This article rejects the position that individual responsibility and collective responsibility are opposing and incompatible points of view about how to deal with misfortune. It proposes that we should distinguish between two forms of individual responsibility. One form of individual responsibility, the “social view”, is not just compatible with collective responsibility, it also cannot be attacked without simultaneously attacking collective responsibility. The other view of individual responsibility, the “asocial view”, is indeed incompatible with collective responsibility, but it is equally incompatible with the social view of individual responsibility. The distinction allows us to understand collective responsibility as lifting the burden of individual responsibility to compensate others we have harmed, rather than as lifting the burden of looking after oneself, and thus better illuminates the relationship between the welfare state and tort law than the conventional view.

This paper argues that the pari passu principle of insolvency law does not fulfil any of the functions often attributed to it. It does not constitute an accurate description of how the assets of insolvent companies are in fact distributed. It has no role to play in ensuring an orderly winding up of such companies. Nor does it underlie, explain, or justify distinctive features of the formal insolvency regime, notably, its collectivity. The case-law said to support the pari passu principle serves actually to undermine its importance. And the principle has nothing to do with fairness in liquidation. The substantive argument in the paper concludes by examining the actual role of the principle. The arguments made here have important implications for almost every debate about insolvency law, from the status of secured and preferential creditors to the appropriate role of corporate “rescue” procedures.