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Social Justice |
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The term “social justice” is of relatively recent coinage in Catholic social doctrine, and its meaning remains in some dispute. The modern emphasis on society’s responsibilities in justice and charity to promote the common good appears to have arisen primarily in response to industrialization, urbanization, changes in agricultural patterns, and the human dislocations they brought in their wake. Many of the welfare provisions of modern democracies, such as unemployment insurance and social security, were created to deal with those problems. Social justice has thus often been seen as in part a demand for social supports. But such demands have usually also been accompanied by a call for the reordering of social priorities, both within societies and in international relations. Nonetheless, there is some question whether social justice, properly understood, is something more than the traditional forms of justice applied to modern problems. The Church, following Aristotle, has long taught that there are three basic types of justice: legal, distributive, and commutative. Commutative justice governs the free exchanges between individuals and, though a model for the other kinds of justice, has little to do with social questions directly – with a few exceptions. Wages, for example, though primarily a question of an agreement between individuals, also have a social dimension. If employers do not pay a just wage, workers and their dependents will be unable to live, leading to social chaos. Early modern social encyclicals, such as Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 On the Social Question, Rerum Novarum, examined the relative duties of capital and labor in contemporary circumstances. Welfare and social insurance issues may be viewed as falling into another traditional category, distributive justice. According to the Catholic notion of subsidiarity, the social structure closest to the level of a problem that has the capacity to deal with that problem should take the responsibility to do so. Thus, in the normal course of affairs, individuals are responsible for themselves, families for children and other dependents, private associations for their members, and so on. Subsidiarity not only aims at preventing concentration of power in the state, a danger that Pius XI’s 1931 encyclical On the Fortieth Year, Quadragesimo Anno, saw as the road to Nazism, Fascism, and communism; subsidiarity also seeks to empower the various sectors of society to play their God-given roles in human life. Distribution of Goods in Society • According to distributive justice, society as a whole has the responsibility to distribute goods in proportion to individual contributions and needs. Inequality in society is not itself wrong unless it becomes excessive (Quadragesimo Anno, 58). In fact, it would be unjust to reward equally those who contribute more and those who contribute less. But natural inequality in talents and enterprise cannot justify the exclusion, exploitation, or marginalization of anyone in society (CCC 1937), since God has destined created goods for all. A problem thus arises when the subsidiary institutions are unable or unwilling to perform their duties, and persons fall outside natural modes of distribution.
Beginning with Quadragesimo Anno, the term “social justice” began to be applied to the need for modern societies as a whole to respond to such situations. In modern societies, unemployment compensation, welfare and food programs, and social security and health care insurance have been established by governments because the instability of modern labor markets and breakdown of extended families seemed to put many people in considerable peril. Furthermore, the disabled and the children born to those who are unmarried or who will not work are innocents who need protection. One dimension of social justice has been to promote this welfare function and critique sinful structures of society, including an international order that shows wide differences in development (Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 29; cf. Pope John XXIII, encyclical Peace on Earth, Pacem in Terris [1963], and Pope Paul VI, encyclical On the Progress of Peoples, Populorum Progressio [1967]). But social justice in these wider implications closely resembles another traditional category, legal justice. The traditional name is unfortunate, because it implies that the legal system and the laws upon which it is based are simply just. In fact, legal (or universal) justice is a wider category that judges whether the legal judgments and institutions of individual nations and international bodies are themselves just. Respect for the transcendent dignity of the human person and for the rights that flow from that dignity is the only true basis for legal authority (CCC 1930). Calls for the reordering of social priorities to help the poor and unfortunate are part of traditional legal justice. The 1971 world Synod of Bishops that considered the theme of justice in the world, while rarely using the term “social justice,” nevertheless calls for a loving pursuit of justice in all areas of human life without qualification. Content of Social Justice • Approached in its most universal form, social justice promotes the interests of the poor and marginalized, but it also calls for the creation and maintenance of a well- ordered social mainstream. The normal functionings of the economic order and the political system are needed for society even to be capable of helping its weaker members. Furthermore, social justice ideally aims at empowering all sectors to participate in society: “Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority” (CCC 1928). Private property and the moral and productive use thereof are important components of any just social order. When socialism and Marxism were still believed to be potentially fruitful paths, there was some weakening of appreciation for private property among many proponents of social justice. Now that it is clear that coercive state systems provide neither material goods nor political liberties, social justice is more directed toward seeking greater equity and compassion within market systems. During the Cold War, calls for social justice often recommended reductions in military spending and corresponding increases in social spending. In some instances, that was and is a just change. But the powerful image from Isaiah, “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” (2:4), led many to believe a simple choice between two alternatives was to be made. One of the obligations of society in legal justice, however, is to protect its members from threats, whether foreign or domestic. Despite the ethical complication of nuclear weapons and the large nuclear arsenals of the United States and other nations, legal justice demands security and freedom, as well as support for the weak and helpless. Social justice does not, therefore, dictate that resources be redirected from military uses to social development simply because the first are destructive and the second, perhaps, constructive. Military expenditures must correspond to the threat being faced. Similarly, it would be preferable to spend money on schools rather than prisons. But how many policemen and how many teachers to hire, given limited funds, can only be decided on the basis of judgments of the need for crime prevention and incarceration on the one hand and for education and training on the other. Public safety and public education are both matters of social justice, and the poor city-dweller who enjoys neither to any great degree may be the most wronged member of a society. In a similar way, many of the social justice questions that currently vex advanced societies require a clear and broad analysis of all social factors in light of legal justice. Should a given country reduce welfare to discourage dependency and illegitimacy – or should it increase spending for carefully targeted child support and job training? Should a national budget favor the growth of the economy or taxation for social purposes? Should modern technological innovations be stimulated to provide jobs and remain competitive with other countries – or should efforts be made to transfer industries and jobs to developing nations? Such issues involve both social justice and the kind of prudence traditionally associated with legal justice. Social justice, then, seems to be, as one analyst has said, “a form of legal justice properly understood.” See: Civil Law; Common Good; Commutative Justice; Environment; Human Life, Dignity and Sanctity of; Human Person; Interdependence; Liberation Theology; Preferential Option for the Poor; Property; Restitution; Social Doctrine; Socialization; Stealing; Subsidiarity; Universal Destination of Goods; Usury; Work. |
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