Many people want to try to address injustice, but don’t know where to start. Some forms of injustice can be addressed by donating money to charities or aid organisations. However, as the American political theorist Iris Marion Young argued, many of the most serious injustices in the world are structural and require political solutions.

Structural injustices are not the result of people deliberately acting wrongly, but instead come about when large numbers of people act in tiny, normal and morally acceptable ways. Without necessarily meaning to, they help perpetuate injustices such as sweatshop labour, as well as factors that lead to poverty and climate change. We might say that these injustices are baked into society.

Individual efforts – for example by buying less, donating to charity or buying ethical alternatives – can’t solve these problems entirely. The structures will remain unchanged without political action. Becoming an activist is a way of taking up what philosophers call our “political responsibility” for structural injustice.

But despite all the injustice in the world, and the pressure from social media to care loudly about every issue, devoting a significant amount of time to activism isn’t achievable for everyone.

Most people – especially those with caring responsibilities – have scarce free........

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