Economic freedom and social justice

Economic freedom is an important contributor to growth and prosperity within countries and across the globe, as well as a key component of individual liberty in the classical liberal tradition. Many ethicists and social scientists criticise the relative distribution of the benefits of economic freedom, and the values and processes involved in producing them. Social justice is concerned with these broader assessments of human wellbeing. This chapter considers classical liberal responses to the claims of social justice and how, in the twentieth century especially, they failed to address the concerns of their critics. Drawing on intellectual resources from classical political economy, a richer account of the socialising role of economic freedom is presented. Rather than dismissing social justice, this perspective justifies the inclusion of economic freedom within broader frameworks of institutions, rights, and duties, including in Rawls’s influential theory of justice as fairness.