Richard Arneson

Richard Arneson is an American philosopher specializing in political philosophy who has taught at the University of California, San Diego since 1973. He chaired the department during 1992 - 1996, and served as graduate adviser. In 1996, he also served as visiting professor in the Ethics, Politics, and Economics program at Yale University. Dr. Arneson earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1975. His work has largely focused on Utilitarianism and on Luck Egalitarianism. He is also a proponent of Prioritarianism.
Richard Arneson has also critiqued Marxism in great depth; he argued that Capitalism was exploitative for more complex reasons than the 'Labour Theory of Value' accounted for. He argued that surplus transfer was only wrong when it was the result of an unequal distribution of social goods. Therefore, under capitalism, the majority of exchanges are inherently exploitative because the benefits end up in the hands of those who do not need it. Nonetheless, surplus transfer is legitimate when it arises independently or when it is used to compensate the unequal distribution of natural endowments and wealth.