Urs Marti

Social Rights in a Global Economy

The issue of global justice in the socioeconomic sphere refers to the question of whether or not the global legal order can be regarded as fair. Economic globalization has found its complement in juridical globalization, which confirms the traditional hierarchy of rights. If international organizations can define new legal norms, which are obliging for nation-states and can effectively be enforced, the implementation is far more successful in the case of rights protecting private property and the freedom of contract than in the case of rights promoting the freedom of action of those excluded from economic power. Which arguments allow either justifying or criticising this asymmetry? According to conservative theories, distributive justice cannot apply to an economic order based on the market, and individuals are entitled to rights mainly as market actors. However, radical theories advocate rights, that enable their bearers to resist economic and social coercion.

Rousseau und die Krise der repräsentativen Demokratie

Konnten Wahlen etwas verandern, waren sie langst verboten, so lautet eine pragnante Kritik der reprasentativen Demokratie. Zu ihrer Bekraftigung wird Rousseau zitiert: Das englische Volk ist nur wahrend der Wahl der Parlamentsmitglieder frei; sind diese gewahlt, ist es Sklave, ist es nichts (OC III: 430; CS III 15). Werden heute Krisen der reprasentativen oder liberalen Demokratie diagnostiziert und Forderungen nach mehr direkter oder radikaler Demokratie erhoben, liegt die Ruckbesinnung auf Rousseaus Werk nahe.

Democracy in the Age of Global Markets

Contemporary controversies about the content and aim of democracy concern the question of whether the right and the capacity to shape our destinies require only the control and limitation of state power or, in addition, a significant control and limitation of economic power. According to the classical liberal conception, the main function of constitutional constraints is to protect the people from arbitrary exertion of state power. Carrying on the classical conception, neo-liberal theories tend to interpret democracy as market democracy, and thus largely identify the citoyen with the consumer, their bottom line going something like this: Rule by the people is advanced through consumer’s choice. Viewed in this light, global democratic institutions combined with strong legal regulation of the global economy would be damaging to market democracy, which can only function within a system of competition between nations. In opposition to this neoliberal conception, which usually neglects the difference between private and political preferences of individuals, I maintain that strong supranational institutions exerting democratic control of economic forces prove to be perfectly sound and coherent if we employ a more comprehensive conception of autonomy, a doctrine that puts stronger emphasis on the positive dimensions of freedom.

Introduction to Social Rights on Global and National Levels

Calls for a more just international economic order are on nearly everyone’s lips today and there are probably not many people who are honestly convinced that the existing order is beyond suspicion. The globalized economy is criticised as unjust mainly on account of its social effects, that is to say, in the name of social justice. The question whether social justice can be achieved in a globalized world is still disputed in philosophical debates, however, while the definition of its adequate criteria gives rise to far-reaching controversies. As Peter Koller calls to mind, the idea of justice tends to a successive widening of its scope. In its original understanding, the concept applies to specific types of human action, such as the distribution of common goods, the performance of exchanges, and the correction of wrongdoings. In the course of modern history, it has been extended to more complex social arrangements, such as political organisations, social institutions, and legal practices. Around the turn of the twentieth century, it became common to talk about “social justice” in relation to entire societal orders. Currently, there is a further widening of the idea in regard to the global order, i.e., the growing discussion on “international and global justice”. While this expansion of the idea of justice reflects the need for adapting our common moral standards to an ongoing process of social change, it seems, however, to result in a loss of its clarity.