Sermon for 10 August 2008, 1st Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois

 

THE BASICS OF JUSTICE:   LEFTISTS AND RIGHTISTS

Ronald J. Glossop

 

I.    Introduction

       A. This summer we are examining the sixth of the seven purposes and principles affirmed and promoted by the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, “the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.”

      B.   Last month we focused our sermon on the concepts of “world community,” “peace,” and “liberty.” This month I want to discuss the concepts of   “justice” and “for all.”

 

II.   “ Justice” is an unbelievably complex concept to define and discuss.  

     A.   Getting started doesn’t seem too hard since we can merely say that justice is “fairness” or “impartiality.”   It is the basic idea that the rules or laws must be the same for everyone and that some impartial judge or umpire will catch and punish those who violate them.

     B.   But upon further thought we come to see that the concept of “justice” or “fairness” is not so simple.   Who makes the rules and on what basis?   If someone breaks the rules, that is, violates the laws, what constitutes “just” punishment?   Should the penalty be the same in all cases?   Is it desirable to enforce the rules strictly, or is it sometimes better to allow a little leeway for special circumstances? Can any judge be completely impartial and not show some favoritism for his relatives or friends or persons with views like his own?

     C.    Furthermore, so far our discussion of “justice” has been confined to the easier part of the topic, the part called “retributive justice” or how to determine the right penalty when someone violates the laws, in other words, how to bring criminals “to justice.” The more controversial part of the concept of “justice” is called “distributive justice,” that is, what is the proper way of distributing the wealth (the goods, but also the bads like taxes) in a group or community.   Should everyone in the community have the same amount, or should some have more than others?   If so, on what basis?   Should the tax rate be the same for all, or should the rich pay a higher rate?   Also, which level of community should be taken into account when trying to determine how to distribute the goods and bads:   the family or the tribe or the village or the nation or the whole planet?

     D.   It is mainly this issue of distributive justice that I want to focus on today, along with a better understanding of the ideas that we use when thinking about distributive justice.

 

III. A common notion with regard to the distribution of goods and bads in a community is that everyone should have the same amount, especially at the beginning.   Those who emphasize the importance of this principle of equality have come to be called “ leftists” because those holding such an egalitarian viewpoint have been seated to the left of the speaker in the legislative bodies of Europe.

A.     The basic point for egalitarianism is that there is no antecedent reason why one person should have more than another.   One person is as much a person as any other person. What could the rationale be for giving one person more than another?

B.      Nevertheless throughout history some people have made claims of privilege for their offspring, usually on the basis of their position in the society.   For example, if I am king, then my offspring should have more than others.   But why should they?

C.      As time goes by, it becomes more evident to everyone that often the children of kings and other prominent people are no better than anyone else.   Consequently, the default position finally comes to be that no one is inherently deserving of more than anyone else regardless of their rank in society, their gender, their race, or anything else.  

D.     Of course, there is a sense in which all persons are not born equal.   Some are more intelligent, more artistically talented, physically stronger, more beautiful and so on while others are less intelligent, less artistically talented, physically weaker, and less beautiful.   In fact, some are even seriously handicapped, being born deaf or blind or suffering even in childhood from some crippling disease.

E.      This situation poses an important issue with regard to distributive justice.   If some persons are lucky and born with advantages while others are unlucky and born with handicaps, should the society provide more help to the disadvantaged in order to somewhat level the playing field for all, or should the society focus on helping the advantaged to further the development of their outstanding talents and capabilities.

1.       This difficulty can be put on a very personal level by asking what one should do in a family when one child is exceptionally talented while another needs a great deal of remedial help.   Should the use of family resources be tilted toward the lucky child or the one with special problems or should resources be shared equally between them regardless of the differences in the children?

2.       A similar problem faces the larger society in terms of resources to be directed toward gifted and talented children versus resources directed toward special education for those with disabilities who need more help.

3.       E galitarians generally prefer the option of giving more resources to those who have special problems.   The viewpoint of leftists is that the society should try to equalize the opportunities for the disadvantaged in order to counteract the unfairness, the injustice, of nature.     

F.       That is the way leftists think.   No one chooses to be talented or handicapped. beautiful or ugly, intelligent or retarded, strong or weak.   Fate just dumps these things on us.   Therefore the proper thing for humans to do is to counteract the capriciousness   of nature.   Special help should be given to the unfortunate, to the down and out.

G.     When it comes to organizing the whole society, leftists will be for programs that help the less fortunate.   That means making use of the power and resources of government to provide public education, public parks, public roads, and public health programs as well as special welfare programs for those who are disabled or sick or unemployed or old and no longer able to work.   For leftists compassion is the main virtue.

H.     This discussion should make it obvious that traditional religions--including Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism--have generally supported the leftist view of justice.

 

IV.   But the leftist point of view is only one point of view on the issue of distributive justice. The rightist point of view is based on the principle of merit, that some people deserve more than others.   Some people work harder and contribute more to the welfare of others and the common good.   It is not fair, not just, that those who don’t work hard and who contribute almost nothing should be as well off as those who work hard and make notable contributions to the welfare of the society.

