Soft goals and hard targets in the Human Development approach

Abstract

The human development paradigm has been widely accepted. However, it has been more the soft approach -restricted to the implementation of social policies that contribute to the expansion of certain basic skills- than the hard approach -that involves redistributive reforms- the one that has been mostly taken into account. While equity in distribution of means (income and wealth) is not the most appropriate measure of economic justice, as it does not ensure fairness in achieving the goals of individuals, this does not mean it is not a necessary condition. A hard conception of human development is necessary in order to expand capacities such us to appear in public without feeling shame (Smith). The extreme nature of inequality in Latin America makes it even more necessary to recover the roussonian matrix of the “difference principle” of Rawls.