| It is complicated, and this is the problem. One principle of economic justice is that economics should not determine access to certain services (health, education, police, and so on). As such, these services should be determined provided by the state (or at least a guaranteed minimum level). There are all sorts of debates about equality of opportunity, especially in the face of the very high correlation between your socio-economic status and your parent's socioeconomic status (the less your parents earn, the less you are likely to earn). Some see this is a lack of equality of opportunity (and some do not). There are debates around economic baselines (minimum wage, minimum income through welfare, minimum 'public' service levels) that ties into notions of justice. Pure libertarianism is the position that all facets of justices are best dealt with by the mechanism of the market. State intervention shifts the market off it's equilbrium and therefore harms the society as a whole. The State's role is then to protect basic rights (life, property and freedom) including providing security. There are a bunch of counter arguments (which form the basis of the internal critique of capitalism), that I will get into when I have more time. |