SOCIAL JUSTICE

Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being.[1][2][3] The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by the Jesuit Luigi Taparelli in 1840 based on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and given further exposure in 1848 by Antonio Rosmini-Serbati.Social justice as a secular concept, distinct from religious teachings, emerged mainly in the late twentieth century, influenced primarily by philosopher John Rawls. Some tenets of social justice have been adopted by those on the left of the political spectrum.Social justice is based on the concepts of human rights and equality and involves a greater degree of economic egalitarianism through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or even property redistribution.These policies aim to achieve what developmental economists refer to as more equality of opportunity than may currently exist in some societies, and to manufacture equality of outcome in cases where incidental inequalities appear in a procedurally just system.The Constitution of the International Labour Organization affirms that "universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice.
Social justice is when something is unreasonable within society or around the world. There are many different unjust things that happen in our local towns, countries or even other countries all around the world. The government treat a lot of people unfairly today
Theories of social justice
Social justice from religious traditions
Hinduism
Ancient Hindu society was based on varna system which later hardened itself into jaati system which was based on jajmani relationships. The present day caste system is a modified form of jajmani system. The disparity and wide inequalities in social behaviour to some of the castes led to various reform movements in hinduism.
There is a wide acceptance that Hindu social structure is ridden with castes and communities, and that this has led to barriers and segregation and condemnation of obnoxious vice of social inequality and untouchability.
Islam
The Quran contains numerous references to elements of social justice. For example, one of Islam's Five Pillars is Zakāt, or alms-giving. Charity and assistance to the poor - concepts central to social justice - are and have historically been important parts of the Islamic faith.
However, other aspects of Islam emphasize overt discrimination against non-Muslims (e.g., the dhimmah)[17] - a practice seemingly incompatible with most contemporary notions of social justice.[improper synthesis?]
Social justice movements
Social justice is also a concept that is used to describe the movement towards a socially just world, i.e. the Global Justice Movement. In this context, social justice is based on the concepts of human rights and equality, and can be defined as "the way in which human rights are manifested in the everyday lives of people at every level of society".[28]
A number of movements are working to achieve social justice in society.

Social justice in healthcare
Social justice has more recently made its way into the field of bioethics. Discussion involves topics such as affordable access to health care, especially for low income households and family. The discussion also raises questions such as whether society should bear healthcare costs for low income families, and whether the global marketplace is a good thing to deal with healthcare.
Social justice and human rights education
Main article: Human rights education
The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action affirm that "Human rights education should include peace, democracy, development and social justice, as set forth in international and regional human rights instruments, in order to achieve common understanding and awareness with a view to strengthening universal commitment to human rights

|EIGHT STEPS TOWARDS SOCIAL JUSTICE |
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|The prima-facie duty of the ideal |
|government is to promote the |
|public weal, |
|and to do so governments is |
|obligated to treat each person as |
|of equal value and to maximize |
|the happiness of society. |
|[pic] |

