Distributive Justice

The Social Action Committee of the First Parish, UU Church in Milton MA developed this dialog in May of 2010. We “performed” it before the congregation at that time. It is followed by the actual quotes from various historical figures who appear in the dialog.

Speaker #1 The Social Action Committee would like to welcome you to Justice Sunday. Our topic today is economic justice.

I found a definition of Economic Justice on the Internet. It reads:  fairness and equity in economic affairs, presumably by having laws, governments, and institutions that treat people equally and avoid favoring particular individuals or groups.

Well, that definition is very broad…asking 100 people to elaborate on this definition and you will be rewarded with 100 different answers.

So maybe we need to be more specific about what we are asking ourselves. Another, more specific term for how we view the fairness of our economy would be Distributive Justice.

The internet definition of Distributive Justice is the rules in a culture that specify how the economic productivity of that culture is distributed among the members. It is a statement of values about what should be done. Well, I can’t think of anything more appropriate to discuss in a UU church than a statement of values about what should be done…so let’s start.

So what would be our statement of values?

Speaker #2 Excuse me.

Speaker #1 Oh, yes, can I help you.

Speaker #2. The question you are asking cannot be answered until you decide what kind of person you are. A small-minded person will think only of himself. But a broad-minded person looks at the world from a viewpoint of what is just and they will work to help the poor. You see, if small-minded, rich folks get everything, the community will suffer…even the rich folks.

Speaker #1 Uh…well, that is an interesting point, excuse me, but who are you?

Speaker #2 My name is Confucius.

Speaker #1 Oh! wow! – so, in ancient China, they believed that concentrations of wealth drove people in a community apart, is that right?

Speaker #2 Quite correct.

Speaker #1 OK, so one observation that we could put forward is that wealth could cause a kind of separation from your community.

Speaker #3 I think that is clearly the case. If you take a bunch of family farms and cram them together into one big agribusiness monopoly, what do you get? Dead communities! God told me that you can build big and beautiful houses, but they won’t be homes and they will be inhabited by ghosts.

Speaker #1 Well, that certainly backs up Confucius – and may I have your name?

Speaker #3 Isaiah

Speaker #1 OK, so this separation may not be the rich persons goal, and it doesn’t necessarily address values or what should be done, does it?

Speaker #4  I would like to give you my two cents on what should be done.

Speaker #1 Great, and who are you?

Speaker #4 My name is Plato – as you may know, I wrote a whole book on how to run a city/state, you may have heard of it – It’s called The Republic. Anyway, my friends and I decided that you could make only so much money, for example, let’s say a million dollars a year. And if you make a whole lot more… like, say four million, the other citizens may look poorly on you. Like Confucius said, If you don’t start giving back a little, your neighbors may want to kick you out. 

My buddy, Thales, said it best… If there is neither excessive wealth nor immoderate poverty in a nation, then justice may be said to prevail.  

Speaker #1 Well, thanks Plato – we are looking to have justice prevail, so I guess Ol’ Thales seems to have got it down to one simple sentence. But - that whole “you can only make so much” thing, I know a lot of people who would not go for that at all…

Speaker #5 And why not?

Speaker #1 Well, some folks feel that they have worked hard for what they have, and… may I ask your name?

Speaker #5 My name is Thomas Aquinas – My friend, it’s very simple; everything belongs to everybody.  The idea that “I own this and I’ll sell it to you” is just God’s way of getting stuff out there to the most people. If you have too much of anything it’s unnatural. You are withholding something that, rightfully, belongs to another.  

Speaker #1 But, Tom, how do we solve that – do we just take it?

Speaker #5 Distributive justice would demand a progressive tax rate to equalize the sacrifice exacted from the tax payers.

.

Speaker #1 Wow! Tom, are you telling me that in the 11^th Century, you were talking about distributive justice and progressive taxes! I mean, actually using those terms?

Speaker #5 I was known for coining a phrase or two…

Speaker #1 No kidding… I understand that the term “living wage” can be tracked back to you. You know, that is still an issue here in modern times.

