Efficiency Equality And The Ownership Of Property

First published in 1964, this is a study of the extreme inequalities in the ownership of property, in economies across the globe. Professor Meade examines in depth the economic, demographic and social factors which lead to such inequalities. He considers a wide range of remedial policies – educational development, reformed death duties and capital taxes, demographic policies, trade union action, the socialization of property, the development of a property-owning democracy, the expansion of the welfare state. The argument is expressed in precise analytical terms, but the main exposition is free of mathematics and technical jargon and is designed for the interested layman as well as the economist.

The Myth of Property is the first book-length study to focus directly on the variable and complex structure of ownership. It critically analyzes what it means to own something, and it takes familiar debates about distributive justice and recasts them into discussions of the structure of ownership. The traditional notion of private property assumed by both defenders and opponents of that system is criticized and exposed as a "myth." The book then puts forward a new theory of what it means to own something, one that will be important for any theory of distributive justice. This new approach more adequately reveals the disparate social and individual values that property ownership serves to promote. The study has importance for understanding the reform of capitalist and welfare state systems, as well as the institution of market economies in former socialist states, for the view developed here makes the traditional dichotomy between private ownership capitalism and public ownership socialism obsolete. This new approach to ownership also places egalitarian principles of distributive justice in a new light and challenges critics to clarify aspects of property ownership worth protecting against calls for greater equality. The book closes by showing how defenders of egalitarianism can make use of some of the ideas and values that traditionally made private property appear to be such a pervasive human institution.

This book discusses a set of radical changes in economic institutions and policies designed to show an efficient but socially acceptable third way between Keynesian inflation and monetarist unemployment, and between the inefficiencies of socialist centralisation and the ravages of unrestrained capitalist competition. It consists of a reprint of Efficiency, Equality and the Ownership of Property together with four recent papers including a highly revised version of the well-known tract Agathotopia: The Economics of Partnership.

The demand for equality has been at the heart of the politics of the Left in the twentieth century, but what did theorists and politicians on the British Left mean when they said they were committed to 'equality'? How did they argue for a more egalitarian society? Which policies did they think could best advance their egalitarian ideals? Equality and the British Left provides the first comprehensive answers to these questions. It charts debates about equality from the progressive liberalism and socialism of the early twentieth century to the arrival of the New Left and revisionist social democracy in the 1950s. Along the way, it examines and reassesses the egalitarian political thought of many significant figures in the history of the British Left, including L. T. Hobhouse, R. H. Tawney and Anthony Crosland. This book demonstrates that the British Left has historically been distinguished from its ideological competitors on the Centre and the Right by a commitment to a demanding form of economic egalitarianism. It shows that this egalitarianism has come to be neglected or caricatured by politicians and scholars alike, and is more surprising and sophisticated than is often imagined. Equality and the British Left offers a compelling new perspective on British political thought that will appeal to scholars and students of British history and political theory, and to anyone interested in contemporary debates about progressive politics.

E.P. Anthony, an economist, trader and wealth manager, focuses on the political economy of inequality and the decline of centre-left parties in the developed world in this manifesto. His analysis will especially appeal to readers in the Anglo-Saxon economies of the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand where inequality has increased most rapidly. The manifesto summarizes recent literature on inequality in an accessible way, including the best-selling books by Thomas Piketry, Chrystia Freeland, and Joseph Stiglitz. However, while those books provide great analysis, Anthony proposes solutions, including how to: prevent another global financial crisis; stimulate economic productivity and growth; and take wide-ranging action to reduce inequality.