Notes to Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into the ...

What is the economic case for government involvement to support the social andeconomic participation of people with impairments?An economic analysis of the “disability problem” starts with a view that “nature” endowshumanity with a normal distribution in terms of ability to participate with speed overspace. It posits that individuals who are “much” faster in mind and body than the normare “unimpaired” while those who are “much” slower in mind and body are “impaired”.In itself, this says nothing about social rights or responsibilities and it abstractsimpairment, activity restriction and disability.Conventional economic analysis separates the resource allocation problem from theproduct distribution problem and argues that resources need to be allocated efficientlygiven nature’s endowments and consumer tastes and that if society does not like theresulting distribution of products, it can through its elected politicians redistribute theproduct by means of taxes and subsidies. Many economists have sought to integrate theproblems analytically, but the attempts have been by and large without success. This lackof success has led most economists to focus only on the efficiency question and to at bestignore the distribution problem, and at worst to discount it.Yet policymaking is presumably about social justice, and social justice requires both anefficient allocation of resources and a fair distribution of society’s goods and services i.e.it requires both efficiency and fairness. Many social scientists and philosophers have alsosought to integrate the efficiency and fairness problems, and they too have had littlesuccess in integrating them satisfactorily.The case for special consideration therefore can be analysed from two perspectives - thesocial justice level which focuses more on the distribution of product, and the economiclevel which focuses on the efficiency of resource allocation and resource use. The twoperspectives intersect at many points, yet analytically the two approaches are separable.Social Justice ApproachThe social justice case for special consideration starts from a position which recognisesthat some people are endowed with impairments that make them “unable to chooseamong combinations of occupation and income that people without [impairments] arefree to choose” 2 . In the extreme, some individuals with impairment would die withoutsocial support of one sort or another, and indeed, in some primitive pre-industrialsocieties, people with impairment are allowed to die at childbirth while others are sentinto the wilderness to die. At a lesser extreme, many other individuals with impairmentwould lead lives of extreme deprivation as a result of their restricted choice ofoccupation. On the other hand, many individuals with impairment are unrestricted in theirchoice of occupation.2 Ronal Dworkin, Equality, Luck and Hierarchy, Philosophy & Public Affairs 31.2 (2003) 190-198.11