Justice and Equality. Options

[zeitlos]

I. The essence of justice is absolute equality.

II. Essence is a necessary condition without which X cannot be. The essence of X is what makes X an X, and not Y. The essence of X is also sufficient. If one encounters the essence of X then the existence of X can be guaranteed.

III. Equality is the necessary condition for justice. The very condition of equality is sufficient for a proper juridical condition.

IV. Justice is not a mere concept or idea, but fundamentally a relation between persons who are exercising their rights as persons.

V. A person may be an individual male or female, but a person may also include a corporation (an aggregate of public and private interests), or even animals (if the concept of personhood is applicable).

VI. The scope of personhood is determined by the political state which arbitrates the recognition and exercise of the public and private rights, without which the notion of personhood would be empty.

VII. Personal and private rights are those choices that a person may make about their own affairs without the interference of others and/or the state.

VIII. Public rights are those choices that a person may make about the political condition that arbitrates the status of their private affairs.

IX. Because justice is essentially a form of relation where there is a free exercise of rights, it means that if person A's choices are in any way impugned by B person, in that their relation empowers B over A, there is no exercise but only suppression of rights.

X. The complete elimination of those elements which suppress the rights of persons can only be achieved if equality becomes the total condition for all persons. The very struggle to broaden the scope of personhood and the need to reaffirm the status of personhood within segments of the human (and animal) species seem to suggests that the essence of justice has not been achieved.

[Thorfinn Skullsp...]

I. The essence of justice is absolute equality.

Nope. Not even close. Whatever follows from a flawed premise has no more chance of being right than some random collection of letters.

[Vervet]

Nope. Not even close. Whatever follows from a flawed premise has no more chance of being right than some random collection of letters.

What is the essence of justice?

[dismal]

What is the essence of justice?

People getting what they deserve?

[Steel General]

I would agree that justice will elude anyone who doesn't consider both sides equally. One must, then, start with the presumption of equality, and maintain a belief in it until all information has been presented. Once the facts are determined, and it is time to decide who deserves what, the judgment provided must be equally applicable to anyone to whom those facts apply.

One might could change the scope of the essence for which we seek, and suppose that the essence of justice is awareness, in that awareness is the essence of 'bout everything. Certainly, justice is useless without it. Justice, then, is comprised of several essences. However, it has many of those essences in common with many things, and they are then trivial to the determination of the primary essence of justice. So, starting from mere existence, as concepts are accumulated, and facets of the universe are illuminated, does one acquire a concept from which justice is a natural consequence, in the sense that math is a natural consequence of sequence? If there is such a concept, I'd call it the essence of justice. On the other hand, if justice results from a conjugate of essences, we must either consider several essences equally important, or we must identify one concept that is vital to justice, and from which other concepts arise that are vital to justice, and call it the primary essence.

An example of a lower-order concept, necessary for justice, would be truth. An example of a higher-order concept might be fairness. However, since fairness follows from equality, I would consider equality to be more essential than fairness. Since truth is essential to functional existence, I would not necessarily consider it the essence of justice, though it is essential.

I cannot currently imagine a better candidate than equality for the essence of justice, but I cannot conclude that it is, definitely, the essence of justice, and not simply the primary essence or coessential.

[Troll John]

The essence of justice is impartial, perfect knowledge. Refute that, if a judge had impartial, perfect knowledge of any situation that judge could then render a fair judgment for an individual, or multiple individuals.

Since we can never attain that, we substitute "equality" for it, because we have faith that some day, we can attain that. We call that dream "absolute equality". The thinking is, if we fuck people over equally, then that's at least fair. Just. Equally flawed for all.

The rest of the argument holds fine for me with equally flawed justice for all.

There is a lot of risk building an argument on an unsupported assertion. Carpy would be all over your ass. Me, I don't care. At least you respond after your posts, even if its "go fuck yourself".

Discuss

[dismal]

It just seems like a non-sequiter to me.

People are not equal.

Would there be more justice if we took the beautiful people and uglied them up?

Do we need to make the fast slower and the strong weaker for there to be more justice?

Must even those who can sing be forced to use autotune so they sound just like those who can't?

If this is more "justice" then I want less of it.

[Thorfinn Skullsp...]

The essence of justice is impartial, perfect knowledge. Refute that, if a judge had impartial, perfect knowledge of any situation that judge could then render a fair judgment for an individual, or multiple individuals.

I think that's awfully close. I think you have to also include at a minimum that the judge or arbitrator must also impartially and perfectly apply that impartial and perfect knowledge.

