I don’t agree that John Rawls deserves to be called “the leading American political philosopher of the 20th Century.” I agree, however, in his criticism that the two words “economic equality”, by themselves, should not be used as an economic goal.
But Louis O. Kelso, Mortimer J. Adler and Fr. William Ferree offered philosophical insights on economic, social and political justice that Rawls, most modern politicians, and academics, should consider as a desirable goal of a just economy at every level: equality of opportunity and equal access to the means for every person to participate as an owner. This fundamental human right was recognized in Article 17 of the UN’s Universal Declararation of Human Rights. Yet no nation yet guarantees this right. That’s why the Center for Economic and Social Justice was formed in 1984.
Here are some definitions from the Glossary Section of the CESJ Web site at http://www.cesj.org/learn/
Justice, Individual. Those moral principles and virtues that apply to and guide interactions between individuals. In contrast, “social justice” governs how we, as members of groups, relate to our institutions and social systems, particularly whether each of us is able to participate fully in the common good.
Justice, Participative. Participative justice refers to the right that everyone has to participate fully in all institutions of the common good, including a right of access to the means to participate. George Mason, in the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, specified as one of the fundamental human rights, access to “the means of acquiring and possessing property.” As first identified and defined by Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler as the “input principle” in economic justice, participative justice refers to the ordering of our economic institutions.
This principle requires that every person have access to the means and opportunity to contribute economic value through both labor and capital inputs. In economic justice, distribution follows participation. What each person is entitled to receive is determined by his or her relative contribution/participation. As advancing technology begins to contribute a proportionately greater share than human labor to the production of marketable goods and services, participative justice demands the elimination of barriers to capital ownership. Participative justice also requires the universalization of access to such social goods as capital credit through a well-organized banking and legal system.
Justice, Social. Social justice is the particular virtue whose object is the common good of all human society, rather than, as with individual justice, the individual good of any member or group. (See “Common Good.”) It is one of the basic social virtues in the field of social morality. Social justice guides humans as social beings in creating and perfecting organized human interactions, or institutions. It is the principle for restoring moral balance and harmony in the social order.
Social Justice encompasses and operates within every level of the social order, from the macro-level (the “common good” of society) to the micro-level of each organization and enterprise. It organizes systems so that they provide every member of that system with equal opportunity and access to such social goods (or social tools) as money, credit, and the ballot, in order to be able to participate fully in the system.
Social justice imposes on each member of society a personal responsibility to work with others to design and continually perfect our institutions as tools for personal and social development. To the extent an institution violates the human dignity and rights of any person or group, organized acts of social justice are required to correct the defects in that institution. Actions such as “social justice tithing,” for example, recognize a personal responsibility to devote a certain amount of time toward working with others to improve the organizations and institutions in which we live and work.
Justice-Based Leadership (“JBL”). A leadership philosophy that aligns individual and group values, mission, actions, structures, and systems around a shared understanding of, and adherence to, clearly defined principles of justice.
To value oneself and, at the same time, subordinate oneself to higher purposes and principles is the paradoxical essence of highest humanity and the foundation of effective justice-based leadership.
JBL encompasses concepts of “servant leadership”, “transformational leadership”, and “principle-centered leadership,” all of which recognize the impact of personal and organizational values on the behavior, performance and development of the leader, other members, and the organization as a whole.
Reflected in the JBL philosophy are three aspects of servant-leadership: trust, appreciation, and empowerment of others. The four components of transformational leadership embodied in JBL are: charisma or idealized influence (the leader as role model), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and consideration of the individual. As expressed in JBL, the components of principle-centered leadership include: personal character, competence, and commitment to natural law principles. Principle-based leaders build these principles into the center of their lives, their relationships with others, their agreements and contracts, and their mission statements and management processes.
The goal of JBL is to center all aspects of our lives on correct principles and for each person to develop a rich internal power. Empowerment of others, a fundamental objective of Justice-Based Leadership, comes about when both principles and practices of justice are understood and applied at all levels of an organization or society. In particular, the distribution of direct capital ownership reflects the distribution of economic power and the degree to which economic justice exists within a system. The challenge to justice-based leaders is to promote a culture that develops, enriches and empowers each member of the group and thereby strengthens the whole.
Gary Reber Comments:
What is critical is that modern politicians and academics advocate policies with the desirable goal of a just economy at every level: equality of opportunity and equal access to the means for every person to participate as an owner of the non-human means of production––productive capital (assets).
In this age of technological advancement in which tectonic shifts in the technologies of production are increasingly eliminating the necessity for masses of human laboring to produce goods and services, we need to tie people to individual productive input via ownership of capital (assets). Only by tying EVERY individual citizen (EVERY child, woman and man) to new productive engagement, will be able to avoid further redistribution of the wealth of those in society who are productive to those who are unproductive or underproductive. Without broad productive capital (asset) ownership the economy will stagnate resulting from poor consumption demand because people there will be no work to be had or what work is to be had is specialized or on the lowest ladder of earnings.
