Confronting a World without Justice: Brian Barry's Why Social Justice Matters

Brian Barry presents his latest book Why Social Justice Matters as a move away from political philosophy. He makes a detailed case for policies that would, by imposing controls on currently unfettered market capitalism, promote a return to post-war social democracy. But his argument is both more philosophically developed and more politically radical than he suggests. Indeed the egalitarian and environmentally friendly measures Barry proposes press beyond the limits of any conceivable capitalism. In the process he paints a morally and existentially powerful portrait of the deep ways in which inequality penetrates the very grain of contemporary liberal capitalist societies.