Equality Efficiency
Arthur Okun argues that a clear line must be drawn between dollars and rights. At the heart of his argument is that there is an inherent conflict between the two in a capitalist democracy, and politicians can only resolve this conflict through "The Big Tradeoff." With respect to rights, Okun notes that they are fundamentally different from dollars in that they are inalienable and equally distributed, and that as such they cannot be bought and sold, nor distributed in any other manner. Rights, therefore, must be held outside the market, otherwise they will have a price and lose their inalienability. Dollars are different because they are not inalienable, and they can be traded or used as incentive. He thus argues that they two are fundamentally distinct from one another, and must be held separate as a result. There can be no blending of the two, or rights will no longer have the same meaning in society.
Okun believes that dollars often transgress on rights. He views the conflict between the two arising from a system where everybody has the same rights, but where economic outcomes are dramatically different. He sees uneven economic outcomes as representing "uneasy compromises rather than fundamental inconsistencies." This makes the study of economic outcomes under equal rights to be an economic one, since it very specifically involves making tradeoffs where the conflict exists. It is here that Okun sees dollars as transgressing over rights. One example that he cites is within the
Theoretically, everybody has the same rights under the law, but those with the money can exert greater influence over the implementation of the law, and that gives them "more" rights than those without money. Thus, dollars transgress upon rights. Okun sees the legal system as being one of the most important areas where the rights afforded to all Americans by
law are expressed differently to different socioeconomic classes. A similar situation would be the funding of
public schools through property taxes, something that inherently means wealthier areas will have better-funded schools than areas with a low property tax base.
Okun's view that dollars sometimes infringe on rights is accurate, and there are many more examples that can be cited. The underlying principle is that when a public good that is supposedly a right of all Americans is subject to market forces -- be they property values, legal fees or something else -- then dollars are put in a
position to infringe on the rights of those who do not have the same amount of dollars. His assertion that "a clear line must be drawn between dollars and rights" is more of a
personal opinion that he holds. Each
democratic society must choose for itself what tradeoffs are appropriate. This,…
