In the end, for humanity the only form of progress that matters is progress in our understanding of justice. I do have have something to contribute there.

Enlightenment thinking left us with two broad advancements in our understanding of justice: to be valid it must be universal and the 'twin pillars of justice' for society are liberty and equality.

Those two great insights are the foundation of Liberalism. Liberalism is the meta-ideology that underlies Liberal society (i.e., democracy and the rule of law with the primacy of liberty for all as its primary concern).

Justice occurs when people act in accordance with the ethic of justice. An ethic is a rule to govern human conduct in our interactions with one another. The ethic of justice is the ethic for governing the governance of a society (which is neither more nor less than the sum of the interactions of its members).

So, to have a just society it must have a known ethic of justice. Without that any notion of justice can only be a mirage.

Liberal society was successful when we thought it was just because we knew what justice must be. No Liberal society had completely fulfilled the ideals of liberty and equality, but with those ideals ensconced in Liberal culture progress towards them was possible.

Now we have doubts--profound doubts. Those doubts are well-founded.

The fundamental problem is that neither liberty nor equality is an ethic. Liberty is the opposite of a rule governing conduct. Equality is not of itself a rule of any kind.

Equality does, however, imply an ethic: mutual respect (of a basic kind--taking one another into account). There is respect that must be earned, but there is also respect that every human being is due merely by virtue of being human. That is the respect justice requires.

Mutual respect might sound vague and flaccid, but its implications for society are concrete and robust. Recognizing mutual respect as the ethic of justice and applying it to the governance of society would maximize liberty, reinforce democracy, and transform the outcomes for society of the existing economy (without changing what kind of economy it is).

"Equality Is All We Need" (here in Medium)