Economics of liberal egalitarianism: Considerations for conciliating in a better way political liberalism and economic liberalism[Economie de l’égalitarisme libéral : réflexions pour mieux concilier libéralismes politique et économique]

Whereas liberalism has been long assumed as an emancipatory philosophy of individuals facing with any arbitrary political power, why nowadays is it often considered as the philosophy of the submission to the despotic institutions of the market? This challenge commands to conciliate in a better way political liberalism and economic liberalism, so that the entire proposition has to be at least as consistent as Hayekian neoliberalism, but also it has to be more easily acceptable to individuals and peoples (1.1). We think that liberal egalitarianism with Rawlsian inspiration could give our question a suitable answer, provided that economics extends philosophy (1.2). If we consider contributions of authors as diverse as Sen, Kolm and Van Parijs, we can find analyses which are more or less identified – "equal liberty" of access to employment (2.1) and equalization of "capabilities-potentialities" (2.2) -, at the first two levels of the Rawlsian theory of justice; but, at the last level, the debate on the economics of the difference principle is still open: on one hand, we have the lump sum taxation of the product of the "capacities-resources" (3.1) and, on the other hand, the equalization of the "real freedom" of everyone (3.2). As a conclusion, we notice that others challenges are to be met, namely the findings of potential solutions in the debate on economics of the difference principle (4.1) or of possible implementations here and now of the whole economics of liberal egalitarianism (4.2).