Noonan, J. (Ed.). (2011). Life value and social justice [Special issue]. Studies in Social Justice, 5(1). https://journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/SSJ/issue/view/61
[Download Full Issue (PDF)| Life Value and Social Justice (2011)]
Deep Dive | The Hidden War On The Civil Commons
Deep Dive | The Hidden War Between Money and Life
Deep Dive | The Economy Is Life-Blind
Critique | You Cannot Drink Income Or Breathe Wealth
Debate | The Money Sequence vs Human Survival
Video Explainer | What Makes a Society Just?
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Comparative Analysis of Social Justice Perspectives and Civil Commons Frameworks
Please scroll to the right to see the columns on the right| Subject | Conceptual Framework | Primary Goal | Core Definition of Need | View on Social Justice | Relationship to Life-Ground (Inferred) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Life-Value Onto-Axiology (John McMurtry) | Life-Value Paradigm | Maintenance and development of life-capacities (thought, feeling, action) | N-criterion: that without which organic life-capacity is always reduced | Universal provision of life-necessities via the civil commons to enable the expression of human vital capacities | Directly grounded in the biophysical requirements of life; recognizes the organic and social interdependence within natural fields of life-support |
| ICESCR (International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) | Civil Commons / International Law | Protection and enablement of human life across all domains | Minimum core obligations (freedom from hunger, basic shelter, primary education) necessary for dignity | Guaranteed universal access to life-necessities (food, water, health, education) as a matter of binding legal right | Deeply connected to life requirements; establishes the 'right to live' by securing the biophysical and social foundations of human flourishing |
| Sustainable Food System (Jennifer Sumner) | Civil Commons | Sustainable provision of nutritious food for all | Equitable distribution of nutritious food within planetary limits | Comprehensive satisfaction of universal life-requirements for the sake of capacity development | Centered on the life-ground; treats food as a life-good rather than a commodity, respecting ecological limits and local control of arable land |
| People’s Free University of Saskatchewan (Howard Woodhouse) | Civil Commons / Life-Value | Sharing knowledge as a public good to enhance life-value | Education as a fundamental socio-cultural requirement for cognitive/imaginative health | Unpriced provision of necessary life-goods (education) to all, regardless of ability to pay | Connects to the life-ground by prioritizing the shared life-interests of community over corporate-market values |
| Capabilities Approach (Martha Nussbaum) | Capabilities Paradigm / Liberalism | Full development of the human personality and flourishing life | Functional capabilities (what people are able to do and be), often attached to individual liberty | Constitutional protection of basic capabilities; balancing meeting needs without denying individual liberty | Recognizes humans as needy but tends to treat them as essentially separate atomic persons, potentially clashing with collective life-grounded efforts |
| Migrant Activism in Hong Kong (Leah Briones) | Capabilities Paradigm / Mobile Livelihoods | Securing livelihood and earning power transnationally | Combined capabilities (internal skills + external material resources for work) | Alignment of livelihood security with rights to achieve distributive and political justice | Grounded in material survival; recognizes that political rights are hollow without the material capability to sustain life through gainful work |
| John Rawls | Liberal-Capitalist / Market Model | Growth of money-value through the difference principle | Primary goods (rights, liberties, wealth) that every rational man is presumed to want, decoupled from life-needs | Institutions are just if they distribute primary goods according to the difference principle, where inequalities benefit the least advantaged | Abstracted from the biophysical world; normalizes endless accumulation regardless of actual life requirements or ecological limits |
| Global Corporate Rights System | Money-Value / Market Ontology | Maximal production and accumulation of money-value for corporate entities | Consumer demand / market demand backed by ability to pay | Viewed as a technical-administrative given where price determines value; rejects redistribution as 'humanitarian absurdity' | Inherently life-blind and cumulatively eco-genocidal; instrumentalizes the biophysical world as means for money multiplication |
| John Locke | Private Property Model (Early Liberalism) | Justification of individual property rights | Implicit in provisos of 'enough and as good' left for others | Rights based on mixing labor with nature, though limited by the 'introduction of money' which erased life-grounded provisos | Initially life-grounded (no waste, enough for others) but subsequently life-blind as it allowed money to bypass original life-requirements |