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Social justice

From dKosopedia

The generic term social justice is sometimes inexplicably capitalized as Social Justice. No one knows why. This seems to just be bad writing style.

Contents

what it means

The principle of social justice is ancient and common to all societies. It has been embedded in all major religions as an obligation of the rich to the poor, the fortunate to the unfortunate, the working young to the weary old, and in many other ways. For instance in Islam there is the tradition zakat.

In its modern form, social justice (civil justice) is a concept largely based in various social contract theories. Most variations on the concept hold that as governments are instituted among populations for the benefit of members of those populations, those governments which fail to see to the welfare of their citizens are failing to uphold their part in the social contract and are, therefore, unjust. The concept usually includes, but is not limited to, upholding human rights; many variants also contain some beliefs concerning more equitable distributions of wealth and resources.

The term "social justice" is generally so phrased in order to distinguish the particular concept from concepts of justice in law such as criminal justice,—some of which, according to their critics, are decidedly unjust in a social sense—and from concepts of justice as embedded in systems of morality which may differ between cultures.

Sometimes writ large as Social Justice, it is one of the Four Pillars of the Green Party upheld by the worldwide green parties. As stated by several local branches, this is the principle that all persons are entitled to "basic human needs", regardless of "superficial" differences such as economic disparity, class, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship, religion, age, sexual orientation, disability, or health. This includes the eradication of poverty and illiteracy, the establishment of sound environmental policy, and equality of opportunity for healthy personal and social development. Global Green Charter

social justice issues

"race"

In the US many social justice issues are framed with the term:race involved, since "Hispanic" and "Black" populations are statistically more likely to face a combination of the above factors amplified by employment discrimination that is based on their ethnic origin. For this affirmative action has often been proposed or implemented, but this has the negative affect of making "race" real where it has hitherto not been real. For an ethnically mixed population this is a difficult and maybe untenable solution, especially as intermarriages increase.

While the term "race" itself is avoided at dkosopedia itself in issue statements, certainly anyone is free to take positions that evoke it or use that word. For instance:

is a reasonable position, with many arguments for it.

global justice

While absolute poverty is considered a global social justice issue with 0.7% to foreign aid the most often-cited solution, most advocates consider it merely the first step to a society where there is far more equity and recourse across national borders and where there is more and more conformance to international norms such as human rights, and less and less ability to launder money or exploit tax havens or avoid extradition when indicted for corporate crime. The Kyoto protocol is also key to global justice, as the victims of climate change will not generally be the same people who are causing it. Globally, in the Kyoto numbers and assumptions, there remains a 15-to-1 price of life ratio between the price that developed nations can pay to avoid a climate change death, and what developing nations can. This number has remained virtually unchanged since George Keenan in 1948, writing for the U.S. State Department, observed that the US had 6% of the world's population and 50% of its wealth. This was about a 15 to 1 ratio - but over the next fifty years, as the number of wealthy people expanded in both Europe and Asia, the overall ratio between themselves and the poor has remained, to ultimately be reflected in the numbers the IPCC used to determine which countries must be compliant with Kyoto in the first round of greenhouse gas control. And, of course, the US doesn't acknowledge even that limit and is willing to kill people abroad in large numbers to protect a few American lives. And that not very well.

positions associated with more than one issue

Retrieved from "http://localhost../../../s/o/c/Social_justice.html"

This page was last modified 20:36, 4 July 2006 by Chad Lupkes. Based on work by dKosopedia user(s) Anonymous troll and PatriotismOverProfits. Content is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.


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