PROBLEM I: For eighty percent of our citizens, their academic training ends with high school; moreover, within a few years they could not pass even a grade 10, comprehensive test. Their mental window on the world is half shut, and this has permitted a government to exist that has placed the needs of the people fourth. And to protect this unfortuitous relationship, those with economic power, which includes control of the media, have formed a defacto alliance with government. Business through their media have inculcated the belief that those who own the resources, property, financial institutions, and industries best serve the needs by being far more unfettered than those in Europe. What is need is that the majority of the electorate to recognize the policies that would best serves their own needs and then support a candidates with that vision. This country needs a majority of the electorate with the intellectual ability to understand the complexities of social, economic, and political issues so as to form a reasonable vision of what ought to be. SOLUTION I: To obtain an electorate with a rational faculty capable of resolving complex issues concerning human nature, concerning social justice, economics, and education requires both training and a brain capable of fully benefiting from such training. This type of electorate is made: made through schools that teach first the art of thinking, made through a media that places the stimulation of the intellect before the rewards of the accolades of the common herd and the dollars of sponsors, and made by a society where the average citizen makes both learning and complex analysis a life-long pursuit. The first bricks in the wall of enlightenment are laid by the educational system, the second batch of brick by the media, the third by peer conditioning that universally values logical skills and knowledge. . To establish a perspicacious electorate requires a comprehensive and cohesive policy that starts in elementary school, continues through college, includes adult education, and is supported by the media programming. Education ought to stress ability to reason abstractly. While facts will be forgotten, the skill of abstract reasoning lasts a lifetime. The second change would be with the media: its being ran as a business must end. The media ought to be in the hands of the universities with the understanding that their performance would be rated on how well they through the programming instructs, promotes abstraction, and increases useful knowledge. To achieve this goal the policies for education and the media ought to be developed by panels of university professors whose task it is to assure that schools what was started in the public schools is continued and supported by the media. These professors in charge of media content ought to be elected by their peers. Democracy will work better with an intelligent and aware electorate. PROBLEM II: Most citizens enjoy voting, but make an inadequate effort to become informed. If the current television candidate advertisements are an indication of that effort, then the process must be likened to that of selecting flashlight batteries, namely, product recognition. The research of issues and the examination of candidates are barely performed by most of the electorate. Even if we create--from the following of Solution I--a perspicacious electorate, their influence via elected officials would be greater if they examined in depth the abilities and policies of those running for office. SOLUTION II: Require of those who vote that they study in depth both the issues and the records of the candidates. Since most people do not on their own study in depth prior to voting, such preparation must be required. Like the jurors at a trial, those selected to vote must be given time off from work, paid for period of preparation to vote, and housed temporarily together so as to create an environment that would encourage such studies and promote relevant discussion. To reduce the burden of this type of preparation for voting, a method of random selection of a fraction of the people, say 2 percent, would occur. Certainly, it is better for a few randomly selected to make an informed vote than large numbers an uninformed vote. This system would eliminate the need for raising funds for elections and the need for political parties. Qualified people would not need the support of a political office in order to become a serious contender. Party politics would vanish. III PROBLEM: One shortcoming of the vote is that though it is a form of review that occurs too infrequently, once every 6 years for senators, for the president every 4 years. Moreover, the performance over such a long period of time becomes exceedingly difficult to evaluate. Thus, politicians performance is compromised by the dictates of their political party and those who fund their election. Moreover the electoral review amounts to nothing more than the selection of one of two political parties, and the ultimate selection is controlled by the political party who decides who will run. The review by the political party and the large contributors to reelection is more significant as to the continued career of a politician than the review of the electorate. There is a need for those who govern to have as their most significant evaluation those whom they govern. This review ought to be extended to others who have under our present system been placed beyond review (generals, judges, department heads). SOLUTION III: By setting up panels of citizens similar to the investigative grand juries, the performance of government would be revealingly monitored. Such panels would be given specific investigative tasks. They would have the power to propose legislation, air their findings on prime time television, and fund research projects. For example, a panel investigating electric generation might want to know what is holding back breeder-reactor development. Another might want to know why we have the most expensive medical system in the world, you its overall performance is in the lower half when compared to other developed countries. They could--like in Canada--fund to have blue-ribbon commissions set up to examine and publish reports on such questions. They could propose legislation based upon their findings. Thus, there would be a commissions and grand jury review to affect the performance of our elected officials. To give such a system clout they would have access to the media. Finally, the Government Accounting Office would not be controlled by the legislator, but by a panel of university professors. Such a set of changes would assure that there is meaningful review of the performance of our elected officials and senior bureaucrats.

