Waheed Hussain

Corporations, Profit Maximization And The Personal Sphere

The efficiency argument for profit maximization says that corporations and their managers should maximize profits because this is the course of action that will lead to an ‘economically efficient’ or ‘welfare maximizing’ outcome (see e.g. Jensen 2001, 2002). In this paper, I argue that the fundamental problem with this argument is not that markets in the real world are less than perfect, but rather that the argument does not properly acknowledge the personal sphere. Morality allows each of us a sphere in which we are free to pursue our personal interests, even if these are not optimal from the social point of view. But the efficiency argument does not come to terms with this feature of social life.

Democratic capitalism and respect for the value of freedom

Most theorists believe that when it comes to freedom, no economic system does better than laissez-faire capitalism – the system may have other problems, but as far as freedom is concerned, laissez-faire is as good as it gets. The goal of this paper is to show that this view is mistaken. I begin by criticising two important contemporary conceptions of freedom, the libertarian and the liberal egalitarian conceptions, both of which support the dominant view. I then develop a better alternative, one that I call the social democratic conception of freedom. Using this conception, I go on to show that an economic system that requires firms to have an internal structure that makes decision-making more transparent and responsive to the concerns of workers actually shows greater respect for freedom than laissez-faire capitalism does.

Why should we care about competition

Abstract Most people believe that competitive institutions are morally acceptable, but that there are limits: a friendly competition is one thing; a life or death struggle is another. How should we think about the moral limits on competition? I argue that the limits stem from the value of human sociability, and in particular from the noninstrumental value of a form of social connectedness that I call ‘mutual affirmation.’ I contrast this idea with Rawls’s account of social union and stability. Finally, I show how these ideas provide the basis for a powerful argument in favour of social provisions for public goods: for example, a strong public health care system moderates the stakes in labour market competition, preventing the competition from descending into a life or death struggle.

The Unromantic Rousseauian: Scanlon on Justice, Value Coherence and Freedom *

Scanlon differs from many liberals – Isaiah Berlin, for example – in that he rejects deep value pluralism. He thinks that the requirements of social justice actually cohere with the requirements of other political values. But like many other liberals, Scanlon does not think that value coherence has any implications for the kind of freedom that we should care about in assessing social and political institutions. In this paper, I take issue with Scanlon’s view of the relation between value coherence and freedom. Following Rousseau, I argue that value coherence does in fact contribute to our freedom, and that we should structure our basic institutions so as to increase value coherence and thereby enhance our freedom overall.

The Limits of a Pluralist Commonwealth

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