This article considers how to approach the task of developing a curriculum for social justice at a time of planetary and systemic crisis, on the basis that both 'human capital development' and passing on 'the best that has been thought and said' from the past are inadequate responses. If our aim is to create the conditions for human survival and greater social justice, we need to radically commit to values of care, solidarity, equality and democracy, and the development of a broad set of critical literacies. Rather than simply hoping and waiting for better policies and systems, can we usefully find purpose and joy and start to prefigure a more socially just world in the here and now?