Liberalism and the Socialist Needs Principle

Authors

  • Fernando Lizárraga Instituto Patagónico de Estudios en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales - Universidad Nacional del Comahue; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0575-3784

Keywords:

Liberalism, Needs, Egalitarianism, Socialism, Social Minimum

Abstract

The Liberal tradition has generally been reluctant to address the problem of needs as a component of the doctrine’s core. However, contemporary versions of Egalitarian Liberalism, particularly that of John Rawls, have managed to assume the priority of needs satisfaction as a means leading to full citizenship. In the following pages, I will examine (1) how the Needs Principle, characteristic of the Socialist tradition, appears in Rawls’s theory and his conception of Marxian communism; (2) the function of the social minimum and the just value of political liberties in Rawlsian theory to secure the material means guaranteeing the development of free and equal citizens; and (3) the inclusion of a precedent principle to the principle of equal liberties in which the priority of needs satisfaction for the exercise of maximum equal liberty is made explicit. Thus, I will show how, in Rawls’s egalitarian liberalism, a shift takes place in the idea of needs from the adjacencies toward the core of the liberal conception.

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References

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Published

2024-12-30

How to Cite

Lizárraga, F. (2024). Liberalism and the Socialist Needs Principle. Revista Pilquen. Sección Ciencias Sociales, 27(4), 1–22. Retrieved from http://170.210.83.53/index.php/Sociales/article/view/5634

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