In this research, we present a first empirical reflection on ‘smart social justice’, its measurement and possible ‘drivers’ and ‘bottlenecks’. The very idea of ‘smart development’ was first proposed by Meadows¹ and has not been really followed up to now in social science ever since. We first provide data on how much ecological footprint is used in the nations of the world system to ‘deliver’ a given amount of democracy, economic growth, gender equality, human development, research and development, and social cohesion. To this end, we first developed UNDP-type performance indicators from current standard international comparative, cross-national social science data on these six main dimensions of development and on the combined performance on the six dimensions (‘human development index plus’). We then show the non-linear standard OLS regression trade-offs between ecological footprints per capita and their square on these six components of development and the overall super-UNDP development performance index, derived from them. The residuals from these regressions are our new measures of smart development: a country experiences smart development, if it achieves a maximum of development with a minimum of ecological footprint. We then look at the cross-national drivers and bottlenecks of this smart social justice and development, using standard cross-sectional data, which operationalize standard economic, sociological and political science knowledge in international development accounting. Finally, we take up income inequality which has been very prominent in recent global public health debate due to its very detrimental effect on life quality.