Extreme Poverty, Social Justice, and Human Rights: Rawls, Sen, and Wresinski

This paper explores the thought on extreme poverty and social justice of Father Joseph Wresinski (1917–1988), a Catholic priest who devoted his life to working with the very poor. To situate Wresinski within debates on social justice, comparisons are made with John Rawls and Armataya Sen. The focus is on the identification of the least advantaged and of who is responsible for implementing social justice. For Rawls, the least advantaged can be defined through their endowment of primary goods, and social justice is to be implemented through a society’s core institutions. For Sen, the aim is to expand capabilities, with a major role to be played by social institutions but also with scope for individuals and communities to contribute. The call for building alliances around the poorest in communities is strongest with Wresinski, for whom extreme poverty is a violation of human rights that, together with social exclusion, prevents the poor from fulfilling their responsibilities, leading to a lack of self-worth as the ultimate deprivation.