Justice in society: conceptual frameworks and applications

Justice in Society

What does justice in society really mean?

"It's not fair." One of the first phrases every child articulates clearly relates to a kind of a rough philosophy of justice. This sentiment reflects the idea that because people are not being treated 'the same' the world is unjust. A child may regard the fact that older siblings get to go to bed later as unfair. However, as rough and crude as a child's logic of justice may seem, underlying its assumptions are some of the concepts that relate to a larger sense of justice, namely the issue of equitable treatment. For a society to be just, there must be efforts to create social and economic parity to ensure that the nation's political and judicial systems truly honor such principles of equity.

One concept of equalizing to create justice is that of "John Rawls' alternative distributive principle, which he calls the Difference Principle...[it] allows allocation that does not conform to strict equality so long as the inequality has the effect that the least advantaged in society are materially better off than they would be under strict equality" (Lamont & Favor 2008). For example, income taxes are progressive in the sense that the very poorest members of society who presumably benefit the least from the system are taxed the least, while the wealthiest are taxed the most, reflecting the Difference Principle.

However, many aspects of the United States tax system are regarded as unjust by progressives and conservatives alike. Progressives note that wealthy individuals and corporations frequently pay very little in taxes, because of their ability to hire accountants that enable them to take advantage of loopholes and tax credits which benefit the wealthy. "Apple may pay some corporate income taxes on that profit to the country where it sells the iPad, but it minimizes these by using various accounting moves to shift profits to countries with low tax rates" (Svensson 2012). Extreme conservatives tend to regard taxation as suspicious in general, and believe that the federal government should only tax enough to protect the populace with police and armies and view other forms of extricating wealth from the public as tantamount to theft.

Although the current tax system is hardly perfectly Rawlsian, it at least passes the standard of making things 'more just' versus a society with a tax system that is not progressive at all. Clearly, the very poor are better off in a system in which the rich must 'pay back' some taxes to create social welfare programs, versus a world in which a flat tax is imposed upon all residents of a nation and there are no redistributive social programs at all. A good example of such a 'flat tax' is that of a sales tax, which disproportionately hurts the poor, given that the poor devote a larger proportion of their income to buying goods and services than the rich, and the fact that a sales tax is imposed equally upon all persons who consume, regardless of their level of income -- everyone pays the same percent.

The American tax system has grown less progressive in recent years, which many point to as a reason that American society has grown less socially mobile. "While the top 1% have seen their incomes rise 18% over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall" (Stiglitz 2011). "Lowering tax rates on capital gains, which is how the rich receive a large portion of their income, has given the wealthiest Americans close to a free ride" (Stiglitz 2011). Wealth perpetuates wealth, as the wealthy are able to educate their children at elite schools and ensure that their children remain at the upper echelons of power. Less social mobility tends to result in a less just society, as those with greater economic and political power are better able to hold onto it and use the system to benefit their class.