Can the subaltern develop? Considerations regarding John Rawls’ political liberalism and the SDGs based on the theory of dependence

Abstract

Since the adoption of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2015, there is a wide-ranging discussion of how to make their implementation feasible and the prospects of achieving the objectives and targets by the year 2030. This way, the debate on the liberal conception of justice, on which the SDG are based, and their limits of effectiveness around the world are important parts of this discussion. The paper presents a counterpoint to the liberal conception of justice based on the Theory of Dependence, emphasizing how the asymmetries of social, political and economic relations and the dynamics of competition within countries and among them may make it impossible to fully achieve the SDG and, consequently, the conception of justice of Political Liberalism that underlies them. In the end, it is evident how the implementation of the SDGs can be strengthened if it takes into account the most substantial issues regarding the social, political and economic structures that are asymmetrical and reinforce the logic of competition among its participants, both internationally and nationally.