SOCIAL JUSTICE PART I CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY: NATURE AND VALUE OF THE IDEALS of right constitute the essentially active principles in our social and political life. Dating from the Revival of Learning, or, still more directly, from the Protestant Reformation, the sovereignty of the individual reason has been increasingly recognized. At first, the criticism which sprang from independent thought was directed almost wholly against the Church, which had claimed for itself the power to promulgate theological dogmas and moral rules, the correctness of which the individual was not allowed to question. As the doctrine of the right of individual judgment spread, however, political powers were brought within range of criticism. The authority of the State, as well as of the Church, the binding force of law and custom, as well as of theological rule, was inquired into. Not only were civil laws examined with respect to their validity, but the tenure and extent of the authority of the lawgivers brought before the bar of reason. Thus, in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth cen turies, the doctrine became general that political rulers, if they would have the obedience of their subjects, should hold themselves bound to observe certain moral principles, and to administer their high offices as public trusts. Incorrectly interpreted, this thought led to the French Revolution. Correctly interpreted, it gave rise to representative and constitutional government. Within the present century the circle of current conceptions of right has broadened, until the whole sphere of industrial and social life has been included. In the nature of things this extension was bound to come, and could only be kept back temporarily by popular apathy and ignorance. As had been the case in the field of politics, the demand for social reform has taken, in many instances, the form of utopias based upon the crudest reasoning. Within more recent years, however, industrial demands have assumed more coherent form, and have been supported by closer reasoning. With that condemnation of conditions of life which proceeds from the adherents of certain metaphysical schools we need not be much concerned. The philosophical pessimist sees, to be sure, in his survey of the conditions of humanity, an excess of evil over good, and of pain over pleasure, but such criticism is not directed at special conditions. The same doleful result rewards his retrospect of the past, and a similar shade clouds his horoscope for the future. This lamentable condition of affairs he conceives to be due, not to any special features of our social life that may be altered, but to man's inherent nature, and his necessary relations to cosmic conditions generally. Fortunately, however, such metaphysical moultings do not constitute a characteristic of present philosophical thought, and, because of their abstract and esoteric character, are not generally influential in the world of practical thought and action. We shall, therefore, in the present work, confine our attention to those condemnations of our social régime that are based upon criticisms of fact, and which, therefore, lead to demands for general reform. These criticisms we find assuming a variety of forms. On the one hand, it is charged that even that degree of restraint which existing social conditions impose is harmful, and should be lessened. This is the position of pure individualists and anarchists. On the other hand, it is claimed by a much larger school that restraints still greater than those which now exist should be placed upon human competition. This is the opinion of collectivists, nationalists, and socialists, and, in fact, of all those who advocate an extension of social control. The common predicate, however, of both schools, is that the distribution of pleasures and privations which is brought about by present conditions is essentially uneconomical as well as unjust: uneconomical, because leading to waste and misdirected effort; unjust, because apportioning rewards and penalties with but little reference to those canons of desert which a true ideal of distributive justice would prescribe. It needs no argument to show that the maintenance of the ethical claim is essential to the cause advocated. If this feature be substantiated, there is at once established an almost convincing reason for acceptance of the system based upon it. Until, however, it has been clearly shown that the principle of distributive justice which lies at the basis of a proposed scheme is sound, the argument in behalf of its productive efficiency is not entitled to a hearing. In truth, but few will dispute that a reform which will lead to greater distributive justice is justified, even should productive efficiency be somewhat lessened. Conversely, any scheme of social or industrial organization which is ethically defective upon its distributive side must stand condemned, whatever its excellence upon its productive side. To the recent English translation of a work of Menger which is devoted to a history and criticism of the socialistic claim of the right of the individual to the whole produce of his labor, Professor Foxwell has prepared an introduction, in the course of which is clearly stated the importance of inquiries of the character of those with which we are to be concerned.1 The argument is there directed especially to a demonstration of the utility of an examination into the validity of a single principle of economic justice, but so exactly do the words represent, and so brilliantly do they express, the motives which have 1 Das Recht auf vollen Arbeitsertrag in geschichtlicher Darstellung, translated by M. E. Tanner under the title "The Right to the Whole Produce of Labor." |