财产所有的民主制:福利国家替代方案之思考

Property-Owning Democracy:An Alternative of Welfare State

福利国家是资本主义"效率"与"分配正义"间矛盾的集中体现。福利依赖导致了个体独立性的缺失,再分配手段又侵犯了公民的经济自由。财产所有的民主制是西方知识界探寻替代福利国家的方案之一,以广泛分布资本、培养独立负责的公民为特征。左右两翼理论家都认可该理论的价值。右翼政治家撒切尔承诺公民厚版本的经济自由,依赖不受限制的市场来分散产权。左翼理论者罗尔斯将生产资料的所有权排除出公民的基本自由,通过正义原则的规导,在社会基本结构层面广泛地分布资本,减小公民参与市场竞争的外在差异。通过对比,罗尔斯的财产所有的民主制能够建立起公民展开互惠合作的社会政治经济安排,为解决资本主义危机,探寻福利国家替代方案提供有益参考。

The tension between efficiency and distributive justice is the main problem of welfare state capitalism. Welfare policies damage the independency of people and the basic economic liberties of citizens. The property-owning democracy is one of the alternatives of welfare state, which argued for a progressive and democratic reform to improve the social-economic statues of working-class. And a lot of politicians and philosophersr think property-owning democracy could be the most suitable social system of their theories. Margaret Thatcher has taken a series of policy reforms, deregulation, free market and privatization, to enable widespread ownership of productive property. But these policies have caused huge gap between the rich and the poor in the UK. At the same time, John Rawls argued the property-owning democracy is one of the most compatible social systems with the principles of justice, which could realize in the basic institutions the idea of society as a fair system of cooperation between citizens regarded as free and equal through dispersing the ownership of wealth and capital. After comparing the two versions of property-owning democracy, the Rawls＇ way could provide positive value to solve the problem of welfare state capitalism.