As we saw in the
previous posting on this subject, in any properly designed social system,
the three principles of economic justice work together to support the system as
a whole as well as fill particular functions.
No system designed by human beings can be perfect, but the Kelso-Adler
principles provide a framework that, within the constraints of natural law,
optimize the possibility for a just and stable economic order.
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| Mortimer J. Adler |
If even one of
the principles is missing, violated, or applied partially or incorrectly, the
system either fails to operate properly or does not work at all. As refined and clarified by CESJ, then, the principles
of economic justice are:
· Participative
Justice,
· Distributive
Justice, and
· Social
Justice.
Taking these
principles in the order given, participative justice is the principle or
virtue that defines how people make input to the economic process in order to
make a living. Participative justice is
an application of the first principle of reason (the law of identity),
recognizing that every human being is as fully human, and is human in the same
way as every other human. Every child,
woman, and man therefore has the same natural rights to life, liberty, and
private property as every other human being — and thus the right to participate
in all the institutions of the common good for which he or she otherwise
qualifies.
It is necessary
to add the stipulation “for which he or she otherwise qualifies,” for no one
has the legitimate right or ability to exercise even an absolute natural right
absolutely or in a manner contrary to the common good. A child who has not reached the age of
majority does not have the right to vote, to work outside the home in most
occupations, or live in a manner contrary to the wishes of parents or
guardians. An adult does not have the
right to live in a manner that endangers him- or herself or others, to exercise
liberty in a way that takes away that of others, or use what is owned to cause
harm.
 |
| Louis O. Kelso |
By the same
token, of course, others do not have the right to object to the exercise of
life, liberty, or private property by those with whom they disagree simply
because they happen to disagree. In a
rational society, people are innocent until proven guilty. Suspicion or gossip — regardless how credible
the source — is insufficient justification for limiting someone’s legitimate
rights or destroying another’s good name.
Thus,
participative justice requires equal opportunity to acquire and possess private
property in capital (control over, and enjoyment of the income from productive
assets) as well as equality of opportunity to engage in productive work. It does not guarantee equal results but does
require that every person be guaranteed equal rights to make productive
contributions to economic life, both by labor as a worker, and by productive capital
as an owner.
Participative
justice rejects monopolies, special privileges, and other social and institutional
barriers to economic self-reliance and personal freedom.
 |
| Thomas Aquinas |
Distributive justice
is the out-take principle. It
is based on “[t]he most classical form” (Compendium
of the Social Doctrine of the Church, § 201) of the particular virtue
defined by Aristotle and Aquinas and relates to the exchange or market value of
each person’s economic contributions.
This is the
principle that children, women, and men as participants in the market
(different rules govern what happens in the family) have the right to receive a
proportionate, market-determined share of the value of the marketable goods and
services they produce with their labor contributions, their capital
contributions, or both. This respects
human dignity by making every producer’s and every consumer’s economic vote
count.
Social justice
is the feedback and corrective principle that governs
participative and distributive justice, enabling both to operate properly. Within an economic system, social justice
restores Say’s Law of Markets (somewhat misleadingly summarized as “Production
equals income, therefore supply generates its own demand and demand its own
supply”) by putting aggregate production and aggregate consumption back in
balance. It realigns participative
justice and distributive justice when the system functions in a way that
violates either essential principle.
Social justice includes a concept of limitation that discourages
personal greed and prevents monopolies and other barriers to participation.
In social
justice, every person has a moral responsibility to organize with others in
solidarity to restructure the institutions of the social order. Consistent with the principle of
subsidiarity, this applies to every level of the common good whenever the
principles of participative or distributive justice are violated or are not
operating properly. Applying social
justice to the common good of specific economic institutions brings those
institutions into conformity with the demands of the common good of all
society.
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