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the term just is one way to frame the matter. you could also say which system is most coherent from a business viewpoint--which is most stable (long term prospects), most inclusive (widest consumer base), most healthy (more likely to buy more commodities)...or you could argue from the viewpoint of which system operates at the greater distance from the social jungle, which enables capitalism to provide better lives for the greatest number-but you know, in reality, not in horatio alger land---or which system is the more just. but each of these categories will point you at different features.
one could say, for example, that a system that is highly stratified on class lines as is the us cannot possibly be a just society unless and until it makes its educational system into one that is not a direct mirror of the class order---rich towns, good schools; poor towns shittier schools---because this arrangement inflicts the consequences of class on children and in the process provides a radically "uneven playing field"---a metaphor i hate---from the outset.
if education and opportunity are unevenly or unequally distributed, then the "you earn what you should make" arguments head out the window because they presuppose equality of access to competences, to opportunities, etc. in the present american system, there is no such equality--nor is there much interest in bringing the educational system closer to it from the right. vouchers etc are far more about breaking unions that providing good education to all...but that's another matter,
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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