1. The greater contributions may be the result of being born with natural advantages of one kind or another or even special advantages as a result of good luck like having rich parents or living in a rich country, but what is important is not the cause of the greater contributions but rather the effect that the greater contributions have had on the community plus the fact that these good deeds need to be rewarded and honored in order to encourage others to do likewise.
2. Furthermore, if a situation develops where those who don’t work hard and make no contributions come to be as well off as those who do, soon fewer and fewer people will be working hard and fewer and fewer needed contributions will be made.   
3. The truth of this general principle can be observed in any kind of situation where there is a team of persons working together to accomplish some task.   Suppose that some of the team decide to take a break from the work, and their break becomes longer and longer.   If no complants are made and nothing is done to change the situation, soon others also decide to take a long break.   Those who are continuing to do the work begin to ask themselves and one another why they should work so hard while the others are doing nothing.   As time goes on, everyone quits and the task never gets finished.   Even the most enthusiastic of the workers are not willing to keep carrying the load when no else is doing anything.
4. Rightists point to this situation to show the need for individual rewards and honors to those who work hard and make contributions to the common effort.   People tend to be naturally lazy, and they need some kind of incentive to put forth the effort to get things done.   If people get what they want without working and contributing, very soon almost no one will be working and almost nothing will be accomplished.  
5. The problem with leftists is they don’t realize how important individual incentives are.   If they would look at actual situations, they would see that people produce more when they get individual recognition for doing so, even in situations where they are very supportive of the group effort, such as getting work done here at our church.
6. When it comes to organizing society, the rightists will insist on arrangements where individuals get rewarded on the basis of merit and where those who don’t work and don’t contribute will have nothing or very close to nothing.   It is detrimental to the society as a whole to give people what they want without challenging them to do something worthwhile in order to get it.   It also prevents them from developing their own talents and capabilities.   For rightists the important virtues are competence and industriousness.   What counts is getting the needed work done and done well.
7. This discussion should make it obvious that the rightist point of view which emphasizes merit and getting things done well has been championed by engineers, entepreneurs, and managers of various kinds--those who need to get problems solved.

 

V.   So which view on distributive justice is correct, the leftists or the rightists?   It seems to me that we need to get the right balance between these two views.   Undoubtedly we need a certain degree of equality.   The extremes of inequality that exist in our nation and in our world are inexcusable.   But at the same time we cannot ignore the need for individual rewards and honors for those who work hard and make important contributions.

A.   The balance we seek can be better understood if we realize that the left-right balance in distributive justice is applicable not only to the distribution of wealth in the society but also to the distribution of political power in the society.

      1.   The leftist principle of equality applied to the issue of political power in the community generates the political system known as democracy where each person gets one vote to determine what the policies of the whole society should be.   While such a system of direct democracy may be practical in the small towns of New England, in larger communities we have to use representative democracy.   We elect representatives who have more time to study the issues, but they still must stand for re-election at regular intervals.   The political system in this country needs to be improved, and especially to be screened from the influence of money. Representative democracy has generally proved itself to be superior to other kinds of political systems, but it is yet to be tried in many lands and at the global level.

      2.    The rightist principle of merit applied to the issue of political power in the community generates the political system known as aristocracy or rule by the best.    Members of ruling groups run the government and decide which policies the society should follow.   The difficulty of course is that these elite groups have their own limited interests and tend to adopt policies which help themselves rather than the whole society.   This is a very big problem for our global community.

      3.   The Founding Fathers of this country tried to create a political society which would mix the values of a monarchy (one person in charge concerned about the whole community, the President at the top), an aristocracy (embodied in the Senate), and a democracy (embodied in the House of Representatives).

      4.   A further balance not anticipated by the Founding Fathers has also developed between the competing political parties. The Republicans (who have replaced the earlier Federalists) champion the principle of merit, especially in the economic sphere, while the Democrats (who have replaced the Democratic-Republicans) champion the principle of equality, especially in the political sphere.   

B.   When we look critically at our own society, we also need to recognize that the system of individual rewards which has been established in many cases does not conform to the general aim of the rightists.

      1.   This difficulty is brilliantly presented in the just published book Unjust Deserts:   How the Rich are Taking Our Common Inheritance and Why We Should Take It Back by Gar Alperovitz, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, and Lew Daly, Senior Fellow at Demos, a policy think tank in New York City.   Their thesis is that various individuals are getting very wealthy by benefitting personally from socially-inherited knowledge which has been accumulated by the whole society.   Even millionaire Warren Buffett says that “society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I’ve earned.”

       2.   Although the focus of this and similar books has been the way that a few individuals are profiting personally from a great deal of knowledge that has been gained by humanity in the past 200 years, what is not noted is how this knowledge is benefitting people in developed countries much more than it is helping those in less developed countries.  Even this is changing, however, as more people from poor countries get educated in rich countries and as modern information technology is no longer so geographically confined.

 

V.   This brings us to our final point, namely “justice for all.”

       A.   I noted earlier that when we are dealing with the issue of distributive justice, we need to pay attention to which community we are considering--the family, the tribe, the village, the nation, or the whole planet.

        B.   Until very recently the general assumption was that we are thinking in terms of the nation-state.   That is, we focused only on how are the goods and bads distributed in our own country.   But our sixth principle makes it clear that our concern must now be on the whole world community.   “Justice for all” means all residents of our planet, not just those in our own country or those living in the developed world.

        C.   When we think in terms of the global community, we realize that we are very far from an appropriate system of distributive justice, whether we are leftists basing our evaluation on the principle of equality or rightists basing our evaluation on the principle of merit.   We are also very far from an appropriate system of distributive justice whether we focus on the economic aspects of goods and bads or on the political aspects of who has the power to set policies for the welfare of the whole global community.

        D.   We in this country should be aware of how well off we are.   There is no doubt that all of us have been among the luckiest people on planet Earth.   We just happen to be living in the right place at the right time.   If we take the issue of distributive justice seriously, it is evident that we have some huge responsibilities, both individually and as a community, to do more to help those who are not so lucky.   May we live up to those responsibilities.   Amen.