Inclusion and marginalisation: Economics on social inequalities and minorities

George Kararach ()

Chapter 8 in Liberating Economics From Ideologies and Dystopia, 2025, pp 98-105 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Recent developments in the economic theory of justice recognise that an individual's income and associated levels of participation in the economy are a function of variables beyond and within the individual's control, called circumstances and effort, respectively. Inequality of opportunities refers to those income inequalities due exclusively to differential circumstances. The evidence seems to suggest that an economy of voluntary free market exchanges is inherently inegalitarian (even if economies of a more regimented type may conceivably but somewhat improbably be less so). Striving for social justice can be a ceaseless combat against luck, a striving for the unattainable, sterilised economy that has built-in mechanisms (or, as some like to put it, “framework institutions”) for offsetting the misdeeds of Nature. Stripped of rhetoric, an act of social justice (a) deliberately increases the relative share (though it may unwittingly decrease the absolute share) of the worse-off in total income, and (b) in achieving (a) it redresses part or all of an injustice. Moreover, a too-narrow definition of the market leaves us without a distinction between a private economy, a social economy and a notion of social justice. The neoliberal promise of inclusion and fairness anchored on the free market mechanism may be out of reach for many individuals in today's economy.

Keywords: Inclusion; Marginalisation; Economics; Governance; Social inequalities; Minority rights; Theory of justice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035316175
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