Thursday, April 11, 2013

Own or Be Owned, VI: Principles of Economic Justice


The theory of binary economics as a system for optimal and sustainable production and consumption of marketable goods and services is underpinned by three interdependent principles of economic justice:
Participative Justice, the input principle, which demands as a fundamental human right, equal opportunity for every person to contribute to the production of society's marketable wealth both as an economic worker and as an owner of productive assets.

Distributive Justice, the outtake principle which holds that the contribution of labor to the economic process should be compensated at the market-determined rate (or "just wage") for each particular type of human contribution to the production of marketable wealth. This principle dictates that the contribution of capital should be compensated by the "just profit" generated by the project or enterprise. (Profit is determined by the market-based rental value of contributed capital assets, or by the gross revenues resulting from market-determined "just prices" less the market-based cost of all factors of production, including labor.)

Economic Harmony, the feedback principle that detects systemic imbalances and economic injustices and balances and then acts to restore justice in participation (the production side of the economic equation) and justice in distribution of earnings (the consumption side of the economic equation) for any market-based economy at the enterprise or "micro" level as well as within the economic system as a whole or "macro" level.

Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler referred to “Economic Harmony” as the "principle of limitation."  This was aimed at limiting the evils of concentrated economic power, greed, corruption and exploitation of those with limited or no power, as has been the case under both monopoly capitalism as well as under communism and socialism.

Others call this balancing principle "Social Justice," as it calls for organizing sufficient people power and leadership power in solidarity to achieve the restructuring of the economic system to restore participative and distributive justice.

For more on the subject, check out the website of theCenter for Economic and Social Justice.

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