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2021: Creating a Lexicon of Future
J is for Justice
Justice vs Just Us
One example of an imbalance resulting in social inequity is the fact that the top 1 percent of Americans (about 500 people) possesses more wealth than 60 percent of all Americans.
In recent debates over increasing the minimum wage, arguments have been made that if companies like Wal-Mart are forced to give employees a minimum wage of $15 an hour, it will force such stores to raise prices, making it difficult for “the poor people” whom they serve to afford their products. Very few (if any) of these arguments, however, mention the fact that six Wal-Mart heirs hold more wealth than 42 percent of Americans combined.
This type of gross inequity is not the product of some people working harder than others. It is the product of exploitative relationships.
Our lives are constituted by relationships. The question is, “what is the nature of these relationships?” As debates regarding minimum wage reveal, and as the authors of Occupy Religion assert, “People are ‘less fortunate’ not by accident but because others benefit from their misfortune, and they have little choice but to work for lower wages and fewer benefits” (65).
Exploitative relationships result in situations of “just us” rather than justice. ~ Justice, Not…
