Social Justice in Hard Times: From ‘Equality of Opportunity’ to ‘Fairness and Efficiency’

Drawing on historical records, including newspapers, parliamentary debates, & teacher union conference proceedings, it is examined how education in New South Wales, Australia, in the 1930s depression shifted from a practice organized by the prinicple of "equality of opportunity" to one informed by the principle of "fairness & efficiency." It is argued that the shifting form of social justice in education is an expression of a shift to the Right informed by a framework that views society as a market & individuals as equal, rational parties to exchange. This market form of social justice rests on an assumed common interest in individual wealth & prosperity, & the promise of a fair share of that wealth for all. This premise marginalizes the fact of inequitable production, distribution, & control of wealth, & its social implications. The economic discourse legitimizes self-interest over social interest, defining the market, rather than state or society, as the proper regulator of social obligations. The similarities between social justice during the hard times of the 1930s & 1990s are discussed. It is argued that, in hard times, there is a tendency for constraints on the state to be resolved by prioritizing the economic, & managing contraction through privatization & targeted welfare, legitimated by a reconstructed rhetoric of social justice which ensures that fairness & justice are judged within a framework of efficient management rather than absolute inequality. However, the logic of "fairness & efficiency" was vulnerable in the 1930s because the frames of debate were constantly challenged by the issue & experience of absolute inequality. People became outraged & politicized by the absolute injustice of exceptional practices deemed necessary by exceptional times. The consensus of the Right was contested & fractured to give a broad egalitarian reform movement pressing for the democratization of education & a return to principles of equality of opportunity. While this case study of the 1930s provides no solutions in the 1990s, it affirms the significance of political struggles around frames of debate, as wll as policy & practice.