Book Project: Sovereign Customs
Most philosophical scholarship seeks to justify an egalitarian distributive goal for the global trade order without appealing to its particular form, which is a liberal one demanding respect for sovereignty. This is true even of “practice-dependent” approaches, as these only require some order, and then only instrumentally: namely to afford the assurance necessary to obligate particular states to play their part in the cooperative effort to realize that goal. As our trade order is a liberal one, states may not coerce others into opening their markets—instead offering market-access concessions if they wish to secure similar concessions from others—and are permitted to resist liberalization to pursue other national priorities, whether cultural, environmental, or social. As such, most philosophical scholarship fails to recognize that not all of political morality concerns goals--process matters too—and threatens to illegitimate the trade order, licensing Opium-War style violence and condemning resistance to liberalization whenever some minor distributive gain could foreseeably be made thereby.
Perhaps more importantly, most scholarship fails to offer a vision of reform with any political purchase in the real world, as the current order’s standing norms are wholly processual: i.e. they dictate what states may and may not do regardless of the distributive outcome. In addition to the bar on coercion, our current order is oriented towards the World Trade Organization’s two “pillars”, norms that continue to anchor practice even as preferential deals have proliferated because of their seeming similarity to natural-justice prohibitions on discrimination and free-riding (or unfair play) respectively. “Most-favored-nation treatment” (MFN) prohibits states from pursuing policies that explicitly favor some trade partners over others—even those that are poorer. And “reciprocity” obligates states to pay (in kind) for any market-access concessions they receive in full. The latter pillar is detrimental for poorer nations not only because it prevents them from enjoying free (or cheap) access to global markets if they fulfill their supposed obligations, but because it provides an addition reason for wealthy countries to apply maximal bargaining pressure. WTO-style reciprocity makes it seem, in other words, like richer countries ought to not stay their bargaining hand in trade negotiations for fear of allowing poorer countries to “sucker” them.
In my book, then, I take respect for sovereignty seriously, but argue for a processual view that, if adhered to, would have more egalitarian distributive implications. I first make room for such a view by arguing that neither MFN nor WTO-style reciprocity follow from non-discrimination and fair play. Granting the same good better market access when it originates in a poorer country is no more discriminatory than shopping at a struggling local store in preference to a profitable chain. Nor is it necessarily wrong for poorer countries to fail to pay for market-access concessions in full, as, contrary to what is often assumed, unfair play is not a prospect in trade relations. Unfair play is only a danger when access to a good cannot be denied, and even then only when a collective action problem looms because failing to contribute to its production (or consuming the good) burdens others—as in the case of public goods (like national defense) and common-pool resources (like the world’s atmosphere in its role as a carbon sink). Because market-access is the quintessential excludable good, in other words, unfair play cannot be a concern, and an asymmetric order in which poorer countries enjoy greater access to foreign markets need not violate natural justice.
Having militated against MFN and reciprocity as currently understood, I then defend a processual view according to which respect for sovereignty demands that states (as well as coalitions of states) adhere to three additional prohibitions in addition to the bar on coercion: namely a prohibition on exploitation (or leverage of “market power” in inter-state bargaining for unfair advantage), a prohibition on blackmail (which is implied by the permission to resist liberalization only provided some other national priority is at stake), and a prohibition on allowing harms that are foreseen but unintended side-effects from rising above a threshold of moral proportionality. The last of these, which is dictated by the doctrine of double effect familiar from just war theory, protects foreigners who are dependent on existing trade ties from the adverse consequences of a change in trade policy not otherwise prohibited by treaty commitments—say a sudden increase in non-tariff-barriers to allay populist pressures or a de facto increase in tariffs resulting from a preferential deal with a competitor economy. Like the bar on coercion, and indeed free-riding, each of these prohibitions is in the spirit of the liberal view, most famously expressed by Kant, that we ought always to treat one another both always as an end and never as a mere means.
I conclude the book by evaluating the contemporary trade order in light of this more-demanding processual ideal. My primary argument is that, given how often the prohibitions entail by this ideal have been violated in the past, in particular in the growth and consolidation of the WTO, the most pressing duties currently are of rectification.
Perhaps more importantly, most scholarship fails to offer a vision of reform with any political purchase in the real world, as the current order’s standing norms are wholly processual: i.e. they dictate what states may and may not do regardless of the distributive outcome. In addition to the bar on coercion, our current order is oriented towards the World Trade Organization’s two “pillars”, norms that continue to anchor practice even as preferential deals have proliferated because of their seeming similarity to natural-justice prohibitions on discrimination and free-riding (or unfair play) respectively. “Most-favored-nation treatment” (MFN) prohibits states from pursuing policies that explicitly favor some trade partners over others—even those that are poorer. And “reciprocity” obligates states to pay (in kind) for any market-access concessions they receive in full. The latter pillar is detrimental for poorer nations not only because it prevents them from enjoying free (or cheap) access to global markets if they fulfill their supposed obligations, but because it provides an addition reason for wealthy countries to apply maximal bargaining pressure. WTO-style reciprocity makes it seem, in other words, like richer countries ought to not stay their bargaining hand in trade negotiations for fear of allowing poorer countries to “sucker” them.
