Social Justice

Chuck Haughey

[Comments provided via email in response to a post by Harry Pollard, 17 December 2013]

Harry Pollard:
The job of politicians is not to represent the people in their constituency but to be re-elected. Perhaps the only exception to this occurred in the UK when the Liberal Democrats joined the Conservatives in coalition. Their voter support positively withered away. Perhaps they didn’t realize this would happen.

The American left is belatedly discovering there isn’t much difference between Republicans and Democrats. They both shift in the political wind to increase their chances of election. Once elected their directions are likely to shift. Will this dereliction of the left give the Republicans a majority in the Senate next November, or perhaps even sink Hillary’s Presidential aspirations in 2016? We’ll be watching!

. I do not accept that we all can agree on the concept of "social justice".

According to Wikipedia:

"Social justice is justice exercised within a society, particularly as it is applied to and among the various social classes of a society." (My emphasis.)

This can be read as the duty of our courts to bring equal justice to all elements of society. For example, in Article III of our Constitution the jury system is designed to have the representatives of the people, in juries, make key determinations. Also in the Declaration of Independence, second paragraph, "- - - all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these rights Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - "

Wikipedia later states:

"The United Nations' 2006 document "Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations", states that "Social justice may be broadly understood as the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth..." The same document reports, "From the comprehensive global perspective shaped by the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, neglect of the pursuit of social justice in all its dimensions translates into de facto acceptance of a future marred by violence, repression and chaos." The report concludes, "Social justice is not possible without strong and coherent redistributive policies conceived and implemented by public agencies."

This is quite different. Note that per the UN strong redistributive powers must be conceived and implemented by public agencies. This is neither concieved by the people nor implemented by the consent of the governed. (See Abama Care) Also, it is demonstrably unworkable in the long run because it takes from those who produce wealth and gives to those who do not, thus reducing the incentive to produce wealth by those most able to do so and develops in the receivers of other peoples wealth the notion that they have a right to it with no need to produce themselves.

The pilgrims at Plymouth demonstrated this at great cost. While in transit on shipboard they produced Articles which required all produce to be deposited in a common granary, and gave all an equal right to the content thereof (from each according to his ability, to each according to his need). As recorded in the elected Governour's diary, this failed because those more capable of producing lost the incentive by this requirement to produce for others. After two severe winters with starvation, illness and death and a low production summer he recorded in his diary that each must be, and was, given a personal acreage to till for his own benefit and the resultant crop was well above needs. They then held a "banquet" of thanksgiving and invited the Indians to share and to trade for the excess production.

On a larger scale, John D. Rockefeller became rich by cutting cost of transportation of oil. He shipped oil by large tanks on rail and trucks instead of by barrels. The costs were so much reduced that the whole whaling industry died. He "saved the whales" while becoming rich, to the great benefit of all consumers of oil.

Andrew Mellon developed a network of pipes, refineries and marketing and surpassed Rockefeller, again reducing oil costs to all and raising everyone's standard of living. Mellon later became Secretary of the Treasury under President Garfield in the middle of a post WWI depression as bad when he took office as any before or since. He cut taxes and produced a reasonable budget which resulted in the roaring twenties, staying under three presidents. Roosevelt raised taxes and extended the "Great depression" until WWII.

The basic concept of allowing producers to retain the wealth they earn produces jobs for others and tax revenue for the government, to the benefit of all. This is "social justice" of the first order. It is an incentive system - not compulsive redistribution of wealth conceived and forced on us by the government.

Free Trade

Free trade has been proven time over time to be good for both parties, increasing wealth for both sides. Trade is not a zero-sum game. Both sides get what they bargained for at a price satisfactory to them. The savings over another supplier are applied toward other purchases, making more wealth for each of them. Capital when applied in the form of labor saving devices produces more with less, and is less expensive for a large market, which is why the US producers usually beat prices on the more complex goods. A new Ford today requires less man-hours to produce than a Model A, and is much more valuable at a lower relative price. Those saved man-hours produce other things, like TV's and cell-phones.

Thomas Sowell had an article in Investor's Business Daily on this, and it is well covered in his Basic Economics" textbook, Third Edition, 2007. Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Sowell states in this book (pages 433-4) "When discussing the historic North American Free Trade Agreement of 1993 (NAFTA), the New York Times said: Abundant evidence is emerging that jobs are shifting across borders too rapidly to declare the United States a job winner or a job loser from the trade agreement."

Sowell again, "As for jobs, before the NAFTA free-trade agreement among the United States, Canada and Mexico went into effect, there were dire predictions of 'a giant sucking sound' as jobs would be sucked out of the United States to Mexico because of Mexico's lower wage rates. In reality the number of American jobs increased after the agreement and the unemployment rate in the United States fell over the next seven years from more than seven percent to four percent - - - In Canada, the unemployment rate fell from 11 percent to 7 percent over the same years."

Also "Both sides must gain or it would make no sense to continue trading. Nor is it necessary for experts or government officials to determine whether both sides are gaining. Most international trade, like most domestic trade, is done by millions of individuals, each of whom can determine whether the item purchased is worth what it cost and is preferable to what is available from others".

There is actual loss of wealth when buy decisions are based on source without a good reason why such source is not a better source for the good or service involved. "Buy American" without regard to cost is a damn poor policy, but it is often used to protect jobs otherwise lost to cheaper or more efficient production which benefits both buyer and seller.