Tuesday 14 February 2017

Julie Rose's book Free Time

I'm pleased to report that my review of Julie Rose's book Free Time (Princeton University Press, 2016) has been accepted for publication in the journal Res Publica.

Here is a photo of me with the book (which has a very attractive cover).

Julie prefers the term Free Time to leisure because it captures the idea that what matters is that we have time where we do not have any binding commitments.

Those with a lot of wealth or high hourly incomes can not only buy themselves goods and services, but also in many cases enjoy more free time than the rest of their society.

In my own work on taxation and benefits I have emphasised that this is not captured very accurately in our current tax and benefit system, and that doing so would be fairer and more economically efficient. My CLIPH-rate tax proposals are designed with these generally overlooked issues in mind.

I think the book is very good and while I disagree on certain points it does an excellent job of showing how important yet underappreciated free time by liberal philosophers of distributive justice.

I hope that Julie, myself and others will continue to develop theories which emphasise the importance of leisure/free time.