Why Progressives and Conservatives Can’t Seem to Agree about Justice
The economist Thomas Sowell explains that there are two ruling concepts of justice in America today.
Many Americans today continue to talk past each other in their discussions of justice.
Progressives often see conservatives as insensitive and lacking compassion for the poor and oppressed. They march and protest in the streets for justice and view conservatives’ lack of protest as signs of their racism and privilege. Meanwhile, many conservatives cannot understand how progressives can see their tactics as just. They watch the protesters loot and burn cities and gape at the lawlessness of these social “justice” warriors.
The reason why there can be no actual conversation between these groups is that they do not share the same definition of justice. No one explains this better than Thomas Sowell in his book, The Quest for Cosmic Justice.
Cosmic Justice vs. Traditional Justice
Sowell explains that there are two ruling concepts of justice in America: traditional justice and social or, as he calls it, cosmic justice. Cosmic justice is what someone would choose if they were creating the universe from scratch. For example, if I were to create my own cosmos, I probably would not choose to include racism or poverty. I could eradicate human suffering and pain. Maybe I would ensure total equality of opportunity and outcome. Each of these things have to do with end results; they have nothing to do with the means which would have to bring about these results.
Traditional justice, as Sowell explains, is about, “impartial processes rather than either results or prospects.” Sowell gives the example of a law court. A trial is just if handled in accordance with the law and with an impartial judge and jury, no matter the verdict. A baseball game is fair if it was called according to the rules of the game, no matter which side won.
Cosmic Justice Ruins Things
Sowell opposes the idea of cosmic justice, not because he relishes poor people being poor, or the oppressed being oppressed, but because he knows that every time the government has tried to change the rules to benefit a class that is seen as disadvantaged, the changing of the rules actually does more harm than good. He writes:
We must begin with the universe that we were born into and weigh the costs of making any specific change in it to achieve a specific end. We cannot simply 'do something' whenever we are morally indignant, while disdaining to consider the costs entailed.
Sowell gives the example of housing reform in 19th century America.
Immigrants were living in slums that, to wealthier Americans, did not meet acceptable standards of living. Three to four people were packed into a room, the apartments were poorly ventilated, and tenants often had to go to the bathroom outside if they didn’t share a common hall bathroom. Appalled, reformers set standards for how apartments could be built, how many people could live in a specific amount of space, and other features meant to raise the standard of living.
This inevitably raised the cost of the apartments, which many tenants were still able to afford. The reason they were living in apartments far below what they could afford was because they were saving up to send money back to their families who were starving in their homelands and to prepare a better future for themselves and their children.
While it seemed to much wealthier observers that they were "helping" these poor immigrants by creating new laws and mandates to raise their living standards, what they really did was take away their freedom to make choices and tradeoffs, and stunt their rise out of poverty.
Cosmic Justice Is Impossible
Cosmic Justice Destroys Freedom
Ends Versus Means
read moar here: https://fee.org/articles/why-progressives-and-conservatives-can-t-seem-to-agree-about-justice/