Having become late in life a college professor, thus regularly spending time on a university campus after three+ decades, I’m discovering the academic environment has changed for the worse. Freedom of debate, and thought, has been replaced by intolerance of dissent in the pursuit of “social justice” (SJ) – though no one could really explain to me what the term means.
The definitions I heard were transitory. It apparently means whatever the particular SJ advocate wants it to mean to justify their particular cause.
Since I tell my students the most important skill they will need as lawyers is the ability to research for answers in the law library, I decided to follow my own preaching, and visit the school library. Lo and behold… I found the answer!
Professor F.A. Hayek was a lawyer and (more relevant to this topic) an economist who received the 1974 Nobel Prize for economics, as well as the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991. A prolific author, one of his publications is a three volume set entitled Law, Legislation and Liberty.
Volume Two is The Mirage of Social Justice, and is the most coherent explanation of SJ I am able to find.
Hayek chronicles the historical origin and evolution of SJ. He concludes, “Social justice becomes a demand that the members of a society should organize themselves in a manner that makes it possible to assign particular shares of the products of society to different individuals and groups.” He illustrates that SJ is indistinguishable from Marxist/Socialist “redistributive justice”, and that “modern authoritarian or dictatorial governments have proclaimed ‘social justice’ as their chief aim.”
Hayek’s proves “The idea that government can determine the opportunities for all, and especially that it can insure that they are the same for all, is in conflict with the whole rationale of a free society.”
Corroborating his conclusion, Hayek quotes Soviet dissident Andrei Sahkarov who said that millions of Russians were victims of terror “that attempts to conceal itself behind the slogan of ‘social justice’.” Sahkarov received the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize for his protests against the evils of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) regime, for which that government stripped him of his official position as their leading physicist.
“Social justice” inevitably leads to the “destruction of personal freedom”, and “is at present the gravest threat to other values of a free civilization”. That’s the accumulated wisdom of two Nobel laureates.
In practice there is no difference between Marxist government control of all aspects of our lives, and the SJ being advocated today. SJ requires the government must assure that each individual “received what was ‘due’ to him”. The idea of being due things attracts millennials in particular for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is contemporary product advertising.
The other day I heard a radio ad for an auto dealership that specializes in trucks. The ad said “Come to ______ and get the truck you deserve!” I guess I deserve a truck! The deserve language is in other ads. A dentist in my locale says he can give me the smile I deserve, and I can get the vacation I deserve here. Deserve has become synonymous with want — and not just for two-year-olds.
Is it any wonder, having been told throughout their lives that they deserve things, so many millennials now feel entitled, and blindly embrace SJ/socialism which promises to provide everything due to them? For free…
Enjoy a YouTube video on that topic, here.
I have an acquaintance who grew up in Russia when it was part of the USSR. She lived there through the fall of that regime, and beginning of the transition back to capitalism. She told me a common joke there in 1989 was, “Communism is the longest, most painful path from capitalism to capitalism!” A neighbor of mine fled Castro’s socialist Cuba to escape a regime dedicated to SJ. Neither of them has anything positive to say about living in a socialist society. As Andrei Sahkarov said, SJ is merely a facade for totalitarian socialism.
A young (20-something) part-time student at my college is a public school history teacher. She was on our campus wearing a shirt extolling SJ. I asked her what she meant by SJ, and she couldn’t really define it.
Upon hearing Hayek’s and Sahkarov’s thoughts on the subject she confessed to never having heard of either of them. Not surprising since both died before she was born, and the socialist-loving union teachers who no doubt taught her in high school and college would never have told her about the beliefs of either man (if they were even aware of them). I suggested she read Hayek’s book before praising SJ to her students.
I pointed out the graphics on her shirt are eerily similar to old communist posters. The imagery is the same: a raised fist with kids in the background. Only the slogan is different.
She denied knowing that as well. She teaches history in a public high school.
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.