The people in the video give answers consisting of all manner of desirable things, from knowledge, justice, love, compassion, and truth to healthcare, education, food, clean water, nutri
Trang 1The Injustice of Social Justice
Mises Daily: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 by Ben O'Neill (http://mises.org/daily/author/1018/Ben-ONeill)
[An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Colin Hussey, is available for download
(http://media.mises.org/mp3/audioarticles/5099_ONeill.mp3?utm_source=mp3&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=Direct_MP3) ]
Every once in a while, something comes along that
perfectly encapsulates the idea of so-called "social justice"
in action For all the wonderful critiques that have been
written about this wretched concept by its many
detractors,[1] none quite match the elegant simplicity of a
recent work by some of its advocates I am referring here
to a recent video made for the World Day of Social
Justice[2] in which students and teachers complete this
sentence:
Everyone has the right to _
The video is a colorful montage of possible completions to this sentence, set to some pleasant easy-listening music It shows students and teachers completing the above sentence, showing their answers written on their hands, arms, and feet The people in the video give answers consisting of all manner
of desirable things, from knowledge, justice, love, compassion, and truth to healthcare, education, food, clean water, nutrition, shoes, dancing, rock-and-roll, and even lollipops and ice cream
World Day of Social Justice
GlobeMed at Rhodes College's photo project for the World Day of Social Justice (You can also watch this video here (http://animoto.com/play/qV2S8JWtG21GIhkcVamWow) )
A few of these things could be construed as genuine rights, if interpreted charitably, but most are more fanciful, such as the alleged rights to ice cream and rock-and-roll Moreover, the weight of
desirable goods of this latter kind makes the core message of the video clear: anything that is
desirable is a right You want more food? Then it's a right Want better healthcare? Also a right You
want knowledge and compassion? Then they're rights too Want love, dancing, prenatal care, and lollipops? Rights, rights, rights, rights
Though succinct and simple, the video perfectly demonstrates the attitude towards rights that
pervades modern political discussions, particularly among the advocates of "social justice." For such people, the notion of "rights" is a mere term of entitlement, indicative of a claim for any possible desirable good, no matter how important or trivial, abstract or tangible, recent or ancient It is merely
an assertion of desire, and a declaration of intention to use the language of rights to acquire said desire
In fact, since the program of social justice inevitably involves claims for government provision of
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Trang 2"For advocates of 'social justice,' the notion of 'rights'
is a mere term of entitlement."
(http://mises.org/media/category/108/Audio-Mises-Daily)
"Unfortunately, this is an entirely understandable error, given the nature of education and public debate today."
goods, paid for through the efforts of others, the term actually refers to an intention to use force to acquire one's desires Not to earn desirable goods by rational thought and action, production and
voluntary exchange, but to go in there and forcibly take goods from those who can supply them!
This is a hopelessly flawed view of rights An actual right is a moral
prerogative derived from the application of moral philosophy to the
nature of man The term is a term of philosophy designating an
actual moral principle, a principle that should be derived objectively
by an examination of the nature of morality and the nature of man
Rights are not mere subjective constructs, as they are so often treated Rather, they are objective principles validated by moral philosophy (in particular, by political philosophy, which is the sub-branch
of moral philosophy that deals with the morality of the use of force)
A person has a right to some particular thing — as opposed merely to a desire for that thing — if he
has an actual moral prerogative allowing him to do or have that thing This must necessarily be
accompanied by others having some corresponding moral injunction against preventing the right holder from doing or having that thing The right cannot exist in a vacuum, hermetically sealed off from others Thus, to say that a person has property rights (a conspicuous omission from the video) is not a
mere assertion of a desire for some useful thing It is an assertion that it is morally right for a person
to control his own property, and morally wrong for others to interfere with this control Rights refer to what is actually right — i.e., what is morally right.
Genuine rights exist as eternal truths of moral philosophy They are principles that hold true regardless of time or place and regardless of the state of present inventions Hence, there can be no such thing as a right to shoes, ice cream, or rock-and-roll, things that were once absent entirely from human invention To hold the contrary view is
to reduce rights to a shopping list of the latest gadgets and knickknacks
As the critics of social justice are compelled to point out ad nauseam, to assert a right to some
tangible good or service like clean water, healthcare, education, prenatal care, or ice cream, requires
that someone else must supply that good It asserts the moral prerogative to have others supply you
with your desires, at the expense of their effort When coupled with an appeal to government
provision (as is always the intention), it asserts the moral prerogative to use force to attain one's
desires — to force others to give you their ice cream, their clean water, their medical skills, and so on.
It is the principle of the thief, the rapist, the criminal, who sees his whims and desires as reason to impose himself forcibly on others
The propaganda of "social justice" operates by cloaking desires in the language of rights, while making sure to avoid any uncomfortable mention of how these desires are to be supplied Thus, we see on the video an asserted right to "free education." We do not see the far more honest assertion of the right to
"forcibly take money from others to pay for one's own costly education." No, it is "free" education that
is the asserted right But what free education is this? Free for whom?
