Philosophers Think of Health?” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 36(4): 424–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, Anthony. 2017. “The Problem with Urban Philanthropy.” CityLab. Retrieved July 15, 2019 (https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/11/the-problem-with-urban-philanthropy/546860/).Google Scholar
Wilson, William H. 1994. The City Beautiful Movement. Revised edition. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Yagatich, William, Galli Robertson, Anya M., and Fisher, Dana R.. 2018. “How Local Environmental Stewardship Diversifies Democracy.” Local Environment 23(4): 431–47.10.1080/13549839.2018.1428187CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1999. “Residential Segregation and Differentiated Citizenship.” Citizenship Studies 3(2): 237–52.10.1080/13621029908420712CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zacka, Bernardo. 2018. “What Is Public Space for? Political Imaginaries and Policy Implications.” In The Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy, ed. Lever, Annabelle and Poama, Andrei, 143–56. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuidervaart, Lambert. 2010. Art in Public: Politics, Economics, and a Democratic Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar