Why do people insist on understanding wealth and poverty in terms of “justice”? It is an unintelligible concept:
http://blog.mises.org/19290/justice-versus-social-justice-2/
About Me
- Jeff Godley
- Vegreville, Alberta, Canada
- I am... a skinny 20-something guy with glasses and shaggy hair ...Christian, Calvinist, Evangelical ...a social and fiscal conservative and libertarian ...a guitar- and bass-player and worship leader ...a budding online poker player ...a thinker and amateur polemicist who loves to debate all things theological, political, philosophical, vegetable, animal or mineral
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7 comments:
You should be careful about being a follower of Mises. Mises was extremely anti-Christian, hated Jesus Christ, and said Christian teaching is what leads to the problems of the world. Big Red Flag right there.
As they frequently do, Mises and Austrian Economics bastardize and distort what the traditional meaning and understanding of terms mean. None of the ancient great thinkers advocated Libertarianism, and for good reason. The Misaean view entails a radial individualism that entails (by the admission of the leaders of the Mises Institute) that abortion and child abandonment are legal and good because otherwise you're violating the "rights" of the parents. This and many other anti-Christian abominations are deemed "good" by those folks, and they gladly admit it.
In truth, Justice as anciently defined and Scholastically defined is to give what is due to a person - and this includes distributing wealth in such a way so that nobody is deprived their right to survive. God never intended the goods of this world to be hoarded, but rather to be so abundant that man can survive throughout the ages. And given the fact that all land has been stolen or lost in war at one point in time or another in history, it's ridiculous to speak in terms of a deified entitlement to private property, otherwise those Libertarians should be seeking to return their land to the Native Americans.
The Bible tramples all over Misaean Philosophy, and that's why Libertarians are generally atheist and hate Christianity. I am passionate about this subject because the traditional notion of Social Justice has been abused and distorted by the "Right" and "Left" wings of Classical Liberalism.
I am not a follower of Mises - at least not in the sense that you mean. I don't "follow" him on his ideas about religion or abortion. I do however, agree with his ideas on economy. But this doesn't make me his "follower".
There are many schools of thought which I will cling to without agreeing with everything that is said: I am a Calvinist, but that doesn't mean I will agree with everything Calvin said; I am a Protestant, but that does not mean I will agree with everything Luther or Zwingli or any other Reformer might have said. Citing an article from a website that bears his name doesn't make me his follower, or an advocate for every single thing he believed.
While I'm in profound disagreement with most of what you say in your last 2 paragraphs, I'm not going to argue all of it at this juncture.
What I will say, is that Social Justice is not a "traditional notion". It is actually a fairly recent notion - it popped up in the mid-19th century in Catholic thinking from Central and South America. While it does hearken back in a very limited way to Thomistic thought, it is not a pillar of Christian belief by any means.
And that is why I posted the above link - to assert that Social Justice is neither a traditional, nor a necessary concept. Whether or not Mises was a saint is immaterial; the issue I'm raising is that Social Justice is a broken concept which should be abandoned.
Hi Jeff,
I'm glad to see you are cautious of your approach to Mises. That said, accepting his economic views in any significant degree entails adopting his Philosophical world views to a significant degree as well.
I'm not sure how you can say Social Justice is not traditional when it's principles are taught back as far as Aristotle. The 'modern' economic structures of Socialism/Capitalism is what is relatively modern. The only reason why there was more formal Social Justice movements in this timeframe is because Socialism/Capitalism overturned the traditional order of things.
Here is a solid example: The Enclosure Laws of England roughly marked the start of Individualist-Capitalist economics in that nation. Before then, there were vast stretches of "common land" which the public was free to use for farming and such. Enclosure effectively privatized those public lands, giving it to the super wealthy, leaving the common man without land to farm and was forced to then work for those same wealthy owners. In other words, Social Justice was a very real and visible part of English life until the Enclosure movement.
The bedrock principle of Social Justice is that the family is the basic building block of society, and the primary duty of government is to look out for the common good. In Liberal economic philosophy (e.g. Mises, Libertarianism), the individual is the building block of society, and the primary duty of government is to promote the happiness of the individual. The consequences of these two world views is clear, since the latter tends towards the downfall of the family, as we see today.
I am well aware that proponents of Social Justice are fond of claiming Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas for themselves. The concept of Social Justice was, however, developed in the 1840's by Luigi Taparelli. He based the concept on some of the teachings of Aquinas (whose teachings were in turn influenced by Aristotle).
Yet Social Justice is not a truly Thomistic or Aristotelian concept. It is certainly possible to read Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle without coming to the same conclusions that a proponent of social justice would.
Social Justice represents radical egalitarianism and the redistribution of wealth. It is rare to hear a SJ apologist talk of the value of family - it is much more common to hear one talk of the "evils" of poverty.