PROBLEM IV: Those who rise to the top positions in a political party obtain such mainly for demonstrated party loyalty, public speaking skills, and the ability to raise funds. Top government bureaucrats obtain such status because of ability to perform their duties and also to promote the interest of their department. As the Science Advisor for Eisenhower tersely stated, "Each department has its own ax to grind." As a result the top bureaucrats, contrary to the publics best interest, will act to increase their budget and authority of their department. We have, for example, an Environmental Protection Agency whose standards for disposal of chemical wastes and cleanup of old chemical dumps are clearly excessive. How are we to improve the quality of those at the top of the bureaucracy and the legislators? SOLUTION IV: Among other things there should be comprehensive, appropriate testing of both senior bureaucrats and those running for office and the results of this test must be published. Secondly, as those rise up both the bureaucratic and elected systems, schooling would be required that improves their job skill levels and analytic abilities. The brightest and best trained ought to head government. PROBLEM V: The ends of production ought to be for the maximization of the public weal. We also need greater transparency, meaning, that the cost of an item should very nearly equal the cost of distribution plus that of manufacturing. A number of unnecessary practices inflate the selling price. At least 20% of the cost of the car consists of advertisements. Secondly, at least 16 minutes per hour of viewing time is consumed by advertisements that interrupt programming. Sure, we dont have to pay directly television programming, but we pay for it in higher, consumer prices. Another example of waste is the lack of interchangeable parts for automobiles and the frequent changes in parts design. Each automaker is trying to protect his share of the replacement-parts market by making it prohibitively costly for an independent parts manufacture to offer a full line of replacement parts. Businesses within a sector often work together, as does the major supermarket chains, so as to limit competition and then years later make exorbitant profits. A third example of economic waste is that of the insurance industry. We support hundreds of thousand insurance employees and their working environments. Part of what doctors charge goes to cover their insurance expense. We ultimately feed the workers of Wall Street. They aren't needed. There are no free lunches. The percentage of the GNP consumed by insurance companies and brokerage houses, if they were eliminated, would more funds being available for the citizens to spend. Every waste is funded on the backs of labor: THERE ARE NO FREE LUNCHES! The economy needs to be streamlined. SOLUTION V: Russia failed because politicians were running the economy. The first 4 problems and solution were designed to improve government thus permitting a greater role in the economy without the follies of the Soviet experiment. Having the brightest and best trained runs government insures that the Soviet type morass would not be repeated. Streamlining would occur by eliminating private insurance companies, the stock market, taxes, and advertisements (see #6 for a much better alternative). Ownership of property would be eliminated (and thus its inheritance), thought there would be long term leases. There would no longer be a class of citizens who feed themselves because of the rental of property or from dividends and speculation in stocks. Manufactured goods would be designed to last longer and be easier to repair. Government would act to increase economic efficiency. The benefits of this transparency could be distributed among the workers and thus yield a more just proportioning of the rewards of labor. The legislature would act to promote transparency.
Most important of the changes made by government would be a reordering of the goals of business. Performance of executives would not primarily be measured by profits with its assorted counter to the public weal consequences, but by transparency (the maximization of value of the commodities and services). Transparency requires that products produced would, where feasible, have interchangeable parts, be built to last, and be designed to for easy of repair and replacement. Government would distribute rewards to executives and workers in a company according to the relative value and quantity of what is produced when compared to its competitors. PROBLEM VI: Some causes of waste are based on artificial demands, such as for perfumes, latest fashions, larger or luxury vehicles. This waste is promoted through advertising and values portrayed in media dramas. This is the waste of unsound product selection. An even greater waste is the way businesses acts to reduce value. The information about which flashlight battery last longer, which vehicle in a given class will over the next 10 years have the lowest repair costs, which vehicle has the smoothest and quietest ride, this information for prudent product selection is not readily available, if at all. Automobile manufactures make a greater profit on replacement parts than on new car sales. Industry functions to maximize their profit; therefore there is the compromise of quality and value for the sake of profit. Businesses have found that within a certain limit advertising yields a greater profit that product improvement. It is in a business interest to maximize profits, but in the publics best interest to maximize value. SOLUTION VI: There is a simple and direct way to insure a dramatic increase in the value of products. This would be to have a product rating on the cover of each item. Thus for flashlight batteries, there would be an easy way to compare Eveready, Duracell, and other brands. For items for which there are many things to be compared a report would be