What Is and what ought to be popular beliefs about distributive justice in thirteen countries

Abstract

This paper tests two of the major theses in the literature on popular beliefs about distributive justice, using attitudinal data from linked sample surveys fielded in thirteen established Western-democratic and newly post-communist industrial nations. One is the speculation that levels of public support for distributions in accordance with desert-type criteria may be radically reduced in non-market societies. The other is the suggestion that beliefs about what is (cognition) are closely related to those about what ought to be (evaluation). Our results suggest important differences in the perception of how goods are actually distributed within the two regime types under scrutiny. However the degree of public support for principles of desert appears to be high in market and non-market societies alike. These findings seem to refute both theses.