That becomes problematic awfully fast -- any person's judgement of what is "right" is determined or at least colored by his culture. Ages ago, eifer (IIRC) asked a question about slavery -- if we were born in ante-bellum South to a plantation owner, would we find slavery repugnant? I recall only a couple people who admitted that most likely he would consider Negros to be simply another form of property. But I'm convinced that people who were products of their culture thought that were not acting out of a desire to be evil. In fact, they might even take the White Man's Burden concept to heart, thinking all the while that is right and proper.

Would perfect knowledge obviate that concern? I don't know. I'm not sure I could argue from some non-arbitrary first principle that slavery is wrong, even if that perfect knowlege validated the otherwise arbitrary first principle. And even then, circumstances change. Perfect knowlege wouldn't help a neolithic witch doctor build a spaceship. Too many prerequesites must be met before he could begin to apply his knowlege. While he would know how to develop those prerequesites, he would not have time in one mortal lifespan. Similarly with justice. Perfect justice on a lifeboat would likely be different than perfect justice safe on mainland, and would have a temporal element, too. If you had access to equipment which could "erase" criminal tendencies from a man, perfect justice might well be different than if you did not.

Practically speaking, in this world, without access to perfect judges and perfect knowledge, true justice has nothing to do with information or judges at all. It must rely entirely on consent. If a man does not think he got a fair shake, then from at least one point of view, justice has not been done. Obviously there are problems -- a man who has been assaulted would likely not consent to the assault, and neither would the aggressor consent to punishment. At that point, I think you need at least one level of abstraction in order to seek consent. But without some notion of property rights, I'm not sure how to get there, either.

Anyway, I've gone on long enough. The difference between sex and rape is consent. The difference between begging and mugging is consent. Similarly, I think the difference between justice and injustice is consent.

[zeitlos]

The essence of justice is impartial, perfect knowledge. Refute that, if a judge had impartial, perfect knowledge of any situation that judge could then render a fair judgment for an individual, or multiple individuals.

Since we can never attain that, we substitute "equality" for it, because we have faith that some day, we can attain that. We call that dream "absolute equality". The thinking is, if we fuck people over equally, then that's at least fair. Just. Equally flawed for all.

The rest of the argument holds fine for me with equally flawed justice for all.

My response is rather complicated, but please bear with me.

The idealistic notions of justice already presuppose human fallibility and an imperfect world. All ideals are projected in defiance of what is real. In the very face of our weaknesses and flaws we construct a possible order, a system of relations which can approximate a proper recognition of the rights and privileges of persons, as well as determine and survey the limits of what each person can do.

At the very threshold of ideal and absolute justice there must be an epistemic transformation where judges can perform their function without the contamination of prejudice, personal interests, etc, before we can attain such a condition.

I disagree with you to the extent that the notion of impartial and perfect knowledge is rather vague, as if the only true judge can be a divine being. This totally underestimates the fact that people can put away their prejudices and personal interests, and act accordingly to their duties and function as citizens and civil officials. To put it more simply, the notion that justice requires impartial and perfect knowledge makes following a rule and its interpretation a miracle that cannot be found in the world.

The problem with your proposition is it makes justice impossible; which then makes the whole discussion of justice nonsensical.

That is simply wrong. People can make the right judgments, correct their mistakes and perhaps even transform their condition to something better. We can look at the past century to see the evolution of judicial systems: the victories of civil rights movements and the current struggle of activists against corporate interests.

(Yes, you can be skeptical and cynical about being just and achieving justice. You can even deconstruct the entire phenomenon of justice and its various traditions, but such extreme suspicion does not help at all. To do so is to merely raise questions that cannot be answered).

In terms of the fallibility of people as the principle of equality, I don't think there is anything wrong with a Hobbessian or, if you like, a Machiavellian interpretation of the human condition. If we begin with the negative characteristics, keeping our eye to the evil and violent propensities of mankind, we can at least understand the ways in which laws can be strategically broken, from petty crimes and to the disruptive spirit of revolutions and wars that can topple entire civilizations.

How are we equal? Should we shun the whole notion in light of the differences we see in others? We are equal under the law and equal in the eyes of justice precisely because each of us has the capacity to be both the victim and transgressor, fallible on both accounts. The transgressor is fallible to the extent he or she is flawed by having committed the deed. The victim is fallible for his or her helplessness to prevent the deed. It is possible in any judicial situation to lay the ground for a homogeneous interpretation of the human being as having both possibilities: as an accessory or toy to evil; one also which willingly recognizes the fallibilities of the people involved in the process of achieving justice.

Is it perfect? Of course not. But in a perfect world, there would be no use to discussing or even thinking about justice at all.

[Thorfinn Skullsp...]

...We can look at the past century to see the evolution of judicial systems: the victories of civil rights movements and the current struggle of activists against corporate interests....

Way to cut your argument off at the knees. These are examples of where justice has not been improved, but rather replaced by injustice.

