...and justice for all

"Why was government instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without restraint."

The Federalist 1787
Alexander Hamilton (who ironically died in a duel in 1804, an expression of passion if there ever was one!)

"Everybody wants to rule the world"

Tears for Fears

Justice is the ordering of principles, people and things. There are many approaches, from the divine right of kings to John Rawls position that justice should favor the least advantaged. There are principled approaches, utilitarian approaches, "natural" approaches, and referenced approaches (ie, Bible, Koran).

There is no natural equality of appearance, talents, skills, intelligence, temperment, health, longevity, or abilities. We accept this as given.

Some elements of inequality are related to natural inequality. For example, parents with the right combination of the above natural tendencies will tend to provide a more nurturing environment for their children. A parent may also provide capital to promote a fuller education and additional life experiences.

Then, there are the inequalities that government produces. For example, a government that preferentially supports children of unwed mothers will lead to a disproportionate number of broken homes among the poor, leading to further inequalities as these children have to overcome the less nurturing childhoods as well as poverty.

Justice is a very complicated issue. Fairness, or the belief that everything needs to be divided up equally, is based on the untruism that life should be fair. DocBrain has seen many examples of the unfairness of life. Bad things do happen to good people. The poor can starve; the rich can be stripped of their wealth by confiscatory taxation; the good can be imprisoned and the guilty go free. It is the duty of all of us to try to make life fairer, but it will never be fair.

Here are a few issues:

• Accumulation of wealth is a temporary thing. Even billions can be dissipated in a few lifetimes. People rise out of poverty every day. Redistribution by the government is neither necessary nor sufficient to create justice. Instead, it stifles the innovation and industriousness needed to rise and saps the desire to achieve if it all can be taken away at the whim of politicians doing the bidding of the masses.
• Where government gets involved, the marketplace becomes distorted and this does no one any good. The example DocBrain is most familiar with is health care. There once was a belief that those who were poor got less health care because they were too embarassed or too afraid to seek out care in charity clinics, so a system of medical assistance went into existence. Guess what? The poor still avoid seeking care, even though it is paid for. This phenomenon has been observed in other countries as well. The poor are no better off, but the government has now increased costs. Hospitals and health care providers have to suffer a myriad of regulations, none of which have been clearly demonstrated to improve the lot of the patients and yet generate large costs. As the costs to comply with governmental regulations go up, the costs to administer health care goes up, and insurance companies have arisen as the evil step-children of government to suck more money out of the taxpayers and provide less care through "managed" services. If the government and managed care organizations left health care to the professionals and if a new system of malpractice that was based upon problem solving rather than affixing blame arose, we would have a more affordable system. Truly, the heroes in health care are the providers (physicans, nurses, therapists, hospitals, technicians, etc), the equipment and pharmaceutical companies, and the suppliers of goods to the community (pharmacies).
• Merit is a good thing. Any system that rewards based on something other than merit is on shaky grounds. When you raise your children, you provide some things for them out of love, but if you provide them with everything, they will be sapped of the drive needed to earn their own way, to make life have a meaning other than taking. While one can define merit on an individual basis, this does not always benefit society, and actually can lead to a form of enslavement of the skilled, bright and able. Merit needs to be defined on a societal basis and needs to be subject to the forces of capitalism. No one has developed a viable society that is based on anything other than enlightened self interest. While one can theoretically argue that an altruistic or egalitarian society would be the best, this flies in the face of the need of people to strive for something other than the inner feeling of accomplishment and giving. People need an external measure, be it power, prestige, or wealth. While these aren't the end all and be all, they are necessary as carrots to move us forward. No carrots and no progress.