The Upsurge of Social Justice

Social justice took shape at the end of the 18th century. So, when and how did it become an ample and current topic in the political debate? Even though the modern ideal of distributive justice entered political discourse in the eighteenth century, it did not become the center of mainstream political thought until well into the XX century. Part of the difficulty was that the most influential political theories of the XIX century were all, for different reasons, unwelcoming to the concept. The domination of the following theories: The Marxism, The Utilitarianism, and The Positivism, raised barriers to develop a political discourse based on justice.

Of course, there has been a lot of discussion about the complex relationship between the concept of justice and the Marxist and Utilitarian approaches. Theories established by Marx, Bentham, and Mill could not easily prioritize the specific goal of Social Justice: Marx dismissed moral language about equity, and Utilitarianism subordinated individual rights to the objective of maximizing utility. Both theories have provided the rationale for the redistributive economy. If, as suggested above, an important feature of the concept of social justice is an attempt to alleviate poverty and human need, then the Hegelian and Marxist approaches had an important role to play in developing this vision