Is Economic Freedom the Hidden Path to Social Justice?

Abstract

How can societies advance social justice? Research on economic freedom addresses many social justice goals, including social tolerance and protection of minority rights, promotion of democracy and political freedoms, and income equality. We survey the academic literature on these topics and find that economic freedom can advance social justice goals in some cases. For income equality the resulted are mixed, but the other goals have a clear relationship with economic freedom. Based on these results, social justice advocates may want to embrace economic freedom to achieve goals such as tolerance, minority rights, democracy, and political freedom.