Who will protect minority residents suffering from disparate legal and environmental treatment? Minority citizens have historically been able to enforce their constitutional rights against discriminatory industrial placement through a private right of action under 42 U.S.C. §2000d-1. The Supreme Court decision in Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275 (2001), however, eliminated that private right of… continue reading
Can a single analytical theory reconcile environmental justices’ conflicting paradigms of redistribution, which focuses on socio-economic status, and recognition, which focuses on historical and present institutional racial discrimination? Robert Melchior Figueroa argues that a bivalent conception of environmental justice can unify these two the two conflicting paradigms. This new conception of environmental justice allows us… continue reading
Minority and low-income communities are unable to protect their neighborhoods from disproportionate pollution and industrial sitting under the present environmental justice system based upon the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) civil rights regulations. Strict adherence to the EPA’s civil rights guidelines has resulted in a backlog of complaints that… continue reading
As World War II headed towards a close, Prime Minister John Curtin was concerned that returning soldiers, with memories of the 1930s Depression and the inadequacies of various “Susso” schemes, might decide to use their recently acquired lethal skills and start culling surplus politicians (Kewley 1973, Wilson, Thomson and McMahon 1996, Higgins 1982). H.C. “Nugget”… continue reading
Most discussions of basic income revolve around two clusters of issues: first, the normative implications of basic income for various conceptions of justice, and second, the pragmatic problems of the sustainability of basic income given a range of economic considerations including such things as effects on tax rates, incentives, labor markets, and so on. These… continue reading
Any reader of papers online, or any auditor of earlier panels on this topic cannot have failed to notice a perplexing rancor surfacing from time to time – unusual for a group that broadly shares a commitment to equality, individual freedom and opportunity, and recognizing the importance of self-realization through work. In my effort to… continue reading
What will happen after the introduction of a Basic Income? Will the labor supply diminish? What will be the effect on families, and dependency relationships within families? And what about volunteering, health and education? Will people, being freed from the time-constraining regimes of modern labor markets, eventually find the right balance between work, family and… continue reading
Proponents of income and job guarantee schemes agree on two things. The first is that both the market economy and the modern welfare state have failed many members of society by increasing the precariousness of the labor market, reducing safety nets, and leaving many without the basic resources for a descent living. Poverty, income inequality… continue reading
One of the main aims of the welfare states that were built in post- war Europe was undoubtedly to guarantee basic economic security from the cradle to the grave for the whole population. The pillars upon which these projects rested were full male employment, a patriarchal nuclear family, a system of conditional monetary benefits for… continue reading
Most people who think about such matters have a rudimentary theory of justice, and every worthwhile theory of justice postulates the equality of something, be it income, wealth, opportunity or something else. As I have argued extensively elsewhere (Standing 2002), I believe that what should be equalized in the good society of the 21st century… continue reading
