Introduction

So far I have argued that all the nonlibertarian political philosophies or perspectives that form the framework of this book should consider private compulsory insurance to be superior to the two main forms of social insurance, NHI and SS, and conditional (state or private) welfare to be superior to unconditional state welfare. Thus, in answer to the question of this book – is the welfare state justified? – the answer is no, according to the main nonlibertarian perspectives in political philosophy, if by the welfare state we mean a state in which social-insurance institutions are dominant.

Another way to look at the significance of my arguments is that they show that the dominant nonlibertarian perspectives in political philosophy have institutional implications that are closer to libertarianism than they believe. Although libertarianism would consider voluntary private insurance to be the most just form of insurance, it would, I believe, consider compulsory private insurance to be more just than social insurance, and so in that sense my book shows that there is more institutional convergence in political philosophy than is commonly believed. That is, both the dominant nonlibertarian perspectives in political philosophy (egalitarianism and its prioritarian cousin, positive-rights theory, communitarianism, and the requirement of epistemic accessibility common to many forms of liberalism) and libertarianism should agree that private compulsory insurance is more just than social insurance (at least the two main forms of social insurance, NHI and SS).