Property-Owning Democracy

Gavin Kerr is a researcher whose interests lie at the intersection of the fields of politics, philosophy, and economics. His work focuses in particular on the relationship between the classical and social liberal traditions, and on the ideas of market democracy and the property-owning democracy.

• Introduction: Three Traditions of Liberal Political Thought1. Classical Liberalism and the Idea of Market Freedom2. Social Liberalism, the Idea of Social Freedom, and the Marginalization of Market Freedom3. Geo-Classical Liberalism and the Unorthodox Conception of Market Freedom4. Justice as Fairness and the Priority of Substantive Opportunity5. Liberal Socialism and the Right to Private Property6. The Market Democratic Property-Owning DemocracyConclusion: The Market Democratic Property-Owning Democracy: A Radical Yet Modest Proposal Whose Time Has (Almost) Come

Gavin Kerr’s new book shows that the movement for a Property Owning Democracy has been searching for something the Geo-Liberal movement found long ago: a pre-distributive mechanism that can create a more equal society by changing individual starting points without all of the distortionary effects of more traditional re-distributive measures. Kerr shows how rent and resource taxes can do just that and argues eloquently that they are needed now more than ever. - Karl Widerquist, Georgetown University"Gavin Kerr’s book makes an outstanding contribution to the growing body of literature that challenges the conventionally assumed incompatibility of substantive egalitarianism with classical liberalism’s and libertarianism’s concern for individual liberty." - Hillel Steiner, University of Manchester and University of Arizona The renewed attention to foundational issues concerning inequality in recent political philosophy is the starting point for Gavin Kerr's scholarly and rigorous defense of the "geoclassical" liberalism of Smith, Ricardo and Henry George. Kerr defends an asset based egalitarianism that stabilizes a classic liberal account of justice by socializing the economic rent that accrues to land. Both classical and "high" liberals will learn a great deal from Kerr's persuasive and detailed argument for his innovative conclusions in a book that deserves to be widely read by political philosophers, economists and political scientists. - Alan Thomas, University of York