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Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like?

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The first part of his book is a fine elucidation of Rawls’s ideas and critical responses to them, which will be familiar to most philosophy undergraduates. It is the second part, though, in which Chandler applies Rawls’s ideas to our current plight, where things get exciting. He derides Jeremy Corbyn’s 2019 manifesto as a wishlist rather than a coherent programme, but his ideas are also a wishlist, albeit underpinned by the Rawlsian conception of justice as fairness, and more committed to the continuation of market economics and capitalism than Corbyn would countenance. That wishlist includes a universal basic income sufficient to eliminate poverty (costing about 25% of GDP) awarded to everyone irrespective of wealth, any other income, or whether they’re employed; tertiary education funded by a mix of free tuition and income-contingent loans, and a transfer of wealth to every citizen when they reach adulthood (a reform historically endorsed by the two Thomases, Paine and Piketty, and similar to Gordon Brown’s child trust fund). Imagine: you are designing a society, but you don't know who you'll be within it - rich or poor, man or woman, gay or straight. What would you want that society to look like?

A magnificent attempt to apply fundamental philosophical principles to the practical building of a better world. Far-reaching and well-evidenced, it offers a new, coherent, principles-based approach to policy design Professor Lord Richard Layard An important point I feel is missing from the book is the fact that these ideas clash with the general foundations of logic used in current political discourse. Although Chandler does a good job of justifying the advantages to each of the specific policies that he advocates, the foundation of Rawls' philosophy goes against the grain of mainstream political thought, which would be a fundamental problem for any party trying to campaign to introduce these ideas. The same issue applies to new ways of thinking about economics, such as modern monetary theory, and is, I expect, a reason that many people get aggravated by the policies of mainstream political parties - there is a misalignment of the foundational assumptions on how society should function. A robust and inspiring case for the philosophy of John Rawls, dragging his theory of justice down from Harvard's ivory towers andA brilliantly eloquent, incredibly insightful reimagining of liberalism, and by such a compelling writer Owen Jones

The first principle of justice is that everyone is entitled to the maximum freedom compatible with a like freedom for everyone else. This includes, for Rawls, freedom of religion, freedom of occupational choice, the right to personal property (but not the right to own the means of production) and personal freedoms such as the right to marry whomever we choose. The second principle comes in two parts. The first part is that we are entitled to fair equality of opportunity; the second is that inequalities can only be justified if they are arranged so that the worst-off are as well off as possible. This ‘worst off best off’ principle has sparked a very substantial literature, with free-marketeers either complaining that it infringes the freedom of the better-off or, more subtly, claiming that laissez-faire capitalism is what makes the worst-off as well off as possible.The writing of utopias has fallen out of fashion, whether because we are jaded, pessimistic about the chances of realising even a fraction of proposals that might be considered utopian, or for some other reason. Free and Equal is a breath of fresh air, therefore. It is unabashedly utopian in its proposals for social, economic, political and educational change. It is nonetheless perfectly realistic in the sense that few or none of Daniel Chandler’s proposals for a better world would be impossible to bring about if we had the gumption to try to do so. A magnificent attempt to apply fundamental philosophical principles to the practical building of a better world. Far-reaching and well-evidenced, it offers a new, coherent, principles-based approach to policy design -- Professor Lord Richard Layard Important... skilful... Free and Equal is a shining example of how a lucid writer can make complex arguments clearer and develop practical proposals to improve society Paschal Donohoe, Irish Times Free and Equal provides that vision. In this hugely ambitious and exhilarating debut, philosopher and economist Daniel Chandler argues that the ideas we need are hiding in plain sight, in the work of the twentieth century's greatest political philosopher, John Rawls. Although they have revolutionised philosophy, his ideas have had little impact on politics - until now. Taking Rawls's humane and egalitarian liberalism as his starting point, Chandler builds a careful and ultimately irresistible case for a progressive agenda that would fundamentally reshape our political and economic institutions. Daniel Chandler's provocative book helps make human possibilities more credible than they have been in our neoliberal age. Free and Equal doubles as an accessible guide to a leading philosophical system, and a call for a new agenda for justice in our time Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World

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