Strictly speaking there is no such thing as justice without reference to law. In the Islamic tradition, God being supremely just, His law is ipso facto just. Man-made law can be bad or unjust if it is contrary to His law. It is in effect the same way in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Justice is that what the Sovereign (king, parliament or the people) says it is; law which is his word cannot therefore be unjust. The idea of justice can also have application beyond the domain of jurisprudence. Thus we encounter the term “social justice”. Its meaning may change slightly as we go from one political culture to another, but the implication in all its versions is that the lower orders in society will not be driven down to levels of privation where their access to the basic amenities of life has become precarious. The prevalence of social justice is not to be taken for granted. The wealthy in a conservative society may argue that if some of the poor starve to death, it is their own fault. They have been lazy and imprudent. Speaking in terms of Social Darwinism, they contend that the demise of such people will lead to the survival of the fittest and improve the race. It is for the reformer, when he appears on the scene, to say that the poor are poor largely because of the hierarchical social order that the wealthy have devised. It has been their design to create large pool of cheap labour that will keep the wheels of their industries rolling. They have made upward social mobility extremely difficult for the lower classes. For some four decades following the end of World War II, governments in progressive democratic societies moved to increase the real income of their workers and reduce their deprivations. Systems of free education and healthcare were created, minimum wage levels were established, and unemployment insurance was provided. This type of dispensation came to be known as a welfare state. Needless to say, these programmes of subsidising the poor cost money, which governments raise by taxing the more affluent classes. We have been witnessing a trend back to conservatism during the last 20 years or so. The affluent are now saying that they have done enough for the poor, and that they do not want to support them anymore. Demands for cutting down taxes have been mounting in the US and other western societies; so have been pressures for winding up or reducing programmes of public assistance to the lower classes. Education in schools and colleges funded by public authorities used to be virtually free in the US and the UK. That is no longer the case. Tuition rates in public institutions are still considerably lower than those in private colleges, but fees under different names have been added with the result that a student in a government-funded college ends up paying between $ 10-15,000 per year. A few weeks ago students from the better known British universities were shouting anti-government slogan outside 10 Downing Street (the British prime minister’s residence and offices) to protest against the Conservative government’s plan to impose tuition fees on college students. Just the other day, several hundred thousand Englishmen were out on the streets to protest against the government’s reported plans to cut social services. Americans who have worked and paid social security taxes are entitled to health insurance managed by the federal government and called Medicare. Consultation with a designated physician is for the most part free. Persons not covered by Medicare may be helped by private insurance companies to whom they pay specified contribution. The cost of prescription medicines carrying generic names is largely covered. Those who do not have any health insurance must pay the entire cost of care out of their own funds. Soon after taking office President Obama got Congress to pass a bill that extended health insurance benefits to some 30 million unprotected citizens. Had the president’s move come after the Republicans had taken control of the House of Representatives in the recent elections, it would not have been passed. Healthcare is available free of cost to citizens in the UK. Education is in a most unsatisfactory state in all parts of Pakistan, and especially in Sindh. In some places, school buildings stand but there are no students and teachers. In other places, buildings and students may be present but teachers are not. There are hundreds of ghost schools elsewhere, meaning units that exist on paper but not on the ground. In still other situations teachers come to work late and leave early to manage businesses they are carrying on at the same time. This state of affairs characterises public schools. Privately owned and managed institutions are doing a good job, but they charge enormous sums of money as tuition. They operate as if they were a money-minting industry. Healthcare in the villages of Pakistan is virtually unavailable. Physicians do not wish to locate here, for there are no schools for their children and no places of entertainment for their spouses. If a man falls seriously ill, he will have to be carried to a physician in a town which may be several miles away, and to the tehsil or district headquarters if he needs hospitalisation. Reports have it that more than half the population in Pakistani villages suffers from tuberculosis and enervating diseases such as chronic dysentery. We hear in certain quarters references to an Islamic welfare state. Such a state did once exist and it accepted responsibility and it ensured all persons access to the basic amenities of life. To this end stipends were given to all Muslims during the pious caliphate (632-661). Upon becoming the first king in the Muslim world Amir Muawia stopped the stipends and asked the people to go out, work and earn a living. Since then the welfare state has been missing in Islamic history. The poor state of public education and healthcare in Pakistan does not mean that the wealthy have got tired of giving money for these services. The harsh fact is that they never wanted to allocate more than a small fraction of the national resources for education and health. Nor did they want to enlarge the resource base by taxing their own incomes in an equitable fashion. It has never been a part of public policy to convert this country into a welfare state. The feudal lords who dominate its governance and politics would be entirely unreceptive to such a design. The writer, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, is a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics