Social Justice

            Social justice, when referring to when it was first coined by Pius XI, refers to the “economic aspect of the common good . . . the use of property for the benefit of all men.” When working, wage-earners shouldn’t ask for higher wages then they need to survive. To support a system like this, economic institutions need to be put in place to regulate the distribution of wealth to stabilize an economy. This idea of “income equality” is one that would later be adopted by Karl Marx.

            From this definition, as well as other definitions and examples I have found of social justice, I see social justice as a form of communism. Wealth and property isn’t the exclusive right to the rich: every person has an equal right to all property, and all wage-earners have the same salary.  Money is a result of a working population, therefore the money should be equally spread among every worker.

            One issue with social justice is the institutions that distribute the wealth. In many cases, greed takes over, and the people in charge of distributing the wealth do so unfairly. The lower class gets oppressed by the ones who manage money and distribute goods, who take more than their fair share.

            A great way to teach social justice to students would be through a book many teachers already use: Animal Farm. In this novel, animals take over a farm and instill social justice: all the animals work their fair share and receive an equal share of rations. Until greed takes over. This would be a great way to teach students the things that go wrong when social justice is adopted by a society at large.

Montavon, P. A. (1957). Review: The Theory of Social Justice. The Review of Politics, Vol. 19(1). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ewu.edu/stable/1405045