In a rational society, with a proper understanding of the nature of
rights, an assertion of a moral prerogative for free education,
healthcare, or the supply of ice cream would be regarded as an
embarrassing reductio ad absurdum Presentations where young
people assert rights willy-nilly, without any apparent regard for
where their desired goods would come from, might be regarded as an amusing example of the naiveté and misconceived ideals of youth But in today's mushy-headed culture, this is actually displayed by the
advocates of "social justice" as an expression of their own ideals.
Some may object to my characterization of this view of rights, by pointing out that many of the
asserted rights in the video are presumably meant to be tongue-in-cheek No one means to seriously
assert the right to rock-and-roll or ice cream — they're just being silly, having some fun! Lighten up! But here is the problem with that view: it is actually no sillier to assert the right to rock-and-roll or ice
Trang 3(http://store.mises.org/Building-Blocks-for-Liberty-P10433.aspx)
cream than to assert the right to healthcare or education Both are instances of demands for goods or services supplied by the efforts of others — and the raising of that desire to an assertion of rights The
former are a reductio ad absurdum of the latter precisely because both claims follow from the same
philosophical approach to rights — they are differences in degree, not in kind
Now, just to be clear, let me stress that I do not intend this as a condemnation of the young people in
the video Most of the things they identify as "rights" are indeed desirable goods, and it is heartening
to know that they want to live in a world with more truth, more love, more justice, more health and education, more food and clean water, more dancing, and even more ice cream Indeed, despite their errors, this attitude bodes well for the future, and is a heartening sign of a focus on human prosperity The error here is in their misconception that the things they rightly
desire are rights Unfortunately, this is an entirely understandable
error, given the nature of education and public debate today Most
young people, at the age of undergraduate university students, have
not been exposed to serious philosophical argument about the
nature of rights, and so their main acquaintance with the concept
comes from the demands of rent-seeking pressure groups in the
political system and the demagoguery of politicians Their assertion
of the right to ice cream is ridiculous, but it is no less
philosophically defensible than thousands of other assertions of
rights made in nightly news broadcasts and the pulpits of the world's
legislatures
What is remarkable here is not the errors of the young people on
the video, many of whom probably have no reason to know any
better about the nature of rights What is remarkable is that the obvious reductio ad absurdum that
the video demonstrates is adopted by esteemed social-justice advocacy groups and proudly advertised
as an endorsement of their philosophy It is clear, under these circumstances, that these are
intellectually bankrupt movements
Ben O'Neill is a lecturer in statistics at the University of New South Wales (ADFA) in Canberra,
Australia He has formerly practiced as a lawyer and as a political adviser in Canberra He is a
Templeton Fellow at the Independent Institute, where he won first prize in the 2009 Sir John
Templeton Fellowship essay contest Send him mail (mailto:ben.oneill@hotmail.com) See Ben O'Neill's
article archives (http://mises.org/daily/author/1018/Ben-ONeill)
Comment on the blog (http://blog.mises.org/16055/the-injustice-of-social-justice/)
You can subscribe to future articles by Ben O'Neill via this RSS feed (http://mises.org/Feeds/articles.ashx?
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Appendix — The Asserted Rights in the Video
The full list of the answers given in the video is as follows Everyone has a right to: SPEAK! the TRUTH; PURSUE HAPPINESS; HAPPINESS, Justice, Health, Compassion, Love, Choice, Knowledge, PARTY, [illegible], info, [illegible, ends with "-ome"]; electricity; SMILE; autonomy; DANCE; LEARN; DANCE; LOVE; GO TO BED with a FULL Stomach; eat ice cream; clean water; Primary Health Care; LEARN; MARRIAGE; Sleep; be; free education; A LOLLIPOP AFTER; FULL STOMACH; BE HEALTHY AND EDUCATED; A GOOD QUALITY OF LIFE; PRAY; HEALTH CARE! Prenatal Care; MUSIC; CLEAN Water! Rock & ROLL; PURR; Self-Expression; BE CLEAN; High-quality education; FRESH WATER; DO
WHATEVER AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T HURT ANOTHER; CHALLENGE AUTHORITY; Shoes; An Opinion; PROPER NUTRITION
Notes
[1] See, e.g., Murray N Rothbard, "Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor" (http://mises.org/daily/3009) (1970); F.A Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol 2, The Mirage of Social
Justice (New York: Routledge, 1976); Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 2002) and A Conflict of Visions (New York: Basic Books, 2002), esp pp 207–16; Walter Block, "Social Justice," in Building Blocks for Liberty
Trang 4(http://mises.org/resources/5862/Building-Blocks-for-Liberty) (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010).
[2] GlobeMed, "GlobeMed at Rhodes College's Photo Project for the World Day of Social Justice" (http://animoto.com/play/qV2S8JWtG21GIhkcVamWow) (February 20, 2011) A similar video is here
(http://animoto.com/play/GiHEJt9oOOyNprPboPLxAQ?utm_content=challenger)