Readings:
Thad Williamson.
“Realizing Property-Owning Democracy: A 20-Year Strategy to Create an
Egalitarian Distribution of Assets in the United States,” Chapter 11 of Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond,
edited by Martin O’Neill and Thad Williamson (Wiley-Blackwell 2014). Group 3
Ingrid Robeyns.
“Care, Gender, and Property-Owning Democracy,” Chapter 8 of Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond,
edited by Martin O’Neill and Thad Williamson (Wiley-Blackwell 2014). Groups 1-2
Something that bothered me last class was Williamson's solution to capital flight in his 20-year strategy. This is an extremely important element of his strategy, because you need the rich to stay so you can draw from their wealth to redistribute. If you have no wealthy within America, how can you redistribute it?
ReplyDeleteThe two solutions offered in class to this problem were to revoke the wealthy person's citizenship if they move their wealth out of the country. This is not really a solution. If you are a rich person, you will still move your capital to another country and attempt to gain citizenship elsewhere. Almost every country would love to have you as a citizen there, and you get to keep your wealth. The only party who really loses on this is America.
The second solution offered is to take away voting rights from the rich so that they cannot move their capital. This is even more of an unacceptable solution. America has always been for the expansion of voting rights, and to pass an Amendment (it would have to be an Amendment, because it is in direct violation to the current Constitution and its Amendments) restricting free people's right to vote would not be the right thing to do, nor would it feasibly be done. There has to be better solutions to fix this problem, otherwise Williamson's whole plan would fall to pieces.