SOCIAL CRITIQUE AND PUBLIC POLICY: REARTICULATING THE IDEA OF PROGRESS AS MEDIUM TO SOCIAL JUSTICE IN THE 'MORE HDI' PROGRAM

From the point of view of critical theory and social criticismo the idea of progress seems to be established in an ambivalence: on the one hand, the postulates of Amy Alllen started an "Aufklarung" of the conception of progress ( which I call the "negative" conception) and its possible unfolding to a critical theory as well as for social criticismo; in contrast, the conception of progress can be understood as a "positive way" in which it is guided by the constitutive scope of a critical theory by embodying, for example, the social justice as a social-normative medium to the process of emancipation. Taking into account the aforementioned assertions, I will take up, in this research, the core of the conception of progress in Amy Allen (1) in order to interpose a "positive" idea. In this sense, I will take as a social -institutional and empirical reference the public policy of the 'Mais IDH' social program (More HDI), which is constituted both as a response to the concept of progress in Amy Allen and as a possible condition for the realization of social justice (understood as the minimum conditions of existence) (2).