It seems hard to imagine a right more basic than right of association -- the freedom to choose your friends, your spouse, etc. This, of course, includes the right to choose your employees, based on whatever biased criteria you want to use. A person has no "right" to use force to become your associate. That's thuggery, no other way to say it. Civil rights per Ghandi or MLK Jr is one thing. However, that's not the way the courts applied the term.

Similarly with "corporate interests" -- there's nothing a "corporate interest" can do to create injustice, barring them actually using force to accomplish their ends. That is not how "corporate interests" work, however. What they do is find a bureaucrat or politician to use the power of the state to accomplish their ends, and this almost always includes extensive use of the so-called "justice system". See, a corporation has only the power to offer its wares. You don't want to buy their product, you just walk on by. "Corporate interests" don't like this power you have over them, though, so they find willing agents of the state to tax, regulate or otherwise harass their competition out of business so you lose that power you have over them. You want to fight "corporate interests"? The only way to do that and remain with anything remotely resembling justice is to drastically reduce goverment, get it out of the business of rendering "justice".

[zeitlos]

Way to cut your argument off at the knees. These are examples of where justice has not been improved, but rather replaced by injustice.

So the fact that in places around the world women can vote, gay marriage is accepted, people have the right to protest, people who are not white, who don't come from privileged families now have opportunities to attend university and get a good job, the fact that people have the right to at least hold their government representatives responsible for their actions--you're fucking telling me that these are examples where justice has not been improved but has been replaced by injustice?

Yes, there are instances where judicial systems fail. No one will argue that, but consider your example:

It seems hard to imagine a right more basic than right of association -- the freedom to choose your friends, your spouse, etc. This, of course, includes the right to choose your employees, based on whatever biased criteria you want to use. A person has no "right" to use force to become your associate. That's thuggery, no other way to say it.

Hold on, explain to me why of all the possible examples you can think where justice has failed you chose to present the instance in which the state interferes with X's preferences, with respect to the people X would like to associate?

Although friendships, alliances, etc., are integral, the right of association is not the most basic of right. The most basic is the right to be respected. Perhaps, maybe I'm wrong, but if you would like to interpret the "thuggish" ways in which Western states have enforced certain policies that enabled people who were basically not white, not men, not Anglo-Saxon, who basically belong to the category of "different" to be in positions and places where Anglo-Saxon males have exclusively enjoyed, to use that as an example in order to suggest that the legal order has devolved just betrays a murky ideological bias.

Similarly with "corporate interests" -- there's nothing a "corporate interest" can do to create injustice, barring them actually using force to accomplish their ends.

You might have to revise that sentence. I don't understand what you mean. And if you really mean that "there's nothing a 'corporate interest' can do to create injustice" then you're just fucking full of shit.

Yes, there have been times when corporations have gotten away with murder, but please explain to me what happened with Enron then?

That is not how "corporate interests" work, however. What they do is find a bureaucrat or politician to use the power of the state to accomplish their ends, and this almost always includes extensive use of the so-called "justice system". See, a corporation has only the power to offer its wares. You don't want to buy their product, you just walk on by. "Corporate interests" don't like this power you have over them, though, so they find willing agents of the state to tax, regulate or otherwise harass their competition out of business so you lose that power you have over them. You want to fight "corporate interests"? The only way to do that and remain with anything remotely resembling justice is to drastically reduce goverment, get it out of the business of rendering "justice".

Okay, so you don't believe in justice because there are those persons who use the state apparatus to impugn your freedom by limiting your choices as a consumer, making you spend more money on products, and finally takes more of your precious money with higher taxes.

And your solution to the problem of justice is a radical reduction of state interference, for the sake of satisfying your right as a consumer and property owner.

Fair enough. But I just don't think we can ignore the moral substance in our demand for justice.

There are those persons who abuse others for the sake of their own gain, precisely because they think that others are exploitable and not worthy of respect. That view about people is rather ubiquitous especially when it comes to corporate policies which privilege property and capital over the lives and welfare of workers and consumers.

Now if you want justice in your sense, I think you ought to consider that the desire consumer freedom is inseparable from the desire for moral recognition.

Those people who use the state to take your money probably need to be on the receiving end of the type of thuggery you mentioned before, so they can at least perform and function as individuals who can respect other people as beings who deserve respect.

As much as you like to bitch about the need to reduce the size of government, what you really want is an equal playing field with those people who have power over you, since those people are politicians, or maybe they have bought several politicians; they have the bureaucratic means to keep an eye on you, to look at your records, check your bank account, to make you disappear, etc.

Is it wrong to assume that you want some form of equality in your insistence for justice?

