Andrew Jackson rejected a strong national government as well as national investments such as in roadways as he sought to bring power to the people. This message was popular among the relatively prosperous farmers, small merchants, and others, who did recognize the role of government in creating this relative equality. Despite his anti-government sentiments, Jackson and his successors continued existing and started new government programs to expand the economy. Abraham Lincoln, elected by anti-slavery voters, is best known for fighting the Civil War and eliminating slavery, but he also returned the federal government to more visible efforts to promote economic development and in the process committed the country to building a middle class. It was Lincoln’s idea that all Americans should have a fair chance in life. A key part of this program was the expansion of public education.

This chapter discusses the conceptual foundations of the notion of social justice during the Enlightenment before surveying the volume’s achievement in historicizing twentieth-century European proposals. Social justice presupposed the invention of the “social,” in and through the insight into informal cultural and institutional ordering. And while social justice was coined earlier in the nineteenth century, the concept became unavoidable later in the century as both left liberals and Roman Catholics responded to individuals and laissez-faire, in part by innovating a new ‘social science’. This chapter concludes by speculating about the future trajectory of claims on the notion of social justice.

Chapter 4 discusses the wider theoretical arguments in Thoughts and Details. Burke maintained that a harmony of interest emerged between buyers and sellers in a system of free exchange, which enabled both parties to benefit from voluntary contractual arrangements. The practice of commercial virtues, such as diligence and industry, was encouraged by this incentive structure. Even though he did champion market liberty, however, Burke should not be considered a strict advocate of laissez-faire economics because of his support for chartered corporations, his conditional approval of the Navigation Acts, and a number of other instances in which he endorsed state intervention in the economy, such as the corn bounty. More broadly, I posit that Burke’s economic thought was a precursor to F. A. Hayek’s epistemic conception of political economy. Both thinkers recognized that man’s intellect struggled to fully comprehend the complexities of social life, and that planned economies failed to consider the primacy of circumstance in individual market transactions. Therefore, governments should practice restraint in their supervision of markets. Additionally I contend that Burke’s praise of markets affirmed his commitment to human experience, not abstract theory. Hence Thoughts and Details represents continuities with his other commentary on the limits of reason.