Description
Book SynopsisIn the past twenty years, social injustice has increased enormously in Britain and the United States, regardless of the party in power.
Trade Review“A brilliant polemic against inequality.”
Roy Hattersley, The Guardian “Barry's pugnacious defence of a robust social democracy deserves to find a wide readership ... for disillusioned social democrats, Why Social Justice Matters stands as a refreshingly staunch and intelligent manifesto.”
New Statesman
“Barry's writing is extremely engaging. His arguments are supported by a wide range of examples and illustrations and an impressive breadth of scholarship.”
Ethics and Social Welfare
“This book is a powerful argument against the utter inequity of the current political and economic system in the UK and against the way in which a discourse of ‘equal opportunities’ is used to maintain what Barry describes as the ‘machinery of injustice’. In this extraordinarily simple and lucid book, Barry weaves striking threads of supporting evidence, anecdotes, quotations and statistics together to encourage us to insist that another (just) world is not only possible but that an unjust world cannot endure.”
British Journal of Sociology
“Barry persuasively argues that differentials in positional goods allow the rich to have better personal health due to higher self-esteem, better access to more fulfilling jobs due to a wealth of social connections, and greater ability to capture the government and use it to secure their own interests.”
Utilitas
Table of ContentsPreface vii
Part I Social Justice: The Basics
1 Why We Need a Theory 3
2 The Machinery of Social Injustice 14
3 The Scope of Social Justice 27
Part II Equality of Opportunity
4 Why Equal Opportunity? 37
5 Education 46
6 Health 70
7 The Making of the Black Gulag 95
Part IV The Cult of Personal Responsibility
10 Responsibility versus Equality? 131
11 Rights and Responsibilities 142
12 Irresponsible Societies 154
Part V The Demands of Social Justice
13 Pathologies of Inequality 169
14 Wealth 186
15 Jobs and Incomes 200
16 Can We Afford Social Justice? 215
Part VI The Future of Social Justice
17 The Power of Ideas 233
18 How Change Happens 243
19 Meltdown? 251
20 Justice or Bust 261
Notes 274
Index 311
