Introduction: Justice as Participation and Deliberation

What is a just society, a just world, a just planet? In this report, we attempt to describe how a world committed to global socioeconomic justice and planetary habitability could look by 2100 – in particular, the distribution of economic and environmental resources within and between countries, including access to education, health, material goods, income, wealth, and political voice. We also lay out a plausible and fully quantified transition path to get there from 2026 to 2100

Over the course of the 20^th century, several countries were able to reduce social inequalities significantly (via the development of social-democratic welfare states, public education and health, progressive taxation of income and wealth, social security systems, labour law and democratic rights) while at the same time achieving unprecedented levels of economic prosperity. This historical trend toward equality, social inclusiveness, and prosperity, however, has been interrupted (and, in some cases, partly reversed) since the 1980s-1990s. Moreover, this long-run evolution has been largely confined to a subset of rich nation-states in the North, particularly in Western and Nordic Europe, while largely overlooking enormous North-South inequalities. This is even more problematic given that the Western enrichment could never have taken place without very strong international integration and without the brutal exploitation of the natural and human resources available on a global scale, resulting in massive human suffering and unprecedented environmental damage. While there are many positive lessons to be drawn from the reduction of inequality and the construction of social-national states in Western and Nordic Europe, as well as from successful development experiences in all parts of the world, a more ambitious social-internationalist and planet-conscious agenda is now needed in order to pursue the movement toward equality at a global level and to confront the existential challenges of global warming and planetary habitability.  

The Global Justice Project aims to draw lessons from past experiences to describe what a just distribution of income, wealth, and other socioeconomic and environmental resources could look like at the global level in the 21^st century and how it could be achieved. For the purposes of this report, we will use the following imperfect definition of justice. A just society is one that allows all its members to have access to the widest possible range of fundamental goods. Fundamental goods include education, health, housing, food, culture, a sustainable and biodiverse planet, and economic and political voice, i.e., effective participation in democratic deliberation and decision-making in social, cultural, economic, civic, and political life. A just society organises socioeconomic relations, property rights, and the distribution of income and wealth in such a way that allows its least advantaged members to enjoy the highest possible life conditions and to participate effectively in all aspects of social life.
 
First and foremost, a just society and a just world depend on the empowerment of all strata of society, beginning with its most disadvantaged and powerless members, both at the global and national levels. A just society in no way requires absolute uniformity or equality. To the extent that income and wealth inequalities are the result of different aspirations and distinct life choices, or permit improvement of the standard of living and expansion of the opportunities available to the disadvantaged, they may be considered just. But this must be demonstrated, not assumed. Importantly, this argument cannot be invoked to justify any degree of inequality whatsoever, as is too often done by privileged social groups, most of the time without acknowledging the successful historical movement toward equality which we observe in some of the world’s most prosperous countries over the long run. In addition, this deliberative process must focus on the global ecological footprint, especially given the global origins and extractive dimensions of modern enrichment.  
 
This imprecise definition of a just society is far from resolving all the issues. But going further requires collective deliberation informed by each citizen's historical and social experience, with participation from all members of society. That is why participation and deliberation are both ends and means. The definition is nevertheless useful because it allows us to lay down certain principles. In particular, equality of access to fundamental goods must be absolute: one cannot offer greater political participation, extended education, or higher income to certain groups while depriving others of their right to vote, attend school, or receive health care. Where do fundamental goods such as education, health, planetary habitability, housing, culture, etc., start, and where do they end? That is obviously a matter for debate and cannot be decided without extensive democratic and collective deliberation. This also requires us to permanently question all forms of received wisdom about the socioeconomic order and to take a fresh look at all collective and historical experiences that have tried to redefine and reshape existing institutional arrangements and property regimes [1]This view of socioeconomic justice as participation, deliberation and confrontation combines the insights of multiple lines of thoughts (including Rousseau, Marx, Durkheim, Keynes, Rawls and Sen).  See T. Piketty, Capital and Ideology, chapter 17, HUP 2020; A Brief History of Equality, HUP 2022..

