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

Order Justice and Democracy via Edward Elgar Publishing.

Read Chapter 1 & view the Table of Contents of Justice and Democracy free online.

This visionary book seeks to uncover the main barriers to achieving greater social justice in existing twenty-first century capitalism. Developing a comprehensive consequentialist theory of justice applied to today’s global situation, Mike Berry adopts the thesis that, in order to move towards a more just world, the weaknesses of liberal democracy must be overcome through reconstructing robust, resilient social democracies.

Reviews

‘Berry’s Justice and Democracy is an eloquent exposition of an unapologetically reformist agenda. He engages with select authors to develop a clear through line, constructively criticising the curious arguments of epistocrat Jason Brennan (Against Democracy, 2016) with as much ease as he references Marx’s revolutionary thought and draws on Thomas Piketty (Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013) and Capital and Ideology, 2020).

This work is accessible to newcomers and will keep old hands enthralled.’

— Anitra Nelson, RMIT University (read the full review)

‘A thorough reappraisal of the strained relationship between justice and democracy has never been more important than in our current global context of the Great Unsettling. Mike Berry not only offers a penetrating historical analysis of this relationship, but also provides a thoughtful roadmap to social justice based on the necessary restructuring of global capitalism. Rejecting both neoliberal market globalism and the populist retreat to economic nationalism, this book calls instead for a reglobalization of the enduring social democratic principles of equality, solidarity, and anti-authoritarianism. A must-read!’

– Manfred B. Steger, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, US and Western Sydney University, Australia