Diseño del modelo de programación lineal

2.2.1 Early Formulations

The notion of Social Justice is not new. Over the past centuries, there have been numerous prepositions as to what Social Justice should and must entail. Social Justice has been perceived as an essential ideal by different civilizations ranging from ancient Greece, Rome and medieval societies.

In Plato’s teachings, the concept of justice enjoys a central place. Plato was unsettled by the dying moral values of Athens. He was of the opinion that justice was the only means to save the Athenian society as well as the Greek world from atrophy. In his conception of justice, Plato asserts that, “justice is a ‘human virtue’ that makes a person self-consistent and good; socially, justice is a social consciousness that makes a society internally harmonious and good”. According to his vision, justice strengthens individuals’ bond, which forms the society and justice does not mean the rights of the powerful but the collective benefits of the whole society (Plato, 1997; Bhandari, 1998).

20 Aristotle is considered to be one of the most important political theorists of the nineteenth century who propagated the notion of social justice through its concept of “distributive justice”. Aristotle’s “distributive justice” constitutes the idea of fairness and equality and advocates for the distribution and sharing of public assets, political authority, honours, executive offices, common properties with the citizens while keeping in view the criterion of merit. According to his theory ‘the principle of equality’ stands among equals (McCarthy, 2009: 34). Subsequently, the concept of “Social Contract7_{” developed by Hobbes,}8

Locke9, Rousseau10 and Kant’s notion of society provide a foundation for John Rawls “Theory of Social Justice” in the twentieth century (Rawls, 1972: 11).

2.2.2 Modern and Contemporary Theories

In recent times scholars such as Rawls, Baxi and Sen have propounded numerous and sometimes-varying interpretations of social justice. Rawl’s formulation of social justice underlines ‘the basic structure of society’ or efforts to enable public institutions to be sensitive to fundamental rights and exercise responsibilities to facilitate the delivery of public goods. By key institutions, he means the political structure and major financial and social engagements. Rawls advocates for the notion of social justice founded on the concept of welfare state in the redistribution of wealth. Moreover, he suggests that the idea of justice can be attained by the use of an artificial mechanism which he calls the original position, in which each one decides

7

According to this theory, the people are the source of power that provides the strength to the state for maintenance of social order through the set principles of rule of law (Friend, 2004).

8

Thomas Hobbes advocated the concept of “authoritarian monarchy” in 1651, which later on provided a basis for the idea of “constitutional monarchy” (Ibid).

9

John Locke presented the concept of “liberal monarchy” in 1689, which was later theorised as liberal democracy (Ibid).

10

Jean-Jacques Rousseau advocated the notion of “liberal republicanism” in 1762, which resulted in the idea of “republicanism” (Ibid).

21 principles of justice behind a veil of ignorance. The “Veil” portrays a picture of a person’s realities (Rawls, 1972: 7, 11-12). He notes that:

No one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength and the like…The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. This ensures that no one is advantaged or disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or the contingency of social circumstances. Since all are similarly situated and no one is able to design principles to favour his particular condition, the principles of justice are the result of a fair agreement or bargain (Ibid, p. 12).

His theory is founded on the primacy of social justice as an essential commodity where “all social values, liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the basis of self-respect are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these values is to every-one’s advantage” (Rawls, 1972: 62). Rawls restricted the scope of his two principles of justice by disallowing global distributive hypothesis and by offering its applicability within the domestic boundaries, which lacks in consideration of the core issues of third world countries like Pakistan.

Others such as Martha Nussbaum have examined the merits and tension in Rawls’ capability approach. She argues that Rawls propagates the concept of society as “a closed system isolated from other societies” while drafting its principles. Secondly, she suggests that Rawls formulates a kind of a constitutional order which is neither applicable to the international economic and political structure nor provides any concern about the redistribution of wealth from better off to deprived states. Thirdly, Nussbaum argues that Rawls’ equality principle is not relevant to the real world and supports her point by citing the G8 dominance on states as an example of the

22 violation of the Rawlsian equality principle. Nussbaum examines another of Rawls’ book “The Law of Peoples” in a bid to explore some of the issues not covered by ‘A Theory of Justice’. In the Law of Peoples, Rawls draws attention to the issues of the real world and suggests a solution by which basic structure of the society reflects the principal focus at national level and then to have a look at the issues among states. Rawls suggests a solution to eliminate poverty by introducing sound economic policies (Nussbaum, 2001: 5-7).

Nussbaum points out that Rawls fails to take into consideration the international economic system, which is responsible for strict and unequal treatment with poor states, which cannot be rectified by strong domestic policies alone. She notes that the Rawlsian theory is imperfect or flawed, as it does not provide a liberal set of human rights or human capabilities as basic standard for universal application. She adds that Rawls is strongly in favour of interference by ways of military, economic, or political sanctions on the states that have been declared guilty of imperfect norms. However, Nussbaum is of the opinion that this action cannot be justified entirely against the principles of justice but in special conditions could be applied as a last option prior to some conditions of legitimacy. In addition, there is need to draft some global principles of justice, which could work better across societies (Ibid, 12).

Upendra Baxi, like Rawls, considers the value of freedom and equality through human rights and social justice. He offers a thoughtful concept of social justice by giving a new meaning to the words like ‘poor’ and ‘poverty’ with ‘impoverish’ and

‘impoverishment’. He notes that “people are not naturally poor, but are made poor, that impoverishment is a dynamic process of public decision-making in which it is considered just, right and fair that some people may become, or stay impoverished”

23 (Baxi, 1988: vi). Most of Baxi’s scholarly work revolves around the conceptions of ‘inequality and human sufferings’. As a passionate social justice advocate Baxi asserts that “a social activist who believes that the human rights have a future only when the human suffering is taken seriously” (Baxi, 2000: 1184).