
Full text loading...
Abstract
Methodological individualism is a central concept in normative economics. As the point of departure of our discussion of linguistic justice, we postulates the equality of all individuals in relation to their first language. Any deviation from this ideal has to be motivated. One such motivation is the impracticability of policy measures, for instance due to cost arguments. A constitutional-economics analysis of the allocation of language rights focuses on this trade-off between equity and efficiency. One can define a scale running from perfect equality combined with extensive inefficiency to perfect efficiency combined with considerable inequalities between different individuals of different mother tongues. “(Linguistic) justice” of public policy is then defined as an “optimal” choice, or trade-off, on this scale.
For the analysis, two tools in the tool chest of the economist will be applied in this essay:
Both approaches lead to the same qualitative results.