You are wrong in your assessment of British capitalism. The development of free enterprise in England predates the Inclosure Laws by centuries, predominantly through the growth of the wool industry. Private property rights date back to the Magna Carta and even earlier.
Furthermore, the first capitalists were monastic orders - and the first advocates of capitalism were Christian theologians. Look into the development of how the Church dealt with the issue of usury and the charging of interest and you'll see what I mean. If the history of Christian thought is a determining factor in good economic thought, capitalism will surely win out over Social Justice.
Liberalism does not hold that government's primary duty is to promote the happiness of the individual. An individual is responsible for their own happiness. It is the primary duty of government to protect the rights and freedoms of the individual.
But here is where SJ confuses the issue of rights and justice. The only way to have a right is to have a method of stopping someone from taking the right away from you. You have a right to life because it is illegal to murder, and we have police and courts to deal with murder, and we to varying degrees allow people to act in self-defense. In Aristotelian terms, justice in this case is giving what is due to a person - their right to life.
But how can poverty be unjust? Only if there is a right to not be poor. How can this right be protected? First of all, what we call "poor" in the Modern West is "rich" by almost any other standard throughout the history of the world. More than that, there is no way of protecting the right to not be poor. There is no right to have a certain amount of wealth. You cannot take anyone else to court because you have a low salary.
Hi Jeff,
I don't think you and I are speaking of the same thing when we say "Social Justice" - you seem to be speaking of the modern-liberal sense of socialism/communism.
For example, you said:
"Social Justice represents radical egalitarianism and the redistribution of wealth. It is rare to hear a SJ apologist talk of the value of family - it is much more common to hear one talk of the "evils" of poverty."
Catholic Social Teaching has nothing to do with egalitarianism, nor the seizing and redistributing of wealth. Part of true Social Teaching includes the fact some people are more wealthy, that there are indeed different economic classes, and that class warfare is forbidden. Indeed, in true Social Justice, big government and the nanny state are seen as perversions.
The catch is this: There is such a thing as human dignity, and this cannot be violated in any manner. This means that, e.g., you cannot get rich at the expense of another person's dignity. A good example of this is sweatshop labor, which has humans working for measly wages and dangerous conditions. There is nothing wrong with making a profit, but not at the expense of someone living without dignity.
Another good example of upholding human dignity is not overworking someone so that they have no time/energy left to worship God, especially on Sunday. This fact alone strikes at the heart of all economic liberalism, for they see religion as a 'private recreational activity' of sorts, not something man is required to incorporate in all his actions. It is thus no wonder that in modern times even Sunday is a normal working day for many businesses. Mammon beats out God.
In your comments about capitalism in Britian, again it seems clear to me that we're speaking of different things. For example, private property has always been a right within true Social Justice framework, which dates further back than the Magna Carta. My key point about Inclosure Laws is that this admits the existence of 'common farm lands' which lower classes needed to live off of (each doing their own labor), and which was later abolished via privatizing. The very fact there were common farm lands proves the government incorporated Social Justice within it's economic laws and saw this as normal way of life.
The first capitalists were not monastic orders, nor were the advocates Christian theologians, since captialist principles could never take root within their world-view. True, they were never against making a profit, but they were against charging interest, exploiting the worker, etc.
Poverty is a fact of life in virtue of the Fall and sin, and thus will never be abolished. But it is unjust in that the worlds goods are plentiful enough so that nobody (theoretically) should starve or go without *basic* needs. Social Justice is not out to eliminate poverty, but to greatly curb it, especially those things which lead large percentages of people into poverty.
OK, I'm confused:
Earlier, you said that, "given the fact that all land has been stolen or lost in war at one point in time or another in history, it's ridiculous to speak in terms of a deified entitlement to private property."
Now, you're saying "private property has always been a right within true Social Justice framework."
Is private property an inalienable human right, or is it a ridiculous notion?
Hi Jeff,
Sorry for the delay. Private property is a right (not a fiction), but it is not an absolute right.
What this means is that when someone works for something or has something passed onto them, they own it in so far as they are able to do whatever they want with it, provided it conforms to natural law and just human laws.
Since we are ultimately stewards of God's creation (similar to how God entrusted the care of land to Adam and others), we don't own in an absolute sense anything (1 Timothy 6:7). Thus, there are not only limits on our use of creation but we must also gear our property towards the betterment of ourselves and society. For example, you are not 'free' to do literally whatever you want with your property (be it land or goods), such as pollute or use it to harm others. Similarly, one is not free to hoard and amass wealth at the expense of letting the community starve, especially if the owner relies on labor from the community.
The reference to all land being 'stolen or lost in war' was to point out private property really only exists within the context of an established community/government. If entitlement to property were truly absolute, then a lot of land we live on actually needs to be returned to whomever lived here before us. In reality, we live according to whatever government law is established, including their property boundaries.
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