[Steel General]

Zeitlos, I agree with almost all of that. However, I don't agree that we have any fundamental right to respect. Respect seems like one the basic axes of human interaction, and our freedom to act upon that axis should be protected, either to respect or disrespect others, regardless of the degree to which they deserve it. Demanding that everyone respect one another seems as unrealistic as demanding that everyone love or trust one another. I think we get better outcomes if we let people make these judgments for themselves (certainly, a person could perform an act for which they deserve universal disrespect, and the rest of us should be able to provide it, either individually or systematically).

I have strong sympathies for Thorfinn's position on racism. To find this sympathy, I devolve the situation to the smallest setting: a mom & pop general store... but the town's half black, so either mom or pop has to go, to make room for racial diversity. To generalize, I hate the idea that small business owners are told, for example, that they can't hire any more of one race until they hire some of another race; the ideal situation is colorblindedness, which means we should not get in a twist when the profile of a company is statistically anomalous. Racism wasn't a problem, but that it was endemic; in the absence of endemic racism, systemic protections can result in a greater injustice than they prevent. Individual racism is so irrational as to approach religion, and, while not necessarily deserving of any form of protection, it is very difficult to legislate away people's irrational prejudices. So long as it's not endemic, I don't think we should worry about it.

Thorfinn:

See, a corporation has only the power to offer its wares.

Are you reading from a kids book, or are you fantasizing what corporations will be like in your preferred society? I think we've fairly well established that control of a sufficient amount of resources will give any group, be it corporate, religious, government, or other, illegitimate leverage over things they have no business influencing, and that such leverage will always be abused when it benefits those in a position to do so. To say the least, greedy individuals will be happy to sink nearly any boat for their own gain, which means that, even if your organization always exercises their illegitimate power responsibly, an individual will eventually arise that will abuse that power for his own gain, even if it destroys the organization that got them there (e.g., Enron, corrupt evangelists, corrupt congresscritters).

[Thorfinn Skullsp...]

So the fact that in places around the world women can vote, gay marriage is accepted, people have the right to protest, people who are not white, who don't come from privileged families now have opportunities to attend university and get a good job, the fact that people have the right to at least hold their government representatives responsible for their actions--you're fucking telling me that these are examples where justice has not been improved but has been replaced by injustice?

Each of these could probably sustain a thread in itself.

Briefly, yes, voting is probably about the most violent act most people will commit in their lives. That includes people like Tanya Harding. You see, whichever pack of crooks gets elected, they pass "laws" which include enforcement clauses. "Help Your Neighbor Friday" laws would be enforced at gunpoint, if someone resists sufficiently. And obviously if you've seen a single episode of a show like Cops, you've seen so-called "peace officers" screaming obscenities and pointing guns at the heads of someone who committed the "crime" of not pulling over fast enough to suit his officerness. Voting enables and legitimizes that kind of behavior. Or at least those in the political power structures believe it does.

If I take one sodium atom and one chlorine atom and put them together, I have salt. If I put two sodiums together, or two chlorines together, I don't. Why is marriage any different than salt?

People have always had the right to protest. Nelson Mandela and MLK Jr. and Tianenmen Square are good examples of what happens when those protests are violently opposed. Ghandi is a good example of one less so.

College is a good example of exactly what I'm talking about. Bear in mind that most colleges are state-run organizations. I agree that a government should be a neutral referee, but that's a good example of where they deliberately favored one group over another. It still goes on, too. That's much less common in private colleges, Howard Jones University being a glaring counterexample.

So, yes, all those are places where the government has played an active role in picking winners and losers, which is amost certainly not what anyone means by the term "justice". Certainly not justice in any Rawlsian or Kantian sense.

The most basic is the right to be respected.

I do not agree. You are not speaking now of rights, but of privileges. A true right is one which can be exercised by all without imposing a new obligation on another. The right to travel, for instance, does not include the obligation for me to provide you with a Lexus. I need do nothing more than simply leave you alone. My right to travel places no more obligation on you than to leave me alone.

Respect is another matter altogether. Respect is one's regard for another. It's entirely within that other person's own head. To say I must respect you or be punished is to punish thought-crime. It imposes an obligation on me of what I must think. Simply leaving you alone is not enough. That's a privilege, not a right. Furthermore, respect, reputation, etc., must be earned. If it is demanded by force, it's a good bet the person doing the demanding is not deserving of respect.

You might have to revise that sentence. I don't understand what you mean. And if you really mean that "there's nothing a 'corporate interest' can do to create injustice" then you're just fucking full of shit.

Yes, there have been times when corporations have gotten away with murder, but please explain to me what happened with Enron then?

Not so. Apart from selling your name to telemarketers, all the corporation can really do to you is haul out the long arm of the law. Granted, they can afford a whole heck of a lot better attorneys than you can, and will bury the court in so much paper that injustice will be the result, but keep in mind that it is the court which is the agent of the injustice. Ever heard of anyone going to jail for contempt of Walmart? How about contempt of court?

