Social Justice - Explained

Social justice refers to a political and philosophical theory that focuses on the idea of fairness in relations between individuals in society and equal access to opportunities, wealth and social rights.

[thefuturist]

Philosophically, social justice dates back to the (admittedly left-leaning) liberal thinker John Rawls, who proposed three principles of justice: first, that everyone have equal access to the maximum amount of rights available to all; secondly, that social and economic inequalities be arranged so that they benefit the least well-off; third, that offices and positions be equally accessible to all.

Rawls doesn't believe that the less well-off should be prioritised, but he argues that a liberal society must be set up so that no-one is 'left behind' because of their wealth, place of birth, skin colour, gender etc. We've done an awful lot in Western societies to achieve this, which is why the current 'critical social justice' culture talks in terms of 'structural' inequality i.e. inequality that can be theorised even if all the evidence suggests it doesn't exist. In a way, it's a bit like that scene from Anger Management where Adam Sandler's character is on the plane and acting calmly but is constantly told he's being aggressive. If (e.g.) a white person displays no evidence of racism it's assumed that they are unconsciously biased and that their apparent non-racist behaviour is somehow racist at a more fundamental level.

[jakerupp]

Good intentions don't mean shit, the worst things done in history have been done with the best intentions

[bobsacamano]

Justice = People get what THEY deserve.

Social Justice = Some people get more than THEY deserve because they belong to a certain group. OR, some people get less than THEY deserve because they belong to a certain group.

In other words, Social Justice is NOT justice.

[Lord_Volkner]

Social justice.

There are a number of arguments being made by various factions about what Social Justice is. None of the arguments seem to be true as a whole, but there's bits of truth in each.

Here's an example:

One side argues that there no need to add “Social” to justice. It's an irrelevant word. Something is either just or it is unjust. Nothing can be just while being socially unjust, or unjust while being socially just. The two are one and the same so there's no need to qualify 'justice' with 'social.' They have a point. That is indeed true in the sense that they mean it.

The other side tends to argue that 0.01% of the population owns 99.99% of the world's wealth and that's a problem. If this is what happens as a result of a free market capitalist system, then they want to tear down free market capitalism. They have a point. They're not trying to analyze a name, “Social Justice, ” but instead address an injustice.

The two sides would do well to heed each other.

The first side will argue that capitalism did not cause the problem, while the second side will argue that this is the system we had, and we ended up here with it.

The first side is correct, capitalism did not get us here, and the second side is also correct, with the system we have, we ended up here.

It's not capitalism that got us here, but the power to create money and loan it at interest. That's the system we have that got us here. Capitalism in the United States died in 1917 with the creation of the Federal Reserve System. There are some vestiges of capitalism that still remain, local smaller businesses are still mostly under a capitalist system, but even that is now dying out. Capitalism in the economy as a whole, ended the day a small group of people was given the power to print money.

The way the system works is that money is created at the moment it is borrowed. It's comes into existence in that moment. The borrower spends it on whatever and then makes payments to the lender that loaned(created) it. Some portion of that payment goes toward paying on the principle to pay down the balance. The rest is interest. That principle part ceases to exist in the moment that it is paid. It disappears back into the nothingness from which it came. The interest part, however, is the lending institution's fee for “loaning” something they created out of nothing. They get to keep that.

By this mechanism, money is constantly being created, through new loans, and destroyed, by principle payments on old loans. If money is being created faster than it's being destroyed, the money supply is inflating [← whatever else people say, this is what inflation actually is. Rising prices is not inflation, just a consequence of inflation.] If money is being destroyed faster, this is called deflation.

In 1913 Ford started mass producing tractors, which quickly started revolutionizing farming.

In 1917, when that small group was given the power to create money they immediately started creating money and loaning it out cheap. Many farmers took advantage of the cheap money to buy tractors on credit. And when they could then plow so much more land with the tractor, they bought more land to make full use of the tractor ... and interest rates were low.

After about a decade of this easy credit, the banks quit making new loans. Money was being destroyed every time someone made a payment, but no new money was being created through new loans to replace it. The money supply began to deflate.

The farmers had no drought, they produced plenty of food, but nobody had any money to buy it with, so the farmers couldn't sell their crops. That left them without money to make payments on the tractors and lands.

At the beginning of this, the large corporations owned about 15% of the nation's agricultural land. By the end, those few corporations, suckling at the teat of the central bank, owned more than 75%. All of which they bought for pennies on the dollar with money created out of nothing, loaned to them by the central bank, … while it wasn't making loans to anyone else.

Some people call that The Great Depression, but a more fitting name might be The Great Land Grab.

That small group of folks now has most of the world's governments borrowing money from them.

Is 'borrowing' even the right word? Can something truly be said to be lent if it didn't exist the moment before it was loaned?

Either way, they're collecting interest on a unimaginable scale. They have a virtually inexhaustible supply of money. What do you do with that much money?

Well, you buy everything.

… and you're not satisfied with just 99.99% of everything.

[ghostdance]

I want Justice for all in society. I do not support Social Justice, I will continue to support Justice in it's unaltered form. Sticking an adjective in front of any word, changes the meaning of that word. The word Justice is just fine for me, and thats what I support and defend.

[Washu]

The theory is sound but the praxis leaves much to be desired. Social justice is a noble end goal, but the adoption of bully tactics is unacceptable.