Just Wages in Which Markets?

The Embeddedness of Markets and the Very Idea of an Unjust Wage

Authors

  • Lisa Herzog Hochschule für Politik, Germany

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23941/ejpe.v11i2.331

Keywords:

markets, wages, deset, discrimination

Abstract

Joseph Heath argues that we should reject the idea of a ‘just wage’ because market prices are supposed to signal scarcities and thereby to promote overall efficiency, rather than reward contributions. This argument overlooks the degree to which markets are institutionally, socially, and culturally embedded. Their outcomes are hardly ever ‘pure’ market outcomes, but the result of complex interactions of economic and other factors, including various forms of power. Instead of rejecting moral intuitions about wage justice as misguided, we can often understand them as pointing towards questions about the embeddedness of markets, or lack thereof. At least in some cases, changes in the framework of markets can both increase efficiency (or at least not reduce it) and get us closer to conventional notions of fair wages, e.g. when gender discrimination is reduced. Thus, while an abstract notion of a ‘just wage’ remains problematic, we can and should recognize that some wages are unjust

Author Biography

Lisa Herzog, Hochschule für Politik, Germany

Lisa Herzog is Professor of Political Philosophy and Theory at the School of Public Policy at the Technical University of Munich. She currently works on the ethical life of organizations, democracy in the firm, and political epistemology. Her most recent monograph is titled Reclaiming the System. Moral Responsibility, Divided Labour, and the Role of Organizations in Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

Downloads

Published

2018-09-19

How to Cite

Herzog, L. (2018). Just Wages in Which Markets? The Embeddedness of Markets and the Very Idea of an Unjust Wage. Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 11(2), 105–123. https://doi.org/10.23941/ejpe.v11i2.331