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Debate

Justice and Equality

The richest tenth of humanity owns about three quarters of all wealth, the poorer half about two per cent. Which inequalities can be justified – and what makes the distribution of wealth, opportunity and power in a society just?

According to the World Inequality Report 2026, the richest tenth of the world’s population owns about three quarters of all wealth and the poorer half about 2 per cent, and in many countries the gap has grown for decades. Disputes about taxes, minimum wages, inheritance and global poverty turn on philosophical concepts, often unnamed. Since Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice” (1971), political philosophy has argued about what equality should mean: equal rights, equal resources, equal capabilities or equal standing in society. The disagreement is not only about how much inequality is acceptable, but about what justice is for – fair shares, free exchange, real freedom, or relationships free of domination.

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Positions

Justice as fairness

Rawls asks which principles we would choose behind a “veil of ignorance”, not knowing our own class, talents or beliefs. We would choose, he argues, equal basic liberties and fair equality of opportunity, and accept economic inequalities only if they benefit the least advantaged – the “difference principle”. Justice is the first virtue of social institutions and cannot be overridden by gains in overall welfare.

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Entitlement and liberty

Nozick argues that justice depends on how holdings came about, not on whether their distribution matches a preferred pattern. If people acquire and transfer property justly – through work, exchange and gifts – the result is just, however unequal. Taxing earnings for redistribution, he argues, is on a par with forced labour, so only a minimal state that protects rights is legitimate.

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Capabilities

Sen asks “equality of what?” and answers: not income or happiness, but capabilities – what people are actually able to do and to be, such as being healthy, educated or taking part in public life. The same income means very different freedom for a disabled person, or for someone facing discrimination, than for others. Nussbaum turns the approach into a list of central capabilities that every just society must secure for each person, at least up to a threshold.

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Equality as social relations

Anderson and Young argue that focusing only on the distribution of goods misses what egalitarians have always fought against: domination, exclusion and stigma. For Anderson, the point of equality is a society in which people relate to one another as equals and can take part as full citizens. Young describes oppression as structural – exploitation, marginalisation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence – produced not by any single person’s intention but by everyday practices in which many take part.

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Justice cannot ignore the good

Sandel argues that justice cannot be neutral about the good life: debates about markets, merit or marriage are always also debates about what we value and what we owe our communities. He criticises the meritocratic belief that winners deserve their success, which he thinks breeds hubris among the successful and humiliation among those left behind. MacIntyre goes further, arguing that modern societies lack the shared tradition that would be needed to settle disputes about justice at all.

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As of 10/2026. Summaries for orientation – the sources give the full arguments. · How Agora is made

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