Justice and Just Society

Justice defines the relation of people to the society which is derived from nature. Throughout the human history, the notion of justice has changed much time to fit with human needs and desires. At some critical point, it cannot cope up with the complex notion developed by humans thus gave rise to unfairness, as known as, injustice. This also gives rise to the survival of the fittest- a notion that believes that only superiors humans will be able to survive, rest will be dead. Philosophers like Rousseau would suggest going back to the state of nature to find justice, but this will not stop civilization from taking place. Instead, we can use the power of reasoning, as Wollstonecraft suggests, to identify the issues with the current society. Then we can propose a model for just society, as suggested by Bookchin, to bring justice in society.

The origin of injustice lies within the origins of inequality which finds its root back at dawn of civilization. According to Rousseau, inequality is an unnatural thing, an elusive barrier to make weaker inferior to the superiors. He believes that we are a fundamentally social being who formed groups to stay away from our life challenges. This dependency once was for pity and respect which turned to self-respect, property rights. As he says, “As soon as he realized that he needs the provision of two, equality started to disappear, the property came into existence”. People started to compete which gives rise to moral inequality. Now, the opponents might claim that civilized world gives people the reason thus opens the door for life improvement. They will be right if everyone in the society would have been superior. The quickly growing human society build many complex notions of life to cope up with the needs. As a result, the domain of reason became very independent with respect to the artificial abstraction which is only a few can understand. As Rousseau would portray the roadmap of inequality and injustice - poor vs rich, weak vs strong, slave vs master, upper class vs middle class.

The unjust human society has turned people against people, we must seek our way back to society. This shares Rousseau’s view of going back to the state of nature. He says that people’s need is very simple in the state of nature, so, they only need to care for self; nature will provide and satisfy their needs. However, nature will not guarantee the biological needs of people such as reproduction- the mean for survival. Furthermore, diseases and natural disasters would make people hard to go out for food even though nature is growing those in abundance. At some point the mutual interest to get together into groups will arise, leading to interdependence. This interdependency will be due to care for each other where collective good is major key. To this extent, I believe Wollstonecraft’s point regarding reason and civilization to prosper in life. Thus, there is no such way we are staying permanently in the state of nature. We must look forward to redefining and fix the relationship of people with society.

The very first relation we need to fix is between people and the government.  The core problem with this relation is that people don't participate in politics. They view politicians as power seekers who make the abstract notions of politics so that they can remain in power for eternity. A Statistical data from past shows that a very few people understand how the policies in the united states were made. It is not rocket science to understand from these evidence that people’s lack of understanding and participating in politics is the sole reason for fewer turnout numbers in elections.  The American revolution was started with the unfair policy of taxation which demands “No taxation without representation”. Did we achieve our revolutionary goals? Were we able to form a congress that is people-friendly, rather than upper rank-friendly? Were we able to make the Congress less powerful or turn it into a weapon to create social ranks and make people less powerful?

This leads American youth to prefer Tribalism so that people will be able to participate directly in tribal meetings to address different issues. This will more efficient way than to get the voice heard through representatives as face-to-face voice exchange will take place. People will have a better understanding of the government, thus they will more likely to trust politics than to hate it. With the mutual relation, the lawmaking body- the Congress will be people-friendly.

Fixing economic relationship is as important as fixing relation with the government. The current system of capitalism, as Bookchin, says, “product for the sake of product”. In other words, a man sells his labor to buy something he needs to survive. Although capitalism provides “abundance” for mass population, we still have poor and destitute in our society. As Bookchin mentioned, “When modern industry can provide abundance for all, nothing is more vicious to poor people than a lifetime of poverty”. This is the questions I firmly believe Marxist will have no answer to. If this abundance does not solve the problem, then there is no need for this abundance. Furthermore,

 Capitalism allows for the development of social hierarchy, a class structure where few are benefited by the labor of many. While upper class enjoys and identifies themselves as social beings, middle class identifies himself as the mere commodity. Thus, there is no hope for growth from middle class which increases the hierarchical gap on daily basis. This system must be replaced with the system of equal distribution. In the new system, the government will own and set rules for all the business activities which is decided by people as part of social affairs. Everyone will get an equal amount of wealth based on the generated revenue and needs. In this system, there is no room for “domination” and “competition”. People will work as if it is for the mutual interest and for the benefit of the society as a whole. People will go to work and the workplace will not merely look like a funeral house, but rather a community. With this system running, we will be able to hit the goal of “zero poverty”. All the five basic rights- bread, clothes, shelter, qualities education, and healthcare will be provided by the government as universal rights for human in society. Thus, by finding equality and mutuality, we will form a just society.

Justice defines the relationships among people in a society which is derived from nature. Mutual interests of each other transformed human from nomads to social being. Later the relation changed its form to competition, giving rise to inequality and injustice. Rousseau wanted to go back to the state of nature to find justice, however, this approach would not work as we are fundamentally social being and can’t see ourselves as singles. As proposed by Bookchin, tribalism and the economic system of equal distribution of wealth will bring back the mutualistic relationship that was gone for ages. As everyone in the society will grow, the society itself will prosper with reasons.

Works Cited

Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Translated by Donald A Cress, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1992.

Bookchin, Murray. Post-Scarcity Anarchism. Murray Bookchin, 2004.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. Vindication.