Speaker #5 Don’t I know it. My buddy, John Paul II, had a few choice words for the world at the end of the 20^th Century, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Go ahead JP…

Speaker #6 Thanks Tom, What I said was the needs of the poor take priority over the desires of the rich; the rights of workers over the maximization of profits; the preservation of the environment over uncontrolled industrial expansion; production to meet social needs over the production for military purposes

Speaker #1 Wow, I didn’t know that Catholics were such radicals. Well around the same time that Mr. Aquinas here was working in Rome, the Muslims developed something called Zakat. It’s actually one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith. Most people know it as alms giving, but I didn’t know till recently that it’s a flat rate of 2.5% of net worth.

This was quite different from the Protestant Ethic presented by John Calvin and John Wesley. I believe John Wesley said something like “We ought not to prevent people from being diligent and frugal; we must exhort all Christians to gain all they can, and to save all they can; that is, in effect, to grow rich.”

Speaker #7 I hate being taken out of context. Look, growing rich is all well and good, but I also said that after you take care of the wife and kids, pay the credit cards and the mortgage and have taken care of business; it is proper to give some of what’s left to help out your neighbors.  

Speaker #1 Mr. Wesley, I presume.

Speaker #7 Quite so.

Speaker #1 OK, but I have always had this understanding that the Puritan ethic expressed by you and the unfettered Capitalism expressed by Adam Smith makes for a powerful, uniquely American combination that leads to rich and powerful economic titans like Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates.

Speaker #8 Well, I don’t know who those men are, but my unfettered Capitalism was somewhat tempered by my belief that Everybody has to pay taxes – and if you’re good at making money, money that the government is protecting for you – then you can afford to pay more. 

Speaker #1 Mr. Adam Smith?

Speaker #8 How do you do.

Speaker #1 Very well, thank you.

Speaker #9 Mr. Smith, so nice to meet you. I am a great admirer of your work.

(turning to Speaker #1) Now, young man, I may have been a rich and powerful titan in my time, but even today, I am spending a substantial amount of my wealth "to do real and permanent good in this world." If you watch PBS, that phrase should be familiar to you.

Speaker #1 Mr. Carnegie?

Speaker # 9 Of course – I don’t look anything like Bill Gates. And, by the way, he is spending his money like a drunken sailor – and doing a pretty good job generating real and permanent good in this world.

Speaker #1 Yes, you are right sir. OK – so we find ourselves in a typical Unitarian Universalist conundrum – many views and no real clear path to the truth.

All other speakers start grumbling and arguing with Speaker #1

Speaker #1 Please, please! Your task has been fulfilled. We have much to think about and much to discuss among ourselves. I thank you for your efforts.

All other speakers mumble “your welcomes”

Speaker #1 So, members of First Parish. Almost all the views that we have heard today come from ancient and wise leaders who lived a long time ago. Things were different back then. For example, you will notice that there are no women quoted…I am sure that the women of the Renaissance had strong opinions regarding their economic worth and what they deserved…but we have no record of it.

That paternalistic attitude makes it difficult to translate the ancient wise leaders into modern life. Aristotle teaches, for example, that justice means giving people what they deserve. Aristotle takes this political, economic and philosophical position without regard for his wife, his daughters or the slaves that served him.

Different from the ancient world, in the modern world, we start with individual freedom as our basis for how we look at justice. You can’t ignore whole groups of people, such as slaves and women, when the individual is the focus of your inquiry. 

If a just society respects each person’s individual freedom to choose his or her own conception of the good life, how can we dictate to that person what to do with the wealth that he or she has freely earned?

This modern view is not wrong; it just a lot more complicated. And that, my friends, is why the Social Action committee has decided to explore these issues in a much more interactive way. This evening, there will be a meeting. We will view one episode of a great PBS show called “Justice – What is the Right Thing to Do”? We will then have a lively discussion about the balance between individual liberty and the greatest good for the greatest number. Please join us.

