Abstract
What might a caring society’s economic system look like? What would the ethics of care recommend for the ways we conduct and organize economic activity? From the perspective of care, what should we say about capitalism, socialism, and better alternatives? I will try, in this paper to explore these questions.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for instance, Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition, and the tradition she describes.
- 2.
I am grateful to Kelvin White for bringing this book to my attention.
- 3.
The columnist David Brooks frequently reflects this view.
- 4.
Paul Krugman considers who gains from our economic growth, and shows how “since the 1970’s…. wages have stagnated for many” while “C.E.O.’s at the largest companies now make 270 times as much as the average worker, up from 27 times as much in 1980″ (Krugman 2018a). Meanwhile, Patricia Cohen notes, since 2000 “labor’s share of the nation’s income has sunk to the lowest level in decades. In 2000… corporations pulled in 8.3 percent of the nation’s total income in the form of profits; wages and salaries across the entire work force accounted for roughly 66 percent. Now, the jobless rate is again…below 4 percent. But corporate profits account for 13.2 percent of the nation’s income. Workers’ compensation has fallen to 62 percent.” (Cohen 2018).
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Held, V. (2021). Care Ethics and the Economy. In: Braga, J., Santiago de Carvalho, M. (eds) Philosophy of Care. Advancing Global Bioethics, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75478-5_5
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