As for what happened with Enron, its still awfully muddy. dismal can probably do this better justice, but my understanding is that Jeff Skilling, the CFO, was placed into an irreconcilable conflict of interest. He had a binding fiduciary responsibility to put Enron's financials in the best possible light, and a conflicting binding fiduciary responsibility to the spin-offs of which he was also CFO to put their statements in the best possible light. As a result, things like "goodwill" and even employee non-compete contracts were listed as assets. Which is not all that unusual, but its kind of hard to put a dollar figure on stuff like that. And once its stock value started plunging, spin-offs' derivatives whose value was tied to those prices also plummeted. Had Skilling had the sense God gave turnips, he would have requested that someone else be CFO of the spin-offs, so that a proper arms-length fiduciary relationship could have been maintained.

There are those persons who abuse others for the sake of their own gain, precisely because they think that others are exploitable and not worthy of respect. That view about people is rather ubiquitous especially when it comes to corporate policies which privilege property and capital over the lives and welfare of workers and consumers.

Agreed. Why are corporate principals not held responsible for anything other than extreme cases of malfeasance? Because the government defined a corporation as an organization in which the principals are shielded from financial liability in those cases. The ONLY reason you cannot file suit against a principal over something like that is that the court would throw it out. You have no recourse because the government says you have no recourse, not because of anything the corporation says or does.

As much as you like to bitch about the need to reduce the size of government, what you really want is an equal playing field with those people who have power over you...

I don't think so, but I suppose I could be convinced. I'm not sure what an equal playing field would be, even. Do you apply some "correction" because someone inherited money from dear old dad? How about because he inherited intelligence, or ambition, or althleticism, or perseverence? And what form would those corrections take? Are we talking Harrison Bergeron?

[Thorfinn Skullsp...]

Are you reading from a kids book, or are you fantasizing what corporations will be like in your preferred society? I think we've fairly well established that control of a sufficient amount of resources will give any group, be it corporate, religious, government, or other, illegitimate leverage over things they have no business influencing, and that such leverage will always be abused when it benefits those in a position to do so. To say the least, greedy individuals will be happy to sink nearly any boat for their own gain, which means that, even if your organization always exercises their illegitimate power responsibly, an individual will eventually arise that will abuse that power for his own gain, even if it destroys the organization that got them there (e.g., Enron, corrupt evangelists, corrupt congresscritters).

I had thought the discussion was a theoretical one on justice. Theory says that if power structures exist, people who crave power will self-select into those power structures. My statements on government were intended to be largely theoretical with a few empirical examples to lend weight to the conclusion. Similarly, I've tried to keep the powers a corporation has by the nature of free-market organizations separate from the powers it was granted by government. Those are properly criticisms of the government power structure, not the corporate one.

I'm OK with debating justice with respect to an ideal government and an ideal market, or with respect to a real government and a real market. I don't think its intellectually honest to debate this from the viewpoint of an ideal government and a real market, though.

[ijontichy]

I know the answer: The essence of justice is the constant willingness of the soul to give everyone their due. [No, that's a bit dated...] Let's try again: The essence of justice is the duty of the King under God. [No, definitely wrong century...] Here we go: The essence of justice is a pure heart, which we find in no man apart from one. [Well, Thuloid, might go for that, but maybe also not quite 'a-jour'...] Last attempt: Justice has no essence, its a social construct. [Hmm, still a bit dated, but this will do for now.]

[iblis.raeb]

I would've thought that the essence of justice is equality so "the constant willingness of the soul to give everyone their due" would be pretty spot on, i'd just add "in a meritocratic society". Is the essence of justice, equality in a meritocratic society?

[Thuloid]

Justice would be easy if people weren't dicks, or if people who were dicks couldn't affect anybody but themselves. Sadly, people are dicks, and the essence of their dickness is a perfect willingness to hand themselves over to any power that promises a greater radius of influence for themselves. So the only this-world question remaining is: given more or less universal dickhood, how do we carve out islands of relative non-awfulness? In this sense, Thorfinn's intuitions (though they seem to undercount the pervasiveness of dickitude) are close to something very important--justice in a positive sense isn't a social construct at all, but a kind of relinquishing. Of course, the flipside is that whatever there is to preserve that kind of relinquishing on a limited scale most certainly is a social construct--it must be built and maintained, by dicks and through our own dickish impulses.

[iblis.raeb]

justice in a positive sense isn't a social construct at all, but a kind of relinquishing. Of course, the flipside is that whatever there is to preserve that kind of relinquishing on a limited scale most certainly is a social construct

Well, i'm confused.

[ijontichy]

iblis

I would've thought that the essence of justice is equality so "the constant willingness of the soul to give everyone their due" would be pretty spot on, i'd just add "in a meritocratic society". Is the essence of justice, equality in a meritocratic society?

