ABSTRACT
It has become common to justify increasing inequalities in market income with reference to the economic disaster in Eastern Europe. The so-called socialist economies seem to remind us of an old economic wisdom: “You can’t have your cake of market efficiency and share it equally.” Apart from the counterfactual evidence of a nomenclature that made a small political elite more “equal” than ordinary people, however, the egalitarian approach of “real socialism” was far from conforming to widely accepted principles of justice in liberal democracies. The allocation and evaluation of jobs according to political loyalty and alleged proletarian origin or status—to mention only two examples—contradict even the most rudimentary values of justice in any type of market economy: equal access to jobs for all, and at least some performance-oriented remuneration of jobs.
