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When is economic inequality justified?

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  • Prasad, Ajnesh

Abstract

In the last decade, scholars in the field of organization and management studies have expressed much interest in responding to economic inequality–a phenomenon that led to what some commentators label the crisis of capitalism. While engagements with this topic offered important insights into how organizations are implicated in the propagation of economic inequality, researchers have not yet sufficiently considered the broader, though equally as pertinent, normative question: When is economic inequality justified? This article uses John Rawls’ theory of justice to respond to this question and contends that Rawls provides the philosophical foundation from which to consider the conditions under which economic inequality could be considered fair and just. To animate its conceptual ideas, I present shared capitalism as one form of arranging compensatory systems in contemporary labor relations that would maintain economic inequality, though in a way that would be consistent with Rawls’ conception of justice.

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  • Prasad, Ajnesh, 2018. "When is economic inequality justified?," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 61(6), pages 855-862.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:61:y:2018:i:6:p:855-862
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2018.07.009
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Masoud Shadnam & Andrey Bykov & Ajnesh Prasad, 2021. "Opening Constructive Dialogues Between Business Ethics Research and the Sociology of Morality: Introduction to the Thematic Symposium," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(2), pages 201-211, May.
    2. Ateeq A. Rauf & Ajnesh Prasad, 2020. "Temporal Spaces of Egalitarianism: The Ethical Negation of Economic Inequality in an Ephemeral Religious Organization," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 699-718, March.

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