earticle

영어

This paper attempts to re-examine the relationship between welfare state and social justice, focusing on the implications and limits of ‘distributional justice’. As a result of this review, I would like to argue as follows. First, it is possible to define social justice in welfare state which has universalistic character, although it has relativistic character with the changes of time. Second, the contents of social justice in modern welfare state are not systematic and concrete in comparison with other political ideas, such as constitutional monarchy, liberal democracy, socialism. Third, the definition of social justice in welfare state as distributional justice(for example Rawls) turns a blind eye to the basic structure of capitalist society, although it can have temporary importance from the strategical point of view. It has limits to the theoretical, practical contributions which lead to reduce the gap between classes especially in quality. Forth, if social justice in welfare state aims more freedom and equality without alienation, its ultimate orientation should be over the capitalist relations of production.