Volume 6, Issue 24 (4-2007)                   refahj 2007, 6(24): 9-30 | Back to browse issues page

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SharifZadegan M. (2007). Strategies of Economic Development and Social Justice. refahj. 6(24), 9-30.
URL: http://refahj.uswr.ac.ir/article-1-2123-en.html
Abstract:   (4471 Views)

Objectives: This paper is primarily devoted to review the ideas and views of some of the modern classic and twentieth century scholars on "Social Justice". Then, it is discussed on the relationship between these theories and welfare state, strategies of economic development and social justice. Findings: Reflections of Hobbes and Kant are reviewed as two important modern classic theories. Hobbes believes that human being by nature seeks his/her profits and acts based on the natural rights which is a tendency toward self-interests. He emphasizes that state is the only social regulator which establishes social justice. Individuals comply with the regulations of the state just because of the advisability and fear from anarchy. Therefore, according to Hobbes, justice is impossible without state hence justice is a by product of the state not people. On the contrary, Spinoza does not consider human being profit-seeking by nature. Kant also believes human being can not function on the basis of its self-essence and can not achieve justice and virtue this way. He furthermore elaborates that justice is solely achievable through rational demands. Accordingly Kant unlike Hobbes denies the relation between rationality and profit by the decree of intellect. In twentieth century, two major schools of thoughts of John Rawls and Amartya Sen are reviewed in this article. Rawls believes justice is the piety of social system, he thinks justice is the righteous choice when there is maximum freedom and inequality is justified as long as it is not threatening the interests of the low-income social group, In fact Rawls set up a fair-choice system before us and indicates that society can not establish justice unless it first achieves the civil-law which guarantees the fair-choice to people. Amartya Sen considers freedom of choice and socio-political participation of people as a prerequisite to development and justice. Rawls' ideas as comprehensive thoughts to explain justice thoroughly is reviewed in this article. Subsequently, the welfare state and its reformist changes are discussed. In this section some of the criticisms to the welfare state are mentioned and two approaches of "welfare society" and "risk society" are considered as amending revisions to the welfare state which emphasize on more participation of people in the social risks and benefits. In this paper challenges of economic growth and redistribution are discussed and the three strategic of "growth then redistribution", "redistribution then growth" and "growth with redistribution" are considered in more details. It is concluded that the third strategies approach, "growth with redistribution", is the approach of choice for resolving the concerned issues in this regard. The three approaches are considered in three different periods: eight years of the imposed war, eight years of post-war reconstruction period, and eight years of subsequent reformist government. It is concluded that the strategy of "redistribution then growth" was implemented during the Iran-Iraq war and the strategy of "growth then redistribution" was the major approach during reconstruction period and the first four-year of reform, and the strategy of growth with redistribution was taken during the second four-year of reform. Results: Finally, with respect to the social and political demands of the Iranians, the growth with redistribution is concluded to be best instrumental for securing growth and social justice in Iran. The article studies the three factors of Rawls' justice, welfare society, and risk society in line with the " growth with redistribution" approach in order to better explain the "growth with redistribution" strategy.

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Received: 2015/09/11 | Accepted: 2015/09/11 | Published: 2015/09/11

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