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| Socialism and Equal Opportunity: John Roemer's Theory of Justice |
| Jia Keqing |
| Academy of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100732, China |
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Abstract John Roemer made many amendments to the exploitation theory by using methods of analysis, model construction and game theory. According to his game theory, one person is supposed to withdraw from his community with per capita property. If his life gets better later, he was exploited in the community before. If his life gets worse, he was the exploiter before. Roemer proposed that people should pay attention to the actual distribution of property but not the exploitation in the production process which was difficult to calculate. Though the relationship of control and dependence in the employment is neglected by Roemer, it is still a serious problem to be solved. Furthermore, game theory depends on the fixation of external factors, but in reality we must consider those variable external factors such as the macroeconomic environment which affects the given community. Roemer’s game theory is effective to the question of the unemployed exploiting the employed, but not effective to those people who totally lost their labor capacity.Realizing that property rights are the source of exploitation, Roemer turned to the study of distributive justice and proposed that equal opportunity is an essential characteristic of socialism. He advised to divide people into different types according to factors that people cannot control. The inequalities inside each type are acceptable and the inequalities between the same percentiles across different types should be eliminated. People making same level but not same amount of efforts will get same incomes. This is the equal opportunity which Roemer meant. However, it is one-sided to define socialism with the term of equal opportunity. Secondly, Roemer’s equal opportunity theory based on different types does not make a distinction between positive and negative effects of certain external factors. Thirdly, no subject is affected by only one single external factor. It is difficult to divide people into different types according to luck and responsibility. This doesn’t mean that Roemer’s work to clarify the responsibility is wrong, but the definition of responsibility must be clear and operational.To fulfill equal opportunity, Roemer designed a stock market socialist model which is committed to balance equality and efficiency. In such a model, public coupons are distributed equally to each adult. People can invest in the stock market with these coupons and get certain profits. These coupons cannot be sold and the government will take them back when the adult passes away. With such arrangements, equal opportunities to share economic profits can be ensured and the inequalities between generations can be avoided. This model is based on the structure of modern stock market, on the experiences of welfare countries and on the lessons of transformation of the former Soviet Union and East European states. It is surely fairer than traditional capitalism and more efficient than traditional socialism. However, Roemer’s model of stock market needs extensive intervention of the government, which costs high and may cause corruption. In addition, the model of stock market socialism aims at equalizing capital incomes but doesn’t attach enough importance to different labor capacities and labor incomes.
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Received: 09 July 2021
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2022, Vol. 52 
