Some thoughts on Justice, Rights and Privileges In The Modern World

On an email list recently, we were discussing social justice - the context was related to the disaster relief efforts with respect to New Orleans, but was being taken to a higher level. My comments on the list didn't prompt any responses, but I think that they are worth sharing with the general public - so here's an elaborated version of it.

I don't think justice and politics are the same - as when Aristotle first said 'justice is a political virtue, the definitive political virtue'¹. I'd have to say that justice is about defending rights, and not privileges. I think a lot of problems perceived in justice are actually because of the issue of what a 'right' is, and what a 'privilege' is.

When someone is underprivileged, that person has rights. When someone is overprivileged, that person has the same rights as the underprivileged - but usually has more means with which to defend those rights. But when means are needed to defend rights, the underprivileged lose rights. And I believe, in this context, that is what this is about.

It's about the underprivileged not being able to use their rights.

I realize business ethics and legal ethics are almost completely synonymous today - but there's got to be a balance. I refuse to believe that businesspeople are exempt from rights, or that they have more rights. I refuse to believe that a legal entity should trod on other's rights, or should have more rights than a flesh and blood entity. So by the explanation of rights and privileges above... it should be apparent that a legal entity might have the same amount of *rights*, as bestowed by Law (not to be confused with Justice), but it should also be apparent that a legal entity can have more means to defend those rights - and thus, the flesh and blood human being is relatively underprivileged. Of course, to be underprivileged one has to not be in a high place in a legal entity...

So in a way, there is a form of social justice - and a business which defends the rights of the underprivileged is practicing social justice.

Maybe it's a matter of making bread available at a lower cost while maintaining a profit. But then, shareholders in a publicly traded company do not care too awful much about who pays for the bread - they want an *increase* in profits so that their shares value. Now, when the people who need the bread most own the shares of the company, there's a balance. When the people who don't need bread as much own the shares of the company, the people who need the bread suffer. In the latter case, there is no 'social justice' because a faceless corporation protects the shareholders from being personally seen as wanting a profit. Looked at another way, when the customers mean more than the shareholders in the legal entity, there is social justice. If the shareholders mean more than the customers, there is less social justice, and that 'less' approaches 0 (zero).

Business could address social justice, I think. But the only people who want social justice are the people who need it, and if you don't have to look at them... and can hide behind a ticker symbol on the NYSE... well, the observation that business doesn't address social justice.... then I have to wonder whatever happened to the importance of the customer. Add in things like traditional media's relationship with politics and advertisers, and the whole thing could make a hurricane get motion-sickness.

I would think that a healthy democratic society would require less dependence on what you defined as a personal virtue. I have no faith in 'political structures' since at the end of the day, I get to choose between two people I don't like. I mean... I didn't get to nominate Uncle Bob², because Uncle Bob doesn't have the means to exercise his right to run for President. Vicious, vicious cycle. No wonder it's the same family names in politics... and I often wonder if it isn't inbred.

¹ Paraphrased.
² Doesn't everyone in the U.S. have an Uncle Bob?