Non-Profits: Global Justice

The previous articles in this module discussed the various aspects connected with the non-profits and how they link together with the overarching aims and objectives of ensuring social justice and equity. This article looks at the theme of global justice as it applies to the non-profits and how the goal of ensuring equitable growth and nondiscriminatory development is the main aim of the nonprofits movement.

The point here is that nonprofits have taken centre-stage mainly because the practice of neoliberal economic policies throughout the world has resulted in lopsided development where the few benefit at the expense of the many. What this means is that development is not equitable and there are always losers in the growth mantra whose rights and interests are ignored. Hence, the emergence of nonprofits as a medium and a vehicle for providing justice and equity to the underprivileged is the key trend that has accompanied neoliberal globalization.

Global justice also refers to the restoration of rights of communities and people who have been marginalized and have been relegated to the sidelines of the growth story. For instance, the phenomenon of globalization can be likened to a vehicle that is taking the better off on board and driving into a paradise and at the same time driving away the underprivileged in the opposite direction or simply wishing away the problems of poverty and inequity. This section of people who have been rendered homeless and despondent is the reason for the nonprofits to seek justice for them. Just as globalization has led to global growth, it has also led to global poverty. Hence, the task of ensuring global justice falls on the shoulders of the nonprofits.

The other aspect about the global justice movement is that it seeks to flesh out the contradiction of contemporary capitalism and the inherent winner takes all nature of modern economics. What this means is that globalization and neoliberal capitalism have thrown up a section or a class of people who have been worse off than before. Just as these trends have made people better off, they have also made others worse off. Hence, there has to be a movement towards ensuring that all sections gain and it is this vacuum that the nonprofits step into in their quest for global justice. Nonprofits like Oxfam, Action Aid, and Greenpeace strive towards building an equitable and just society and hence, their aim dovetails with the idealistic notion of global justice. Whether we get complete utopian justice or some semblance of justice, the fact that nonprofits are on the frontlines of the global justice movement means that they are doing their job.

Finally, the global justice movement also aims at addressing the inequalities and the inequities at the heart of modern culture and hence, seeks to redress historical, cultural, societal, and economic injustices meted out to the underprivileged. This endeavor by the nonprofits to redress the imbalances is what the global justice movement is all about. In conclusion, nonprofits are at the forefront of the global justice movement and despite setbacks, they have managed to secure crucial victories in the quest for social justice and societal equality.