THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

David Miller in his erudite article on the Ideological Background to conception of social justice has defined the problem of social justice as that principle which should be chosen to govern the distribution of wealth, prestige and other benefits among members of society. He has propounded three criterions which have been evolved by various schools of thought to decide the issue.

The first criterion insists on the principle of ‘protection of acknowledgedrights’. It corresponds to a model of society, which Miller has termed as ‘hierarchical order’. The chief advocate of this principal is David Hume.

The second criterion subscribes to the principle of ‘distribution according to desire’. The corresponding model of society in this case is that of competitive market. The chief exponent of this model is Herbert Spencer.

Finally, the third criterion is characterized by the principle of ‘distribution according to need’. This leads to the model of ‘solidarity community’. Kropotkin may be regarded as pioneer of this model.

In identifying these speciality criteria Miller seems to have traveled from the sphere if social justice proper ‘to the realm of the various concepts of mere justice by which conflicting claims are sought to he justified’. The first two models, whatever their merit, could hardly be accepted as one that approaches the idea of Social justice at all the ‘hierarchical order’ demanding protection of acknowledged rights is properly speaking, on antithesis of social justice. D.D. Raphael has rightly observed that the term social justice tends to issue from the mouth of reforms who are not satisfied with the prevailing system of distribution of rights. The very demand for protection of the existing rights emanates from the theory of origin of rights which are either based on a wrong logic (as in the case of Aristotle’s defense of slavery on the assumed inborn individual differences in the capacity of attained virtue) or on such grounds which are no longer tenable. A deeper analysis wall show that the system of rights, alleged to be acknowledged rights, evolved by a tiny class which managed to corner major portion of the resources of the community, and forced the rest of the community to acknowledge this system by administrating a strong dose of religion. The demand of social justice strikes at the very root of this system of so-called acknowledged rights

The second model namely, that of ‘competitive market’, is also inconsistent with the idea of social Justice because such competition takes the existing disparities in opportunities and power to compete for granted. It is ahead of the model of ‘hierarchical order’ in the sense that it adds an element of effort of desire for determining one’s shore in the advantages occurring from organized social life. But the element of desert is introduced so cleverly that it re-establishes the theory of the acknowledged rights in disguise. This may be proved by references to Locke’s defense of the right to property. Locke regards property as ‘fruit of labour’. He builds up his theory with references to manual labour because man has absolute right on his hands and other parts of body by which he puts his labour, To this intellectual labour may also reasonably be added on the same ground. But with the changed circumstances. Especially under the modern system of highly mechanized and capitalistic form of production, the extent of property that could really be described as fruit of one’s labour’ is very difficult to determine. Here manipulative labour comes into play and the process of production leads to increasing to control in fewer hands not only over the productive resources of the community but over the lives of a large body of citizens, thus depriving them of their liberty, which was so much valued by Locke. Any such theory that acquiesces in the existing vast disparities in opportunities open to the different classes, and still regards the criterion of distribution according to desert’ as fool-proof. is bound to fall to the ground when analyzed from the point of view of social justice.

                The third model, which insists on distribution ‘according to need’, no doubt represents a substantial advance in the direction of social justice, but it is by far an insufficient criterion if exclusively applied, The need can be adopted as the sole of criterion allocation only in the society in which there is abundant production and human beings have learnt to take only what they need, and to put their best without any temptation for distinctive reward. Since such a society exists in idea only, not in the real world, an elaborate scheme must be worked out to meet the wider requirements of social justice.