Working towards justice

Chapter 3 presents an alternative attempt to develop and apply justice theory to the world as it is, that is in full cognisance of the social, economic and political cleavages of our post-2008 situation. I distinguish between two main variants of real-existing capitalism: Western and Authoritarian. All capitalist societies are authoritarian in the sense that a dominant class structure imposes differential constraints across social classes. But the nature and workings of the constraints, and the authoritative institutions enforcing them, differ according to whether or not the political system and ideological props of representative democracy prevail. I focus on the requirements or justice-as-progress in western capitalist societies as they have emerged historically and institutionally.