During the second half of the twentieth century, the concept of social justice emerged as a key political term in Western Europe. It influenced the debates surrounding the creation and the crisis of the welfare state and it figures more or less prominently in any political discussion relating to questions of inequality. In the wake of the recent economic crises in Europe, politicians and commentators on all sides of the debate have been referring to notions of social justice or fairness with increased frequency again. In order to appeal to a wide audience, the catchphrase is used mostly rhetorically by politicians, as if it is self-explanatory. Beyond the political buzzword, however, the concept proves to be rather complex: it consists of a multiplicity of underlying principles and premises, varying historically and culturally.

This research project explores the history of the semantics of social justice in Britain and West Germany after 1945. As a point of departure, the analysis will focus on political discourse and academic research concerning the distribution of income and wealth as a key category of social inequality. It will trace how economists and statisticians in the two countries conceptualised the analysis of income and wealth distribution during the post-war era. By exploring the exchanges between British and German scholars as well as the role of international institutions in this field, the analysis will also take the transnational dimensions of this development into account. It will then ask how the categories and theories underlying these differing approaches in turn structured and influenced public debates on social inequality. Given the close connections between debates about inequality and discourse on fairness principles, the theme of income distribution lends itself to the investigation of changing concepts of social justice.

In addition to the records of statistical offices, economic associations and international organisations, the project will also rely on philosophical and scholarly discussions, journals and newspapers, party papers, parliamentary proceedings, government records and other sources reflecting what was understood by this powerful political slogan and how these meanings evolved over time. The project thus aims to integrate historical discourse analysis and conceptual history with the history of science to develop a comparative approach to the exploration of changing political languages in modern European history.