Pursuing social justice

Justice does not require absolute equality and sameness in how people live. But a society is unjust if the rich and poor live in different worlds altogether, and the deprived have no chance to improve their condition however hard they work.

The basic minimum. A just society should provide the basic conditions for a healthy and secure life and the development of talents, plus equal opportunity to pursue one's goals. Governments and bodies like the World Health Organisation calculate basic needs in different ways, but they generally include enough nourishment to stay healthy, housing, clean drinking water, education and a minimum wage. Providing these is a responsibility of democratic government, though it is a heavy burden in a country like India with many poor people.

Free markets versus state intervention. Even if we agree on helping the disadvantaged, we may disagree on how.

• Supporters of free markets: individuals should be free to own property and make contracts about prices, wages and profits, and to compete. Left free of state interference, markets distribute benefits justly: the talented and meritorious are rewarded. Many now accept some regulation: the state may ensure a basic minimum, but services like health and education are best provided by private agencies, with the state helping people pay for them and assisting the old and sick. The market, they say, is neutral: it does not care about caste, religion or gender, only talent and skill. Markets also give more choice and often better quality.
• Critics: choice matters only if you can pay. For basic goods, what matters is good quality at an affordable cost. Private business goes where profit is, so it may avoid unprofitable areas or offer cheap, poor-quality services there; and good private services may be too costly for the poor. Free markets tend to favour the strong, wealthy and powerful, denying rather than extending opportunity.
• So many argue that the state must step in to make basic facilities available to all.

Disagreement is healthy. In a democracy, debates about distribution and justice are inevitable and even healthy: they make us examine other views and defend our own rationally. Politics is the negotiation of such disagreements through debate.

• B.R. Ambedkar: a just society is one in which the 'ascending sense of reverence and descending sense of contempt' dissolves into a compassionate society.
• J.S. Mill: justice is something that is right to do and wrong not to do, and which a person can claim from us as a moral right.

Example (new): a private bus company may run frequent buses on busy city routes but none to a small hill village; if the state did not run a bus there, the villagers' 'freedom to choose' transport would mean nothing.