The Solidarity Solution : Principles for a Fair Income Distribution

In this book Kristi A. Olson addresses the question of fair labor income distribution by proposing the solidarity solution, a new test she defines and defends as an answer. She examines existing traditions in analytic philosophy and formal reasoning, including the work of economists Kohn and Varian and philosophers Dworkin and Van Parijs, and creatively applies these thought experiments to distributive philosophy. Building specifically on the envy test, which states that envy-freeness is achieved when no one prefers someone else''s circumstances to their own, she develops her own solidarity solution: fair labor-income bundles must be impersonal envy-free and derived from a relational ideal. She also relates the solidarity solution to concrete problems such as the gender wage gap and taxation.

Kristi A. Olson asks: What is a fair income distribution? She rejects equal income shares: equal pay undercompensates workers in dangerous and onerous jobs. The envy test, which takes both income and work into account, fares better. Yet, a distribution in which no one prefers someone else''s circumstances to her own-as the envy test requires-is unlikely to exist, and even when it does exist, the normative connection between envy and fairness has not been established. After critiquing existing answers, Olson invokes the idea of mutual justifiability: when someone claims that her situation should be improved at someone else''s expense, she must be able to give a reason that cannot be reasonably rejected by a free and equal individual who regards everyone else as the same. To give the answer bite, Olson distinguishes two types of envy. Reasons based on personal envy can be reasonably rejected; reasons based on impersonal envy cannot. Olson then tests the solidarity solution against the theories of Ronald Dworkin, Philippe Van Parijs, and Marc Fleurbaey and applies it directly to the concrete issues of the gender wage gap and taxation. By providing a new approach to problems of fair resource allocation, The Solidarity Solution establishes philosophical discussion as critical to today''s fight to end economic injustice.