In my book, then, I take respect for sovereignty seriously, but argue for a processual view that, if adhered to, would have more egalitarian distributive implications. I first make room for such a view by arguing that neither MFN nor WTO-style reciprocity follow from non-discrimination and fair play. Granting the same good better market access when it originates in a poorer country is no more discriminatory than shopping at a struggling local store in preference to a profitable chain. Nor is it necessarily wrong for poorer countries to fail to pay for market-access concessions in full, as, contrary to what is often assumed, unfair play is not a prospect in trade relations. Unfair play is only a danger when access to a good cannot be denied, and even then only when a collective action problem looms because failing to contribute to its production (or consuming the good) burdens others—as in the case of public goods (like national defense) and common-pool resources (like the world’s atmosphere in its role as a carbon sink). Because market-access is the quintessential excludable good, in other words, unfair play cannot be a concern, and an asymmetric order in which poorer countries enjoy greater access to foreign markets need not violate natural justice.
Having militated against MFN and reciprocity as currently understood, I then defend a processual view according to which respect for sovereignty demands that states (as well as coalitions of states) adhere to three additional prohibitions in addition to the bar on coercion: namely a prohibition on exploitation (or leverage of “market power” in inter-state bargaining for unfair advantage), a prohibition on blackmail (which is implied by the permission to resist liberalization only provided some other national priority is at stake), and a prohibition on allowing harms that are foreseen but unintended side-effects from rising above a threshold of moral proportionality. The last of these, which is dictated by the doctrine of double effect familiar from just war theory, protects foreigners who are dependent on existing trade ties from the adverse consequences of a change in trade policy not otherwise prohibited by treaty commitments—say a sudden increase in non-tariff-barriers to allay populist pressures or a de facto increase in tariffs resulting from a preferential deal with a competitor economy. Like the bar on coercion, and indeed free-riding, each of these prohibitions is in the spirit of the liberal view, most famously expressed by Kant, that we ought always to treat one another both always as an end and never as a mere means.
I conclude the book by evaluating the contemporary trade order in light of this more-demanding processual ideal. My primary argument is that, given how often the prohibitions entail by this ideal have been violated in the past, in particular in the growth and consolidation of the WTO, the most pressing duties currently are of rectification.
Publications
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Absent maldistribution, what reason could there be to bar trade in a genuine good that is otherwise owned? Market skeptics have asserted that, once permitted, trade tends to crowd out gifting. Why should we care, though, when needs are satisfied via sales? More importantly, why suppose that permitting trade will cause crowding-out? In this paper, I address both questions with an emphasis on the second. Normatively, I claim that gifting has expressive value over and above its value in satisfying needs. Causally, I differentiate typologically between cultural and psychological arguments, as well as offering an original, institutional one. The cultural argument depends on the notion that pricing symbolizing the good as a mere “commodity.” The psychological argument relies on evidence that introducing a monetary incentive can diminish a good’s provision. And the institutional argument relies on an assumed division of moral labor that dictates that each of us sometimes eschew opportunities to gift so that, together, we enable the invisible hand.
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"Exploring Domination: Rousseau's Second Discourse and 'wage-slavery'", Contemporary Political Theory (first online)
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Both of these engaging and scholarly works represent contributions to republican scholarship not merely in the sense that they concern ‘republican’ thinkers, but additionally in that they engage recent work on this school of thought’s central putative good (Pettit, 1997; Lovett, 2010)—a good whose contradictory is most often termed ‘domination’ (although both authors use a range of synonyms to designate this circumstance, including ‘dependence’ and ‘slavery’ in the case of Gourevitch, and ‘unfreedom’ and ‘servitude’ in the case of Neuhouser). When Neuhouser says that Rousseau’s chief criticism of inequality is that it threatens ‘freedom’ (pp. 168–175), he means that it threatens non-domination, and when Gourevitch claims to identify a tradition of thought, he does so not on the basis that prescriptions converge, but rather, seemingly, on the basis of a common concern for personal independence. Yet I suspect that a more thorough treatment of this concept would have provided both authors with opportunities for even greater insights…
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"Globalisation and Distributive Justice: Evaluating the Moral Implications of Coercion and Cooperation in World Trade", Australian Political Science Review, June 2014
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In this review essay I begin by arguing that it is difficult to defend distributive principles of global scope that are plausible by appealing to “coercion”. On the one hand, the narrow definition of coercion invoked by Hassoun—according to which there must be an explicit threat from an identifiable agent, and the injustice of coercion is found in the process whereby the victim’s agency is defied by that agent, whatever the outcome—cannot ground sufficiently generous demands. This is because an actor can genuinely consent to be liable to coercion, and be better off for it, but still be severely deprived. On the other hand, the broad account of (systemic) coercion invoked by Valentini—according to which an actor in a social system is under inescapable coercion merely by having an option-set that is more limited than it might be—opens a slippery slope to excessive demands. It is not clear why, if one accepts this account, the requirements of global distributive justice are any less demanding across borders than within them...
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Review of Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy by Aaron James in Ethics and International Affairs, June 2014
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We are all familiar with the claim that the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are unjust or otherwise objectionable. Yet this claim faces substantial hurdles in motivating corrective action. Most significantly, wealthy states face political pressures against moderating their bargaining positions. But this is not the only problem. First, there remains the suspicion that these rules are not, in fact, objectionable, or that they are only mildly so—perhaps “bad” but not “unjust.” After all, no country is forced to be subject to them; the WTO is a voluntary institution. Second, we still have to determine what rules would be just. Is it really the job of the WTO to compensate for inherent inequalities between countries? In this book, the first philosophical work devoted exclusively to “fair trade,” Aaron James seeks to combat the second of these challenges directly. In doing so, he also combats the first...
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Work in Progress
For work in progress, please see my academia.edu webpage.
