Towards a Justification of Social Ownership: A Comparison of the Property Rights, Social Choice and Economic Justice Approach
Author(s)
Stallaerts, Robert
Abstract
Social ownership has always been a permanent source of debate. Most authors now argue that it has shown its inefficiencies and that it would be better off banned. Several privatization strategies are devised that leave no room for social ownership. We will once more review the issue. We will not focus on the traditional approach, but lead the discussion into some new, hopefully fruitful, direction. We will first look into Yugoslav theory and practice in search of a definition of social ownership. At the same time, we will explore how the same basic institution works under different organizational and political arrangements. The Yugoslav category of social ownership has been extensively studied by property rights economics. In the early seventies, Furubotn and Pejovich developed arguments about the intrinsic deficiencies and difficulties of the self-managed economy. Next, we would like to analyze an approach based on welfare economics and social choice theory. Roemer introduces axioms to define social ownership and studies its ethical implications. Finally we will review theories of justice developed by Rawls and Pazner. We will then try to derive a justification for social ownership as a morally desirable institution.
