Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations
imposed, capacity. From the perspective of political economy, this translates into the freedom of market forces to influence the organization of society. Within this type of framework, perceived obstacles to the exercise of such freedom, including the control of capital movement across borders, the excessive taxation of profits and capital, and more generally the public regulation of the activities of private corporations, are combated and largely eliminated. One of the most important reasons for the depth and extent of this transformation is that people around the world perceive freedom, very simply and tangibly, as that which makes it possible to secure work and a decent income, to attend a good university, to see the world and its wonders, and to escape the constraints of an often narrow social milieu. That such aspirations and dreams often turn out to be illusory-a fact to which the countless numbers of migrant workers who look for El Dorado and find a nightmare may attest-is, from the perspective of the people concerned, a moot point. Freedom includes opportunities and risks. Social justice has a relatively insignificant place in this perspective and discourse, and the same is true for internationaljustice, at least in the redistributive context. Individuals and nations do their best, compete, and succeed or fail. A charitable hand, and sometimes a second chance-but certainly not permanent support-might be extended to those who fail. Historical precedent suggests that the popularity of this vision or ideology has been nourished by the shortcomings of the previous ideology, which was in place for much of the twentieth century and, for quite some time after the Second World War, represented the dominant view in the organization of societies and the world. An essential elementof this ideology was the idea, dominant in national and international political and intellectual circles since the great economic depression of the 1930s, that the State had specific responsibilities in the economic and social domains that might involve the public appropriation of certain means of production and the implementation of interventionist economic policies and extensive redistributive policies financed by progressive taxation. For want of a more precise term, this earlier set of ideals might be said to represent the social democratic ideology. At the final meeting of the Forum, it was regretfully asserted that social democracy, as an idea and as a project, was dead. There are still a number of successful social democratic regimes in the world, but social democratic parties are short of new ideas and are on the defensive everywhere. This pronouncement regarding the death of social democracy may prove as imprudent as the statements linking the current ideology to the end of history; it is possible that social democracy will, and many believe it should, experience a rebirth, possibly with a different name and a renewed doctrine. In any event, it was quite easy for the proponents of the victorious ideology of neoliberalism-and this, again, is a term chosen for lack of a more concise alternative that might capture the truly liberal, the often conservative and even resolutely