included. Independent laboratories would do the testing. Each company would only have one very effective avenue to increase sales, namely; that of obtaining the highest value rating (value is the combination of features, durability and price). If a products has a flaw, such as Chryslers transmission in there mini vans, there would be prompt action to correct this flaw (for years their transmission average less than 50,000 mile before needing to be rebuilt). Independent product ratings would foster competition. The making of better products for less would also improve foreign trade and thus end our current huge trade imbalance. This is a simple solution; however, one that is not in the interest of the large corporations, for now a small manufacturer could produce batteries and, if their product is a better value, outsell the product with name recognition. A better design would produce rapid results. An act of government is thus required for product ratings. It would also improve distribution of new products and those from small manufacturers when their rating is high, because retail outlets would want to carry those products with the highest rating. Product ratings would permit the consumer to make a decision based upon the value of the product. PROBLEM VII: The typical notion of obligation and fairness (TNOF) requires that each person, unless within an exempted group, support himself. Thus by TNOF it is considered unfair for a person not exempted because of wealth, age, or being a housewife to mooch upon others for their sustenance. Similarly by TNOF, it is considered unfair if in a family one member consumes much more than the others. However, fairness does not extend to the larger family of our society; it ought! People are exempted from labor because of inherited or accumulated wealth, yet according to TNOF this is fair. The British call such people idlers. Other citizens receive (and thus consume) much more than the true value of their labor, yet according to TNOF this is fair; one gets what the labor market will yield. All wealth is built upon the brow and sweat of labor, yet laborers are reward according to what the job-market permits, rather than the worth of their labor. Moreover, economic arrangements permit the pyramiding of wealth. Because of this lack of social justice, there is a lack of cohesion within society. The distorted standard of social justice embodied in TNOF entails that the citizens do what is permitted rather than what would be required by an ideal morality. SOLUTION VII: If the society is like a large family (an analogy used by Plato), then each able bodied citizen should contribute. This idea of extended family with its utilitarian set of duties and rewards is quite different than TNOF. Each person would be expected to carry part of the burdens of labor. To accomplish this full employment, the workweek would be shortened. Each able-bodied person would be rewarded according to their labors (those raising children or caring for the elderly would have this count as part of their work contribution). Each physically and mentally capable person would bejust like in a familyrequired to work; and no job would be rewarded more than 3 times that of common laborers pay. Those who are shiftless could be placed on reservation (like the Canadian have done with their Indians) and be given a small dole if they stay there. This would result in a just proportioning. The burden under such an arrangement would be much less: recall, that it has already been proposed that over one quarter of the jobs be done away through streamlining the economy (the doing away with the financial markets, advertising, the manufacture of more durable goods, government no fault insurance, and many other changes) and the adding housewives would lower the work week to under 20 hours. True social justice requires that each capable citizen contributes according to his ability and be reward according to his production. Government wage controls would promote social justice. Social justice not only lightens the burden of labor by creating full employment thus shortening the workweek, it also reduces workers alienation by creating a feeling of community. PROBLEM VIII: B.F. Skinner said that, Original sin is the difference between your pleasure and mine. This is the sin of self-interest. A business functions to maximize profits; people function to maximize happiness (a point made by both Epicurus and Jeremy Bentham). Sloth is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Workers seek to reduce their labors; owners and mangers to increase their labors. Supervisors also seek to do what is in their own interests of their department. This, I call, the Special Interest Syndrome (SIS hereafter), a type of original sin. In the world of commerce, actions can be viewed as positive and negative: a positive reward is one that will in the long term benefits a company financially; a negative reward is one that is counter to the financial interests of the company. Pay and job benefits are negative for they reduce profits. Workers use social conditioning on their supervisors to lighten their load, and such peer conditioning of the supervisor function in (from the companys prospective) in a negative way. Moreover, if a supervisor is paid in proportion to the number of people working under him, he will seek to increase the size of his department beyond the ideal number, another example of SIS. There exists a balancing between what benefits the workers and supervisors and what benefits the company. Even its board of directors would compromise a companys best interest for the sake of personal rewards. If workers and supervisors would come to their jobs with an earnest desire to maximize productivity and seek first to promote the best interest of the business, then the costs of the goods would be reduce and our society would benefits. Who do we turn each person into a conscientious worker? Get pass SIS.

