Revista (PDF) - Universidade do Minho

222
DIACRÍTICA
Doesn’t the $80,000 come too late for all those who have been shortchanged
as children?
My short answer is Yes, and as a consequence, I do not wish to
de-emphasize the importance of quality education from an early age.
But I do wish to challenge the widespread notion that high quality
education is enough to assure fair equality of opportunity for the next
generation. To the contrary, an «education-only» strategy merely
assures an increasing gap between the symbol-using class at the top of
every Western society and the vast middle class that will look on with
increasing resentment .
To put the point another way, progressives must confront a large
question left after the fall of state socialism in 1989. For all its other
problems, nationalization of the means of production did confront
the question of intergenerational justice. Rather than allowing rich
parents an unfettered liberty to pass their wealth on to their children,
nationalization promised that all citizens would benefit from the
accumulated labors of preceding generations.
Not that this single advantage offset the many disadvantages
of state socialism. I have never been a Marxist, but have devoted myself
instead to the development of a new liberal approach to the social
problems of modern life. But my kind of neo-liberalism is very different
from the «neo-liberalism» that dominates the newspaper headlines.
Rather than seeking a return to nineteenth century laissez
faire, I have been attempting been to elaborate a concept of social
justice that serves as the philosophical presupposition for the liberal
demands for individual freedom. 4
From this vantage point, the institution of private inheritance
poses obvious problems for a liberal theory of social justice. The liberal’s
celebration of individual freedom and market choice simply does
not carry over to the problem posed by the intergenerational transmission
of wealth. After all, none of us chose our parents. Even if rich
parents can make a legitimate claim to the rewards they won in the
marketplace, their children certainly did nothing similar to obtain
large inheritances. One basic way of reconciling the liberal’s commitment
to freedom with a concern for social justice is to intervene decisively
to equalize the economic playing field as the next generation
begins adult life.
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4 See my Social Justice in the Liberal State, Yale University Press, 1980.