Normative Perspective of Liberal Socialism

Due to the current situation of emerging political, social and especially economic inequalities among citizens in wealthy Western countries and insufficient proposed political solutions especially from social democrats, the aim of this article is to find an alternative model of the political economic system based on Rawlsian social contract (2001). As Norberto Bobbio (1987) argued, we need a different social contract that neoliberals want to enforce – a social contract that will be based on distributive principles of justice and will be compatible with the practical and theoretical socialist tradition. Therefore, the main focus of the article is the development of liberal socialism in a normative way, which will be based on social cooperation and mutual responsibility. We will try to merge liberalist John Rawls (2001) and socialist Branko Horvat (1983) as well as to rebuilt his political economic thought and connect it with reformulated justice as fairness. In the first part using a critical analytical approach, the article will briefly describe and evaluate economic inequalities which are enhanced in neoliberalism (drawing on Branko Milanović (2016), Anthony Atkinson (2015), Zygmund Bauman (2015; 2011), Thomas Piketty (2014), Joseph Stiglitz (2013) and Paul Krugman (2012)). By highlighting the insufficiency of the proposed secondary ("ex-post") social-democratic solutions based on fiscal tax policy without changing the economic system it is necessary to access two types of political justice: basic primary (»ex-ante«) and secondary balancing (»ex-post«) justice. The second part will focus on formulation and foundations of the alternative political-economic model. The basic starting point is going to be represented by two Rawls (2001) principles of justice which combine "ex-post" and "ex-ante" concept. The first principle is going to focus on human rights whereas the other on the functioning of the social and especially economic system. Based on the analysis of the second principle we argue that the human rights (especially social and economic), with a different interpretation thereof and with a changed economic system, can really and not merely formally be enjoyed. Therefore, a socialism must be liberalized and liberalism must be socialized. The first has to accept a state authority and human rights while the second must adopt a state minimum controlled self-cooperative economic system based on a dispersed property between workers and payment according to their work. The latter will be developed with the help of political economy of socialism by the Yugoslav author Branko Horvat (1983) - "so-called horvatism". Branko Horvat thought has historically a significant influence on the functioning of the former Yugoslavia, as well as the functioning of the Baltic States. When developing a normative model of liberal socialism other authors will be taken into account to some extent, such as Axel Honneth (2017), David Held (2016), Eric Olin Wright (2010), Chantal Mouffe (2005), Alex Callinicos (2003) and John Keane (1990).