In the meantime, we ask you to think about how you fit into your community in reference to Distributive Justice. Your community starts in your home, then your church, your town, your state, your country and finally your world.

As a Unitarian Universalist, we aspire to acknowledge the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. Much of this talk concerns what people deserve. I assert to you that, wealth aside, all people deserve this acknowledgement from you. 

That is true when you are dealing with your boss as well as when you are in the grocery line. It could be someone you see once…like when you tip a waitress…and it could be someone whom you live with every day – like your child or your life partner. Extend yourself to the folks you ride on the T with on your way to work…and to those whom you work with, whom you live with. They are all your neighbors. They are all members of your community. And ask yourself…what do they deserve? 

In closing, we would like to quote three modern prophets and their views on this issue.

Gloria Steinem said…

Unless we include a job as part of every citizen's right to autonomy and personal fulfillment, women will continue to be vulnerable to someone else's idea of what need is.

And Mahatma Gandhi said …

I suggest we are thieves in a way, If I take anything that I do not need for my own immediate use, and keep it, I thieve it from somebody else…You and I have no right to anything that we really have until these millions are clothed and fed better. You and I, who ought to know better, must adjust our wants…in order that they may be nursed, fed and clothed…There is enough wealth to meet everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed.

And finally, Martin Luther King said…

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Thank you for your attention. 

Actual Quotes 

Great Man is conscious only of justice; Petty Man, only of self-interest. I have always understood Great Man does everything possible to help the poor but nothing to enrich the rich. To centralize wealth is to disperse the people; to distribute wealth is to collect the people.

Confucious

Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell in the midst of the land. The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing: “Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.”

Isaiah

The good man must give first attention to the soul, secondly to the body and only thirdly to the pursuit of money…it is impossible for them to be at once both good and excessively rich.

Plato

And having set this limit, the lawgiver shall allow a man to possess twice this amount, or three times, or four times. Should anyone acquire more than this – whether by discovery or gift or moneymaking, or through gaining a sum exceeding the due measure by some other such piece of luck – if he makes the surplus over to the State, he shall be well esteemed and free from penalty.

Plato –from the Republic

If there is neither excessive wealth nor immoderate poverty in a nation, then justice may be said to prevail.

Thales (Greek Philosopher)

All material riches belong in common to the whole human race… The institution of private property exists for the purpose of enabling man to achieve the most effective use of material things.

Thomas Aquinas

Whatever certain people have in abundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor.

Thomas Aquinas

Distributive justice would demand a progressive tax rate to equalize the sacrifice exacted from the tax payers.

Thomas Aquinas

It is the hungry man’s bread that you withhold, the naked man’s cloak that you store away, the money that you bury in the earth is the price of the poor man’s ransom and freedom.

Thomas Aquinas

The needs of the poor take priority over the desires of the rich; the rights of workers over the maximization of profits; the preservation of the environment over uncontrolled industrial expansion; production to meet social needs over the production for military purposes.

Pope John Paul II

Convinced that character is all and circumstances nothing, sees in the poverty of those who fall by the way, not misfortune to be pitied and relieved, but a moral failure to be condemned, and in riches, not an object of suspicion – though like other gifts they may be abused – but the blessing which rewards the triumph of energy and will.

Tawney the Puritan

We ought not to prevent people from being diligent and frugal; we must exhort all Christians to gain all they can, and to save all they can; that is, in effect, to grow rich.

John Wesley

 After the Christian has provided for the family, the creditors, and the business, the next obligation is to use any money that is left to meet the needs of others.

John Wesley

The subject of every State ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the State.

Adam Smith

I suggest we are thieves in a way, If I take anything that I do not need for my own immediate use, and keep it, I thieve it from somebody else…You and I have no right to anything that we really have until these three million are clothed and fed better. You and I, who ought to know better, must adjust our wants…in order that they may be nursed, fed and clothed…There is enough wealth to meet everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed.

Mahatma Gandhi

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Martin Luther King