Approaches to justice, from liberalism to algorithmic technocracy and climate justice

S.M. Amadae

Chapter 4 in Research Handbook on Law and Political Economy, 2025, pp 51-74 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Progressive liberalism of the mid-twentieth century seemed to mark a high point of optimism about the possibility of offering economic security to all: laborers, women, ethnic minorities, and even formerly colonized peoples. Franklin Delano Roosevelt committed to the four freedoms from want and fear, and freedom of speech and worship; and Eleanor Roosevelt oversaw the statement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet as Brigit Mahnkopf queries, we may now wonder if this prospect of widespread economic inclusion and prosperity was an aberration instead of a step on a path of inclusive success and emancipation. In examining this question posed in our current neoliberal technocratic moment, this paper revisits the theories of justice characteristic of Adam Smith's early capitalism, Karl Marx's defense of laborers’ and women's rights, progressive liberalism as articulated by John Rawls and Amartya Sen, and the reactionary neoliberal embrace of austerity and pay-as-you-go rights specified by James Buchanan and Richard Posner. In assessing theories of justice following the 2007 global financial crisis, I further examine the fate of justice in our contemporary highly algorithmic culture which has developed contiguously to neoliberal capitalism. Climate justice is also on the table.

Keywords: Justice; Liberalism; Neoliberalism; Progressivism; Inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781803921181
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781803921198.00012 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:21466_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().