No - the Augustinian formulation (which I cited there) does not assume equality, you just added that in yourself; it's about giving God God's due, the emperor the emperor's due, etc. -- quite unequal.

thuloid
Very nice thread-synthesis with a Lutheran angle.

[Steel General]

I'm not so sure justice is purely a social construct: it may have an objective basis. I say this only because I saw some studies a while back that show that dogs have a sense of fairness, and fairness seems to be rather related to justice.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=97944783

Dogs are social critters, but this isn't exactly a social construct, so much as it is separate minds coming to the same conclusion.

I had thought the discussion was a theoretical one on justice. Theory says that if power structures exist, people who crave power will self-select into those power structures. My statements on government were intended to be largely theoretical with a few empirical examples to lend weight to the conclusion. Similarly, I've tried to keep the powers a corporation has by the nature of free-market organizations separate from the powers it was granted by government. Those are properly criticisms of the government power structure, not the corporate one.

First off, I think it's a mistake to assume that either a perfectly free market or an ideal market cannot result in injustice. Secondly, even given our current situation, a corporation need not resort to the government to cause injustice. They often do, when it's convenient, but it is far from their only way to coerce people. Hence, your example of injustice is not a good one, and, in fact, government, and its imposition of justice, is the only way to prevent injustices that would arise from the market. You are correct that our government does often impose injustice in the market, and often at the behest of some corrupting interest, but this is not the result of some inherent problem with the concept of government, it is simply a bad government; if anything, it's the result of some inherent problem with bureaucracy, complexity, and opacity.

So, Zeitlos' example of anti-corporate activists is not an example of justice being harmed over time, but it is also not a good example of justice being improved over time; rather, it is an example of the ineptness with which our government applies justice. I believe the main point of Zeitlos' argument, aside from establishing the essence of justice, is to establish that true justice exists, in theory, even if it is not applied.

In his original post, I believe items 7-9 address your concerns, and item ten covers my response.

I'm OK with debating justice with respect to an ideal government and an ideal market, or with respect to a real government and a real market. I don't think its intellectually honest to debate this from the viewpoint of an ideal government and a real market, though.

I have two points to make here: first, justice should be discussable without need to refer to the market at all, and, second, an ideal government at least seems vaguely achievable, and is probably a prerequisite to an ideal market, if such a thing is possible.

[iblis.raeb]

iblis
No - the Augustinian formulation (which I cited there) does not assume equality, you just added that in yourself; it's about giving God God's due, the emperor the emperor's due, etc. -- quite unequal.

Oh, i mistakenly thought you meant reciprocally everyones due. I should hope that God's dues are in the best interest of our own dues, although; i'm not sure about the emperor's inclination.

[Troll John]

I agree with zeitlos, it's meaningless to talk about justice and equality outside of theology. If we're just organisms struggling against a mindless universe for survival, then that's all the justice and equality we get. WTF do I care, as long as I pass along my dna I win. If there is more then that, then those qualities exist only outside of us.

Pick your poison.

[Thorfinn Skullsp...]

Thuloid: So the only this-world question remaining is: given more or less universal dickhood, how do we carve out islands of relative non-awfulness? In this sense, Thorfinn's intuitions (though they seem to undercount the pervasiveness of dickitude) are close to something very important--justice in a positive sense isn't a social construct at all, but a kind of relinquishing. Of course, the flipside is that whatever there is to preserve that kind of relinquishing on a limited scale most certainly is a social construct--it must be built and maintained, by dicks and through our own dickish impulses.

Indeed. History is not kind to those who underestimate human dickitude. Whether we are speaking religious heirarchies, or corporate ones, or political ones, or almost any kind of heirarchy you can imagine, history shows that dicks do terrible things when they reach sufficiently high levels. And, disturbingly, advancement tends to be postively correlated with dickitude. So the real world question becomes how can you minimize the damage dicks do once they achieve power, because it is inevitable that one will. (Suggested reading: Hayek's Road to Serfdom, particularly the section on why people at high levels seem to so often be linked to corruption of one type or another, which curiously invokes not a single form of the word "dick".)

The closest approach to a real-world solution that kind of works of which I'm aware is federalism -- compartmentalize things into as small a bundle as possible, so it becomes less onerous to vote with one's feet to a heirarchy with a smaller dick factor. Which begs the question -- why institute a monopoly on justice? Wouldn't a polycentric legal system best avoid the problem of dicks getting control and rendering injustice?

[Thorfinn Skullsp...]

Steel General: First off, I think it's a mistake to assume that either a perfectly free market or an ideal market cannot result in injustice.

Seriously, I'm not trying to be an ass. Help me understand. Precisely what kind of injustice are you imagining coming to be in a true free market?

