'Social justice': Utopian fantasy or foundation of prosperity?

Finally, is social justice theory naïve and utopian? No, it isn’t. This is what is least understood about social justice: it’s already here. The society we live in is much closer to the social justice ideal than it is to either of the ideals of classical socialism or classical laissez faire capitalism.

When people point to the successes of the market in creating goods and employment, it’s a very constrained market that they are talking about - constrained by legal requirements like compensation, contract and intellectual property law and a vast number of semi-legal compliance regimes. It’s because markets operate in that framework that they can deliver benefits. It’s because markets operate in that framework that market forces don’t create a free market in slaves and kidneys.

I’d suggest intellectual property as the perfect model of social justice: it’s because creators of books and inventions morally deserve to be rewarded that there ought to be such protections; implementing IP law is possible but it took several centuries and as we all know China hasn’t caught up even now. And there are major economic benefits from it, through the encouragement of the bright ideas that drive technological progress.

There is nothing utopian in looking for the secret of our own society’s success, social justice, and urging it to be implemented more consistently.