Social Justice and Equality

Sociologist Ulrich Beck wrote in his book, Brave New World of Work, that in the new society, people will conduct “civil labor” to benefit society. Yet, how can such a society bring satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment to people?

The new society must recognize that if we measure ourselves in relation to others, we will never feel satisfied or believe that we have obtained social justice. A society that wishes to exist in peace and prosperity must ensure that each person has the possibility of leading a full and balanced life, liberated from the need to worry about providing for staples and bare necessities. As described above, material well-being can bring only a certain level of happiness, and society neither should, nor can equalize everyone financially. Rather, there should be distribution based on an equality in which each receives according to one’s unique needs for a reasonable, dignified existence.

Such a “normative” standard of living will be determined as one that is guaranteed for every person—mutual guarantee. That is, the standard of living must be higher than the poverty line and defined in a collaborative process through a “round table” form of deliberation. Equality among people will be expressed not so much in the amount of goods or funds allotted each person, but more in the fairness of the distribution and its transparency.

Moreover, the sense of equality among people will be expressed by everyone having the ability to obtain complete self-realization and personal fulfillment. People will also share the awareness that the mechanism of mutual guarantee is what creates the equality and the so-needed sense of fairness. This sense will exist at every level of human relations: interpersonal, between person and state, and between the economic paradigm and the social one.