Steel General: Secondly, even given our current situation, a corporation need not resort to the government to cause injustice. They often do, when it's convenient, but it is far from their only way to coerce people.

Again, I'm going to need a couple of examples here. There are a few rare instances where the economy of scale argument works. Steel mills come to mind. Mao proved that you really can't do that at the neighborhood level very well. But my experience with small firms has led me to the realization that none of the other textbook examples are true. Even things like micro-scale refining are practical. The main problems such firms face is environmental permitting, regulatory compliance costs, and the like, which has nothing to do with the free market...

Steel General: I have two points to make here: first, justice should be discussable without need to refer to the market at all...

I'm using "the market" in its robust sense. It comprises all exchanges of value for value. Choosing to stay home and watch Gilligan's Island reruns is a market decision, as you are exchanging the most irreplacable of your assets, your own life-seconds, To gawk at Ginger or Maryann. Or Gilligan or the Skipper, if that's what floats your boat.

In the robust sense, getting married is an economic decision, as unless you live in Utah, you generally only get one spouse at a time.

Steel General...and, second, an ideal government at least seems vaguely achievable, and is probably a prerequisite to an ideal market, if such a thing is possible.

In order to discuss this rationally, I think we need to define terms. Let's put together a business model. Let's say that I want to put together a bunch of rules, standards and policies, I want to have the final call on whether or not my "customers" are playing by my rules, I want to punish those who break my rules, and I want to bill them for my "service". Could such a business model work? Isn't that what government is? Yes, it could work, and no that's not government.

---IEEE defines standards and protocols for elecronic interconnection. You cannot call something an RS-232 unless it meets their standards, and they get the final call on whether you qualify. Punishment for non-compliance is not being able to list any of your other products with their numbers, and the customers are sent a bill to pay for the service.

---UPC codes are handled similarly.

---SAE made standards for all kinds of things related to engineering practices.

---ASTM produces codes for pretty much anything, including crayons. (Look at the label sometime. The companies pay ASTM for the "right" to print the ASTM standard on the label.)

---ISO produces such standards as ISO-9000 and ISO-14000, for which companies will pay boatloads to live with their rules.

So what is it that distinguishes between a government and organizations like those listed above? I'd suggest that there is little difference other than whether it thinks it has the "right" to grant absolution to its agents who threaten or kill its customers...

Which brings it back to John's point that its largely a religious matter.

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Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.
--Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

[iblis.raeb]

Seriously, I'm not trying to be an ass. Help me understand. Precisely what kind of injustice are you imagining coming to be in a true free market?

Are monopolies allowed in a free market, Thorfinn?

[Steel General]

I've heard of nothing to prevent them. And, if a company gets a monopoly on the world's fresh water, and has hired the military to back up its claim, the market won't be free for long.

The problem with a "true free market" is that it assumes rational participants, to say the least, and may even assume perfect knowledge among the participants. A free market without rational participants leads to injustice, and rationality is more scarce than water.

Again, I'm going to need a couple of examples here.

Even in our current market, businesses can gain market share by buying their competitors, not producing a better product. This alone would not be a problem, for one might rationally expect that the business will use the better product they've purchased. Unfortunately, they don't; they have no incentive to do so, until a competitor appears that they can't buy. In the meantime, the rest of the market has been done an injustice.

In a free market, profit is the only motive. Injustice is often very profitable, at least in the short term, and responsibility is easily evadable in the long term. What will prevent it?

If nothing else, in a free market, what prevents the exploitation of ignorance? We're not presuming a lack of ignorance, are we? Are we calling it just?

I'm using "the market" in its robust sense. It comprises all exchanges of value for value. Choosing to stay home and watch Gilligan's Island reruns is a market decision, as you are exchanging the most irreplacable of your assets, your own life-seconds, To gawk at Ginger or Maryann. Or Gilligan or the Skipper, if that's what floats your boat.

In the robust sense, getting married is an economic decision, as unless you live in Utah, you generally only get one spouse at a time.

I do like this sense of market. It seems like it could lead to some more directly useful measures of economic health than our current GDP, interest rates, etc.

The problem, I think, is that people are, generally, unable to comprehend the value of their life-seconds, and are thus unable to make rational decisions regarding their expenditure. To illustrate this, notice that, generally, the higher the education a person receives, the more they value their life-seconds. I'm guessing you would say that life-seconds have only the value someone is willing to give them when they exchange them for something else, but I would say that a person's ability to assign value is proportional to their comprehension.

I would never want a system that protects people from their own valuations, but I do, most definitely, want a system that protects people from ignorance. Would you say these things are mutually exclusive?

---IEEE defines standards and protocols for elecronic interconnection. You cannot call something an RS-232 unless it meets their standards, and they get the final call on whether you qualify. Punishment for non-compliance is not being able to list any of your other products with their numbers, and the customers are sent a bill to pay for the service.

