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lecturenotesreadingsonsocialjusticeandinequalitiesinwealthrev012414_1.docxgregory velazco y trianosky
california state university, northridge
spring 2014
philosophies of social justice and current inequalities in wealth
The main question of the course is “The question of Social Justice”:
What is the right philosophy of social justice?
1. What is a philosophy of social justice?
a philosophy of social justice is an idea about what rules that government should enforce for the production and distribution of economic benefits and burdens.
“The term “should” reminds us that every philosophy makes a value judgment. These recommendations of value judgments choose values and rules required for achieving justice. Value judgments provide us with two additional benefits.
(i) The first is giving us a basis to critique our current system, as we use it in comparison to see whether our current economic system is close or far off our desired economic system.
(ii) The second use of value judgments is that they help us steer us…” toward a more just set of rules. [Danny Aoshana, former Business Ethics student]
The word “enforce” reminds us that a government uses force to impose its rules. (So, the question of social justice can be rewritten as, “what rules should we impose on a society by the use of force?”)
Behind every philosophy of social justice is some fundamental value: fairness, freedom, well-being (happiness), equality, etc. Deciding which philosophy of social justice makes the most sense requires deciding what your fundamental values are.
(i) There are many different philosophies of social justice; and they typically disagree about what the fundamental values should be: e.g. free-market philosophies often think the rules should be about freedom of choice; liberal philosophies typically think the rules should be about equality of opportunity, etc.
(ii) this means that when we define “philosophies of social justice” we have to give a definition that covers lots of different ideas or philosophies. Our question is, how can we figure out which of all these different philosophies makes the most sense?
2. The present system of rules is indefensible.
A. It is disastrous for most ordinary people.
(i) Currently we appear to be slowly recovering from the worst economic slowdown since the Great Depression.
(ii) But the larger picture goes back at least to 1980:
· Loss of income for middle and working class: Real wages stagnant since 1980 (as opposed to growth prior to 1980)
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4?op=1
· Disparities in income have increased tremendously
“Who Rules America?” http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
“Wealth [Income] disparity in America [since the 1960s]: an inch of bar-graph for the 90%, 4.9 miles' worth for the top 0.01%”
http://boingboing.net/2013/04/04/wealth-disparity-in-america-a.html
“As economy recovers, the richest get richer, study shows”
“The World's 85 Richest People [measured by income] Are as Wealthy as the Poorest 3 Billion”
· Disparities in wealth
“Who Rules America?” http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
“15 Mind-Blowing facts About Wealth and Income in America”
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4?op=1
· perhaps most importantly, loss of opportunity
“The Great Gatsby Curve: Why It's So Hard for the Poor to Get Ahead”
“Harder For Americans To Rise from Lower Rungs”
B. The present system is a plutocracy.
(i) A plutocracy is a system of rules that serves the interests of the wealthy: plutocracies are very pragmatic. They will enforce whatever rules benefit the wealthy.
(See especially Jon Stewart’s interview with Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist)
(ii) The present system is not a free market. Instead we have “a system where we socialize losses and privatize the gains….That’s not capitalism, that’s not a market economy” (Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel-Prize-winning economist, http://bwog.com/2011/10/03/stiglitz-speaks-at-occupy-wall-street/):
e.g. TARP, GM bailout, AIG bailout [Note: be sure you know what these are!]
C. Why are the present inequalities in wealth unjust? Because we probably have different philosophies, we will probably have different answers to that question.
(i) Free market philosophies often regard inequalities in wealth as entirely permissible.
(a) Free market philosophies typically regard inequalities in wealth as permissible when they are simply the result of competition in a free market.
(b) Does this mean they must accept the present inequalities? No: free market philosophies can certainly say that inequalities are unjust when they are the result of government interference with the free market. This appears to be the situation at present. (per Sheldon Richman on the Freeman website) http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/inequality-matters#axzz2rMK7OGKW
(ii) Other philosophies may also say that present inequalities are unjust, but not just because they involve government interference in the free market.
(a) Liberal philosophies, for example, may say these inequalities are unjust because they deny fair equality of opportunity.
(b) Marxist philosophies might say these inequalities are unjust because they involve unfair treatment of the workers who create that value.
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