ABSTRACT
For more than a century, governments in advanced capitalist countries have used regulatory law to “domesticate” pure market forces in the interest of national societies. In recent years, the realities of the global division of labor have outgrown the regulatory structures of nation-states, and no supranational agency enforces standards of economic justice at the global level. The imbalance between high normative standards of justice and weak institutional structures produces discomfort among citizens of advanced countries who rely on mass-produced commodities for their livelihood, but who have grown accustomed to the idea that “fair capitalism” is not a contradiction in terms: Who knows what nefarious forms of exploitation are happening on the other side of the world? And, even if one did know, what could be done? In an environment where existing political institutions seem incapable of adapting the standards of the modern class compromise to the global division of labor, concerned citizens formulate and enforce normative principles of economic justice outside the boundaries of the nation-state.
