Social Justice In Transition

Justice is the core principle of social governance, which is important to society, just as the truth is to the idea. At present, the society is in the critical period of transition, conflicts of interests have appeared prominently, and distributive justice of the reform achievements has become the highlight of people's attention.First part of the thesis presents the relative theories of justice which are the logical beginning of the thesis. Justice has three concrete principles: the principle of absolute equality of basic rights, the equal principle of proportion of non-basic rights, and the principle of equal rights of social opportunity. The government should take charge of the equality of basic economic rights and the market should be responsible for the equality of non-basic economic rights. The opportunity is classified as natural opportunity and social opportunity, however, the society has no responsibility for natural opportunity. Rawls's error is to demand all opportunities to be distributed equally. Justice is divided into"procedural justice and substantial justice","institutional justice and behavioral justice", which show obvious differences to static society and transitional society, transitional society pays attention to substantial justice and institutional justice, while procedural justice and behavioral justice are often not guaranteed.In essence, justice is the benefaction of exchanging equal interests, and general exchange not only refers to economic exchange, but also includes all behaviors of mutual supply. Justice exists as three forms which are the justice value proof as metaethics, the justice principle as normative ethics, and the justice virtue as virtue ethics. Justice regulates the exchange behaviors, but it has limited sphere of application, so random expanding its regulative sphere is a kind of familiar mistake. Justice is not the only principle of administrating society, to individual, which is also not the highest ethics of dealing with people. Justice consists of social justice and individual justice, Deserve criterion of social justice is contribution and deserve criterion of individual justice is the free exchange. The proof of justice is a kind of value proof, and Rawls'contract proof is not the value proof, but which is an important way of justice proof. Except contract proof, it is difficult for the value to find more practical method to prove. In the second part, the thesis emphasizes the essence and characteristics of transitional society of China. In modern contexts, essentially social transition is the social modernization, which consists of economic modernization, and political modernization as well as cultural modernization. Modernization of China is a kind of extrinsic modernization. The first thirty years after statehood were the radical industrialization aimed at strengthening the country; the second thirty years were the incremental reform and opening-up with the goal of enriching people. Compared with the countries of intrinsic modernization, China has radical characteristics, at the same time, as a post-modern country experiencing the transition from planned economy to market economy, China is also incremental. Compared with the western countries, the impetus of extrinsic modernization of China comes from the national crisis and is passive. In addition, China shows its features in the aspect of transitional order and speed, which results in Chinese different justice background and injustice issues.The third part researches the status quo of social justice in transitional China and particularity of justice. In the transitional process of Chinese society, economic justice, political justice and opportunity justice have developed: the symbol of economic justice development is the solution to basic economic rights and the establishment of distributional system of non-basic economic rights; the symbol of political justice development mainly refers to the realization of socialist democracy; the development of opportunity justice shows that household registration system is loosing and the opportunity of developing talent(education)is increasing. But there are numerous injustice problems in the transition: economic justice still has some problems, such as the lower level of basic economic rights and excessive gap of non-basic economic rights; there is the issue of increasing competitive political rights about political justice; discriminatory regulations, such as household registration system, continue to obstruct social opportunity justice. Education opportunity, above all higher education opportunity, is limited by congenital conditions of region, economy and etc., so injustice phenomena are still serious. The unbalanced development strategy, institutional market failure and institutional government failure are the main social causes in China.Justice and efficiency have positive relations. In general, increasing justice is bound to improve efficiency, while justice is not the only element of improving efficiency. Stabilization is the premise of justice development and justice results in stabilization, but the process of pursuing justice often leads to instability. Injustice is the essential cause of instability and the sense of injustice is the direct cause of instability. Injustice and the sense of injustice are not often corresponding. The sense of injustice can be higher than injustice and lower than injustice, and correct direction of people opinion can maintain natural relations of both, which is in favor of social stability and is the significance of ideological and political education.During the transitional process of modernization, justice in the western countries and China has developed, but there are different injustice problems in the western countries and China. In the period of transitional modernization, there is excessive gap of non-basic justice in the western countries which accumulates domestic injustice for longer period, where injustice gives rise to the sharper social conflicts, and the western countries exported domestic injustice behaviors because of colony and invasion. Compared with the western countries, transitional China has the phenomenon of excessive gap of non-basic justice and the strengthened objective conditions of corrective justice. Changes of interpersonal relationship before and after the transition promote to demand corrective justice. However, justice of China is realized consciously and positively by the guidance of the government and the society keeps stable.In the last part, the thesis concludes the experiences of political, economic and opportunity justice distribution and tries to probe new approach to realize justice. In the aspect of politics, currently Chinese authoritative political system is indispensable and certain for the transitional society and practices prove authoritative government is the political condition to promote the reform successfully, but with the reform's infiltration and extensive participation, incremental democracy of limited competition will be necessary way to construct Chinese socialist democracy from now on. In the aspect of economy, economic justice demands to establish the distribution system which consists of three mutually complementary distributions of the market, government and society. The market takes charge of primary distribution of non-basic rights with equal proportion. The government is responsible for the second distribution of basic economic rights, guarantees absolute equality of basic economic rights and improves with the social development. Social distribution is the third distribution and benevolent distribution transcending justice which should continually perfect the philanthropic regulations and organizational construction and emphasize the philanthropic distribution's role to promote justice distribution. Opportunity justice demands to achieve absolute equality of basic opportunity based on national qualification and equal competitive beginning of politics and economy, gradually implement educational justice and continue to prolong the time of compulsory education.