Economic Freedom and Social Justice: The Classical Ideal of Equality in Contexts of Racial Diversity

This book analyses the egalitarian foundations of equality law from a classical liberal perspective by asking two central questions: does justice ideally demand equality? Are differences in abilities among people in some sense unfair? The book examines these questions in the context of racial diversity.
Racial justice as a component of social justice is often considered to be so emotionally and morally compelling that its implications for economic freedom are rarely subjected to critical scrutiny. In defending the classical ideal of formal equality in contexts of racial diversity this book questions the ethical status of egalitarian social and moral ideals. Economic Freedom and Social Justice argues that egalitarian ideals, like all subjective value judgements, must be subjected to critical intellectual inquiry rather than treated axiomatically. Drawing upon the legal framework in the UK and other common law jurisdictions, this book shows some of the ways in which egalitarian ideals, in addition to resting on false premises, are costly, harmful, and ultimately inimical to justice and liberty. The book argues that legal entitlements and policy guidelines constructed upon notions of racial equity are wrongly constituted as the main prism through which liberal market democracies govern private relationships, including the employment relationship.

Written in a clear and forthright style, this book will be of interest to students and scholars in law, economics, philosophy and political economy.

Wanjiru Njoya is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter Law School, UK and a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. She has previously taught law at St John’s College, Oxford, the London School of Economics, and Queen’s University, Canada. She has published widely in the field of employment law and labour regulation, most recently in the King’s Law Journal, the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy, and the Journal of Libertarian Studies. Dr Njoya is a graduate of the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and a former Rhodes Scholar (St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, 1998). Her doctoral research on the conceptual framework of the employment relationship is published under the title Property in Work: the Employment Relationship in the Anglo-American Firm. She lives in East Devon, England.