Social Justice and Democracy

            Social justice and democracy are two of the most discussed and argued concepts of political science, sociology, and philosophy. Democracy as we know of it today was not completely established until the 17th and 18th centuries during the Age of Enlightenment. During this time the Declaration of Independence followed by the U.S. Constitution were created. Democracy was meant for a structured government with a separation of powers, had basic civil rights for citizens, freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. The concept justice was created by the theories of John Rawls and Amartya Sen. Justice is composed of different parts: equal opportunities in education; gender and success; free markets; prevent poverty; and to provide aid to those less fortunate. Both these concepts go hand and hand with one another: if there is more social justice then there is more democracy and vice-versa. .
             There are many theories for social justice and many different view points that are discussed throughout history. Plato believed in Classical Conservation, that justice in our society has a "natural order" of things and in his book, The Republic, he goes into detail about how just like human organs, society has a harmony where all individuals play a key role and perform to their abilities. He believes in a just society where he states, "people have neither comparable abilities nor comparable potentialities," which means humans are not equal and that is just the natural order of life and it's how society organizes itself. Robert Nozick came up with his own theory of justice which reflects the Classical Liberalism theory. In Robert Nozick's book titled, Anarchy, State and Utopia, he states that, "individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them without violating their rights" (2). Nozick believes that justice is the rights each individual has to their own property and that it doesn't reflect the results that come out of this just society.