In the context of this complex and collective political process, we believe that it is useful and appropriate for a team of researchers who have been closely involved in the historical and comparative analysis of inequality and development to contribute to this discussion and deliberation. In the Global Justice Report, we aim to draw lessons from our research and to set some quantitative targets about global socioeconomic justice, which we formulate both in terms of material accounting (work hours, sectoral shares, education/health, energy systems, GHG emissions, land use, forest cover, temperature rise, etc.) and monetary accounting (income and wealth scales between and within countries).

More precisely, we describe plausible and desirable future scenarios that combine two key goals: socioeconomic equality (including full economic equality between countries, full gender equality in labour hours and pay, sharp compression of within country income and wealth scales, combined with fair access to education, healthcare and effective participation in all aspects of social, economic, cultural and political life); and planetary habitability (aligning global resource use within ecological boundaries, in particular, limiting global temperature increase below 2°C). We analyze various combinations of global- and country-level policies and institutional transformations to implement these outcomes. 

We are aware that the dimensions of global justice addressed here cover only a subset of what a comprehensive global justice platform should entail. In addition, setting precise quantitative targets for socioeconomic justice always entails significant oversimplification. National accounting and country-level statistics inevitably smooth over local living standards, individual differences, and the full complexity of human well-being. Practical policy implementation and real-world institutional change always involve complex, multidimensional transformations and shifting power relations among social groups. The success or failure of such transformations generally depends on myriad factors that cannot be fully captured or adequately appreciated by quantitative targets and macro-level accounting.  At the same time, we believe that this kind of quantitative framework can play a useful role in the public discussion, as long as we recognize the limitations of this type of language and its complementarity with other forms of arguments and modes of expressions.

In the past, the march toward equality did not always happen in peace. It did not emerge as the steady outcome of a quiet process based upon well-organized collective participation and democratic deliberation. Social struggles and popular mobilizations have been at the forefront of the long run movement towards greater political and socioeconomic equality over the past 250 years, from the revolutionary events of the late 18^th century to the social movements of the early 21^st century. In effect, social struggles should be regarded as among the most effective forms of political participation, alongside electoral processes.

In some cases, crises, wars, and catastrophes of all sorts also played a crucial role in accelerating political change and institutional transformations. To some extent, the emergence of egalitarian and prosperous social-democratic societies in Western Europe in the 20th century was facilitated – and possibly accelerated – by the violent fall of previous elites and power regimes and by the cataclysmic damages produced by the nationalist, colonialist, and extractive ideologies on which they were based. It is likely that other crises and catastrophes – including climate and environmental disasters, and new nationalist rivalries and conflicts over resources – will also play a critical role in the future, perhaps on a truly global scale this time.

In the Ministry of the Future, science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson imagines a world where major climate catastrophes occur – including a heatwave that kills millions in Uttar Pradesh and a coalition of eco-activists shooting airplanes – before public opinion, governments and international organizations alike finally decide to transform our economic and political systems. The real-world geopolitical clashes over territories and resources unfolding in the 2020s – with a return to earlier forms of extractive gestures, from Ukraine to Greenland, Panama, Venezuela, and Iran – might also help convince citizens around the world that the current international system leads to dead ends and needs a serious reset.

We certainly cannot predict which catastrophes or sequences of events will lead to political and socioeconomic change in the future. We are also very much aware of the tragic and violent nature of history. But at the same time, we also know that participation and deliberation will matter in all possible trajectories. Waiting for crises and cataclysms to impose radical changes is not enough – especially if the nature of the radical changes that we aspire to is not well-defined. One of the key lessons from the history of equality – from the Enlightenment in the 18^th century to the Social-Democratic Revolution of the 20^th century – is that political ideas and policy platforms do matter. The sole ambition of the Global Justice Platform is to participate in this collective deliberative process by proposing one quantitatively and institutionally grounded, if necessarily incomplete, step in that direction. We hope it stimulates other contributions and discussions.