Justice and Democracy: A Progressive Agenda for the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

This newest book of Mike Berry further develops the ideas presented in his earlier books: The Affluent Society Revisited (2013) and Morality and Power: On Ethics, Economics and Public Policy (2017). Following on the “comprehensive consequentialist” conception of social justice devel-oped in his earlier work, Berry’s central thesis in this book is that “to move towards a more just world, in the actual circumstances of justice that we face, the weaknesses and threats to liberal democracy must be overcome through reconstructing robust, resilient social democracies” (p. 8). In line with this central thesis, and as the title of the book hints at, Berry suggests that justice and democracy are necessarily and intimately linked: it is not possible to have one without the other. Accordingly, the book is structured around these two key themes of justice and democracy.