August Comte -- the father of sociology -- saw society as an organism, possessing a harmony of structure and function. The statement brings to mind the question as to how such a structure could continue to co-habit in harmony. It could perhaps be stated that, those who had similar functions, similar values, and a similar sense of reality would tend to cluster together. This, perhaps, was the initial way that hunter-gatherers functioned, developing, eventually, into tribes and nations, and then finally into developed, mature societies.
Understandably, as more and more people organised themselves collectively, matters like responsibilities, duties, and inter-dependence started to get more complex, and questions regarding roles and responsibilities arose. Social indicators such as hierarchy of status, and roles played by various social actors further instilled with religion thereafter, started to develop. This assisted in the development of values and morals.
Elements turned from “base” needs to issues like morality, justice, equity, and the sharing of economic good, in a structured manner. Society developed gradually.
Ingrained in this development was the will to fulfill the growing needs of limited resources. Individuals are innately driven with a desire to survive and flourish.
This search for survival and flourishing ushered in great inequity, and often such success resulted in a societal imbalance in areas such as justice and opportunity.
Amongst various other issues, social justice remains elusive, and an exact a measurement of the availability of social justice is hard to quantify. However, it has been identified as an ever-important issue to the modern world.
It can be more simply stated as an availability of a platform which will give one the freedom to do all that one is capable of, and bring out one’s own potential to the fullest. Then, there will be an equal playing field for all.
Ideally, this would be an environment that encourages citizens to bring out his/her best. A situation where everyone can have equal access to tools that are available to develop his/her cause to its fullest.
It would be difficult to measure the role of social justice without having an indication of how economic resources are distributed between the haves and the have-nots. However, one could say that it would not be possible without strong, coherent, and redistributive policies -- policies that would help those most in need.
From where does one assure, find, and maximise social justice so that what has just been discussed above comes through into a “live” society? Though sociology is an inexact science, one could say that there are essentially two categories of social issues which are often co-dependent.
One, the inter-social treatment of one another -- like asking whether there is tolerance, love, compassion, and harmony within the society -- and the second, if there are unequal government regulations that purposefully or otherwise discriminate between groups based on differences of the societal class.
This could manifest itself in differentiated and discriminatory laws and lack of civil rights, which could lead to unequal education access or preventative access to justice.
What is it then that we are calling for when we say “social justice,” and whose burden is it to ensure it?
Is it the government’s call or does it depend on innate habits of each individual, as discussed earlier, or should we leave it to market forces to enable social justice through economic or political consequences?
Such questions have yet to be answered in any definitive manner.
Ensuring justice is seen as a governmental issue; the price mechanism is half-way between governmental policies and individual desires. Politicians could ensure social justice by bringing into play their various views, with each political party possessing their own individual views on social justice.
Therefore, as mentioned earlier, it continues to be difficult to define, and more difficult to ensure, if it exists in a society and what social justice even means.
What are the key principles that it stands on? Are we able to experience those key principles when we experience society? To expect a human response to social justice by non-human institutions may, perhaps, then be a dichotomy.
Plato suggested that social justice is maintained when individuals see justice and when everyone minds their own business and refrains from meddling in others’ affairs where Aristotle implies “social justice to be the proper, or proportionate, distribution of common assets.”
This too has been challenged. In modern times, Hayek sees social justice as “doling out of economic rewards by governments, some pattern of remuneration based on the assessment of the performance or needs of different individuals or groups by an authority possessing the power to enforce it.”
I work for an NGO called Friendship, that works to strengthen marginalised communities and empower people to reach their full potential through a needs-based, integrated development approach.
Friendship’s Good Governance program was launched in the light of such conditions where even the prevailing developed countries were unsure about the principle of social justice.
With all such differing views, it can be summed up that an accepted definition has not yet been found. So we continue to participate in both the activism and implementation. What can be aimed for is equitable access to all forms of tools of governmental functions, economic factors, social, and political transparency, and the participation of all strata of society. Social justice is not a matter of a “state of being,” but a process constantly occurring in society for a harmonious and equitable outcome for all.