SOLUTION VIII: How to get around this fundamental conflict of what Skinner called Original Sin? Three factors contributing to its diminution of sloth and SIS are contained above. One is to improve education. In my 12 years of higher learning, I have been utterly impressed with the work performance of professors. In Solution I are my proposals for education. There is a clear relationship, when comparing countries between the quality of education and the behavior of its citizens. The ability to think abstractly creates a clearer understanding of the ideal ethics and of social justice. Second are measures (proposed above) to create social justice, for this will create in the citizens of the society a feeling of family, and acts against society would be subject to peer conditioning much like the family conditioning it members to promote its best interest. Third is economic transparency; for a sense of honor in the market place will be created which will instill in the workers a greater desire to promote the public weal before promoting their own interests. Forth, having a government that measures its actions by the utilitarian standard (maximization of the public weal) will also instill a familial sense of duty towards society. There are also direct measures through a better system of direct review of performance at all levels. For example, factories would compete with similar factories, retail outlets with similar retail outlets, and so on for rewards such as higher pay and better vacations. Hard workers would get bonuses. To achieve this, a system of external evaluation would be set up. For example, both high schools and colleges are presently and have been for decades evaluated by independent panels so that the university committees that selects students knows the worth of the grades obtained by both high school and graduate school applicants. Besides reward for efforts, businesses would act to create situations that promote bonding between workers, and between workers and supervisors, such as company activities. A system of commerce where the bottom line is not the most significant factor in measuring performance of a business would permit the above system of rewards and company activities. Reinforcers would not simply be arrange by a business for the bottom line; for the guiding light would be the public weal as understood by the utilitarians such as Bentham, Mill, Russell, and myself. Improving conditioning in the work place is one way of maximizing happiness. Measures described above would reduce the SIS.
Social Justice Assignment Social justice is when something is unreasonable within society or around the world. There are many different unjust things that happen in our local towns, countries or even other countries all around the world. The government treat a lot of people unfairly today and I am going to discuss one of these groups which I believe are being treated wrongly is people who are living in government housing that is being vandalised or in threat or vandalism. Government housing is safe and affordable housing for people in need, low income, homeless, crisis accommodation or abuse in the home provided by the government. It began in 1945 when the commonwealth Governments main housing program was started by the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement (CSHA). A series of financial agreements that were being negotiated between the commonwealth and the states on their view to provide assistance to people in need delayed the program though, so it didn’t start immediately. There are many ways that this group is underprivileged; I am going to outline just a few things. Firstly the lack of housing, there isn’t enough housing to go around, so much that people are living on the streets, having to beg for money to buy their clothes or food. There are a number of people who can’t go back to their own homes for various reasons such as abuse or harassment. These people would normally take refuge in government housing but if there isn’t any where are they going to go?

The government think they have the answer by supplying money, this isn’t the answer these people need more houses, not only that but also protection, protection from the people they are trying to avoid, protection from vandals and protection from anyone else who threatens to harm them. If the government wants this to stop happening they could do things such as patrol the areas and try to stop this vandalism. This would result in less danger, more housing for people and less money from taxes to build more houses.

Even though money isn’t the answer it could help the situation. From the statistics taken in 1996 $75.3 million was used that year towards community housing and 14.13 in crisis accommodation (abuse or earthquakes) even though that might sound like a lot and it has increased over the past 9 years. Considering how much could be put in, it isn’t that much compared to the large amount they need to keep these people safe.

To conclude I would like to say that this problem is becoming very serious and I don’t think these delinquents realise that they are causing fear inside neighbour hoods by trashing the houses. This problem also needs to be made more aware to the people of Australia, so they can know what could be going on in neighbouring areas and so they can do something about it. If we want this problem solved all of Australia should be informed as well as the government and we should be able to come to a decision that will benefit these people.