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  3. One of the principal of Walzer’s critique of liberal capitalism is that it i

One of the principal of Walzer’s critique of liberal capitalism is that it i

游客2023-12-02  21
问题     One of the principal of Walzer’s critique of liberal capitalism is that it is insufficiently egalitarian. Walzer’s case against the economic inequality generated by capitalism and in favor of "a radical redistribution of wealth" is presented in a widely cited essay entitled In Defense of Equality.
    The most striking feature of Walzer’s critique is that, far from rejecting the principle of reward according to merit, Walzer insists on its validity. People who excel should receive the superior benefits appropriate to their excellence. But people exhibit a great variety of qualities— "intelligence, physical strength, agility and grace, artistic creativity, mechanical skill, leadership, endurance, memory, psychological insight, the capacity for hard work—even moral strength, sensitivity, the ability to express compassion. "Each deserves its proper recompense and hence a proper distribution of material goods should reflect human differences as measured on all these different scales. Yet, under capitalism, the ability to make money ("the green thumb of bourgeois society") enables its possessor to acquire almost "every other sort of social goods"such as the respect and esteem of others.
    The centerpiece of Walzer’s argument is the invocation of a quotation from Pascal’s Pensees, which concludes: "Tyranny is the wish to obtain by one means what can only be had by another." Pascal believes that we owe different duties to different qualities. So we might say that infatuation is the proper response to charm, and awe the proper response to strength. In this light, Walzer characterizes capitalism as the tyranny of money (or of the ability to make it) and Walzer advocates as the means of eliminating this tyranny and of restoring genuine equality "the abolition of the power of money outside its sphere". What Walzer envisions is a society in which wealth is no longer convertible into social goods with which it has no intrinsic connection.
    Walzer’s argument is a puzzling one. After all, why should those qualities unrelated to the production of material goods be rewarded with material goods? Is it not tyrannical, in Pascal’s sense, to insist that those who excel in "sensitivity" or "the ability to express compassion" merit equal wealth with those who excel in qualities (such as "the capacity for hard work") essential in producing wealth? Yes. Walzer’s argument, however deficient, does point to one of the most serious weaknesses of capitalism—namely, that it brings to predominant positions in a society people who, no matter how legitimately they have earned their material rewards, often lack those other qualities that evoke affection or admiration. Some even argue plausibly that this weakness may be irremediable: in any society that, like a capitalist society, seeks to become ever wealthier in material terms disproportionate rewards are bound to flow to the people who are instrumental in producing the increase in its wealth.  [br] The author implies that Walzer’s interpretation of the principle of reward according to merit is ______.
选项 A、an insistence on maximizing everyone’s rewards
B、an emphasis on equality and validity
C、a broad conception of what constitutes merit
D、a broad conception of what constitutes a reward
答案 D
解析 推断题。首段提到了沃尔泽对自由资本主义的批判。第二段首句指出沃尔泽的批判中最突出的一个特点是，他非但不摈弃“按劳论酬”的原则，反而竭力坚持其有效性。第二段倒数第二句提到，人的每一项能力都应该得到回报。一种恰当的物质财富的分配应当反映不同的衡量尺度下人与人之间的差异。可见，沃尔泽认为在按劳论酬中，财富分配的涵盖范围应该更大才对，故[D]为答案。沃尔泽批判的是财富分配与付出不对等，其焦点在“reward”，不是“merit”，故排除[C]；文章没有提及“财富分配最大化”，也没有强调“平等和有效性”，故排除[A]和[B]。
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