Edmund Phelps e a justiça económica

A ler, na edição de hoje do WSJ, um texto do Nobel da Economia 2006 -"Dynamic Capitalism".
Depois de estabelecer uma comparação entre o sistema económico americano, inglês ou canadiano e o da Europa continental quanto ao dinamismo em gerar inovações que se tornem rentáveis, ele conlui que o primeiro sistema o promove enquanto o segundo o impede e desencoraja.

Para terminar, Phelps comenta a causa da justiça económica:

We all feel good to see people freed to pursue their dreams. Yet Hayek and Ayn Rand went too far in taking such freedom to be an absolute, the consequences be damned. In judging whether a nation's economic system is acceptable, its consequences for the prospects of the realization of people's dreams matter, too. Since the economy is a system in which people interact, the endeavors of some may damage the prospects of others. So a persuasive justification of well-functioning capitalism must be grounded on its all its consequences, not just those called freedoms.

To argue that the consequences of capitalism are just requires some conception of economic justice. I broadly subscribe to the conception of economic justice in the work by John Rawls.