If I've already decided to noncomply by printing a false certificate on one of my products, why would I comply with their ban on printing their certificate on my other products?

[Steel General]

The closest approach to a real-world solution that kind of works of which I'm aware is federalism -- compartmentalize things into as small a bundle as possible, so it becomes less onerous to vote with one's feet to a heirarchy with a smaller dick factor. Which begs the question -- why institute a monopoly on justice? Wouldn't a polycentric legal system best avoid the problem of dicks getting control and rendering injustice?

I agree entirely with this ideal, and would be thrilled to live in such a system.

[Thorfinn Skullsp...]

Are monopolies allowed in a free market, Thorfinn?

Allowed, sure. Practical or effective, no.

[Thorfinn Skullsp...]

I've heard of nothing to prevent them. And, if a company gets a monopoly on the world's fresh water, and has hired the military to back up its claim, the market won't be free for long.

Certainly. So why can't I, say, homestead part of Lake Superior? Oh, that's right. Someone already has declared the monopoly on that and has the military to back it up. While I differ with Stefan Molyneux on many matters, one of many things he said that makes tremendous sense is, "It is very hard to understand the logic and intelligence of the argument that, in order to protect us from a group that might overpower us, we should support a group that has already overpowered us."

The problem with a "true free market" is that it assumes rational participants, to say the least, and may even assume perfect knowledge among the participants. A free market without rational participants leads to injustice, and rationality is more scarce than water.

Not in the slightest. No assumption of the rationality or knowledge or wisdom of the participants is necessary to a free market, any more than freedom in choosing a mate requires perfect knowledge, or rationality. I know that's a tough one to get over, because any intro text to Econ makes that point, and politico-economist writers repeat it, but that does not make it true. It just makes it another element of our indoctination, and our confirmational bias to see any evidence as supporting that, as well as denying the existence of counter-evidence.

Even in our current market, businesses can gain market share by buying their competitors, not producing a better product. This alone would not be a problem, for one might rationally expect that the business will use the better product they've purchased. Unfortunately, they don't; they have no incentive to do so, until a competitor appears that they can't buy. In the meantime, the rest of the market has been done an injustice.

What injustice has been done? SmallCo got a price he accepted. MegaCorp got the new product line at a price agreeable to them. I certainly haven't been done an injustice, since I have no right to buy the product formerly made by SmallCo. If there's an injustice here, its that TinyCo has an extremely difficult time making a knock-off of SmallCo's product, since MegaCorp throws its legion of lawyers bearing Cease and Desists for patent infringement. Again, the source of the injustice is governments own "Justice Department".

In a free market, profit is the only motive.

Absurd. Is the only motive you act on "profit", in a materialistic sense? Then why do you suppose it of others?

Injustice is often very profitable, at least in the short term, and responsibility is easily evadable in the long term. What will prevent it?

Good point. Certainly government hasn't proven very effective at preventing it, has it?

If nothing else, in a free market, what prevents the exploitation of ignorance? We're not presuming a lack of ignorance, are we? Are we calling it just?

So long as there is no fraud involved, where's the injustice? Take state-run lotteries, which are nothing but gross exploitation of ignorance. Are we calling it just?

The problem, I think, is that people are, generally, unable to comprehend the value of their life-seconds, and are thus unable to make rational decisions regarding their expenditure. To illustrate this, notice that, generally, the higher the education a person receives, the more they value their life-seconds. I'm guessing you would say that life-seconds have only the value someone is willing to give them when they exchange them for something else, but I would say that a person's ability to assign value is proportional to their comprehension.

I'm not sure of that. Its hard to find a group more hard-smoking and hard-drinking than doctors. Arguably nurses beat them, but whatever. These people have intimate knowledge of the long-term effects of heavy use of these substances, yet as a group tend to value a couple double scotch neats and a Stradavarius Churchill every night over sobriety and a longer life. I'm not comfortable saying these men and women are not making rational decisions, as I'm expecting them to make rational decisions at my next appointment. I think if there's a generalization that can be made, though, the young tend to value life-seconds less than one approaching or past middle age.

I would never want a system that protects people from their own valuations, but I do, most definitely, want a system that protects people from ignorance. Would you say these things are mutually exclusive?

A system which protects one from the consequences of his ignorance rewards ignorance. I want a system that rewards good decision making.

If I've already decided to noncomply by printing a false certificate on one of my products, why would I comply with their ban on printing their certificate on my other products?

Are you speaking currently or in a hypothetical state of freedom? In the current state of affairs, trademark infringement is an easy case to make. In the case of freedom, there are any number of ways to deal with this, and if all peaceful means fail, we could always have the last resort, violence. Which, you will note, is the first resort of the current state of affairs...