This lecture is part of the McMaster Department of Philosophy's Summer School in Capitalism, democratic solidarity, and Institutional design
www.solidaritydesign2019.com
This lecture addresses a fundamental problem for advocates of property-owning democracy. Namely, the apologists for this form of political economy have neither clearly demarcated it from alternative schemes (such as welfare-state capitalism), nor have they been sufficiently clear about the state’s role with respect to this economic system. Does property-owning democracy require the “big state” of traditional redistributive socialism with an extensive sector of public ownership? Is it the “small/smart” state of neo-liberalism, allied to a specific vision of globalization? By examining the role of the state in guaranteeing full employment, democratizing finance, directing public investment, underwriting key markets for essential goods, and the democratic co-opting of all major forms of capitalized institution (the open corporation, charitable trusts, pension funds), this lecture defends the distinctiveness of asset-based egalitarianism as a realistic utopia.