Socioeconomic Rights and American Beliefs

From this comparison of my conception of socioeconomic rights and various norms of distributive justice, two salient points emerge. First, we have in effect arrived at an altered rationale for this con-

ception: namely, consistency with the most rigorous generally applicable form of earning such rights. Persons who exert the relevant sorts of effort to produce the resources required to fulfill basic material needs will, quid pro quo, be entitled to adequate sustaining resources. For those few who are unable, or in the case of children for whom society considers such contributions premature, need alone will entitle persons to benefits.

Second, we have seen that these rights rest on criteria compatible with Americans' beliefs about distributive justice in the social and political domains, in which other people are viewed as family members or fellow citizens. Socioeconomic rights in effect link these two domains, and such linkage may be long overdue given the demise of the family as a self-sustaining economic institution. In the economic domain, where Americans typically apply investment, results, ascription, and differentiating procedures, my proposal for socioeconomic rights would create difficulties were it to include a wide range of nonessential material goods (yachts, for instance). But since these socioeconomic rights extend only to those material goods that support basic needs, they do not threaten marketplace norms. Further, an investments approach meshes with the work-ethic principle of effort and reward.

This conception of socioeconomic rights earned through a specific type of exertion might well be unnecessarily stringent for other cultures. The United Kingdom follows a citizens' rights notion that until the Thatcher government was applied so liberally in the area of medical care as to approximate a human rights conception. It is doubtful that such a practice would be supported in the United States. But in the process of moderating politically dangerous enthusiasm for meeting human needs, we must avoid as well the terrors of the workhouse that might befall an exertion-oriented conception of socioeconomic rights.^[47] I will devote attention to this problem in later chapters. For the moment let us turn to the consequences this conception of socioeconomic rights holds for related values.