Annie Leonard, an environmental and political activist who rose to prominence through her film titled The Story of Stuff gave a speech at the 2009 Bioneers conference in which she mentioned a controversy between her and Fox News personality Glenn Beck, “Do you know what Glenn Beck’s biggest complaint is about The Story of Stuff? He said that The Story of Stuff promotes social justice. And do you know what I say? Damn right Mr. Beck. Damn right. And I am going to keep promoting social justice with all of you, because that is the best way to honor and protect and defend this country.” After viewing this speech, the first thought that came to mind was, what exactly does she mean by social justice? The term connotes in me a certain religious obligation to do right, but I wondered if that was the same sort of meaning Leonard intended in her usage of it. For a concept so commonly thrown around, the definition seemed to be more than slightly ambiguous. Before any judgments are to be made, it is important to get to the bottom of what exactly social justice entails.

The term social justice has its roots as far back as the 18th century, but it was not fully developed until the late 19th and early 20th century by a Roman Catholic priest and political activist John A. Ryan. He took aim at the American understanding of rights and felt they were inadequate in achieving the moral superlative that is the object of the Christian. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10 King James Version). Perhaps his most significant legacy was his support for the implementation of a minimum wage or what he called A Living Wage in his doctoral dissertation. Ryan’s theological justifications for socialist programs made him a natural ally of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, even earning the nickname of Monsignor New Deal. And so the origins surrounding social justice involve a marriage between socialist philosophy and Christian doctrine. It is fairly easy to see how a Christian would make the seemingly logical connection between the two. Most are familiar with the teachings of Christ and his proclamations. “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40). As innocent as it may be, those who fall into this category are causing great harm and sorely missing the point as I will explain later on.

In the modern era however, those who carry on the banner of social justice are not so well defined. It would seem its religious undertones are no longer a necessary piece of the puzzle. The overwhelmingly secular progressive or socialist movement in America has divorced the term from its religious implications in order to promote pure economic redistribution of wealth. Consequently, the more accurate term for social justice today is instead redistributive or economic “justice”. That seems to have been Leonard’s meaning when she evoked the term during her speech stating, “We’re also trashing people on the equity front.” Evidence from her films would show that it is not merely a call for personal action, but for State intervention into these areas. The foundations for social justice are derived from the teachings of natural law as laid down by St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologica. Therefore the first contention of the progressive use of the term is the divorcing of the meaning from the original obligations and adherence to natural law and ultimately a creator. It would almost seem to be an underhanded takeover of the term by a secular movement to attract those misguided or ill informed in religious circles. As with all politics, control of the language is vitally important in the battle of ideas.

Before social justice is explored any further however, there is a very important issue I must take up with Leonard’s presentation. Her central theme was, “We are trashing the planet, we are trashing each other, and we’re not even having fun.” Throughout it all the usage of the word “we” permeated every accusatory statement. The glaring problem with that is she certainly cannot mean humanity, because when she says “we’re so stuff saturated” those in less developed countries must be exempt. Secondly she does not include herself or any of her compatriots as members of the guilty party, because they are environmental activists and can therefore only be a part of the solution and not the problem. And so its usage is dishonest in that it does not really mean some shared guilt within the developed world but instead refers to those who have not given their allegiance over to the Green movement. The Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis explained this common error with great insight. “By a dangerous figure of speech, he calls the Government not ‘they’ but ‘we’. And since, as penitents, we are not encouraged to be charitable to our own sins, nor to give ourselves the benefit of any doubt, a Government which is called ‘we’ is ipso facto placed beyond the sphere of charity or even of justice. You can say anything you please about it. You can indulge in the popular vice of detraction without restraint, and yet feel all the time that you are practicing contrition.” I have little doubt that whenever someone goes on and on about how we are guilty of something, specifically something that person has no accountability for or control over, you can be sure they don’t really mean themselves.

Returning to the core issue of social justice, the first obstacle that has to be tackled is the tragic mistake of the Christian who adopts the means of the socialist. The most effective bait for the religious-minded is more often than not, programs labeled as being beneficial to the poor. What they utterly fail to grasp is that a program cannot be judged by its intentions but rather by its results. A simple example of this can be seen with the minimum wage law, a law fervently defended by the social justice advocate John A. Ryan as previously mentioned. What minimum wage does is, in effect; incentivize employers to discriminate against low-skilled workers. Milton Friedman, a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics wrote, “The high rate of unemployment among teenagers, and especially black teenagers, is both a scandal and a serious source of social unrest. Yet it is largely a result of minimum wage laws.” It is these types of well-intentioned, but ultimately short-sighted programs that not only make no headway into solving poverty but do the reverse and perpetuate it.

The second error of the Christian as it relates to the economic areas of social justice is, that even if such programs were to work as intended they would still be in the wrong. But isn’t it the duty of the Christian to provide for the poor? One may ask. What did Christ mean exactly when he said, “…If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me” (Matthew 25:40)? He was making a direct challenge to the individual. If you are a Christian it is your duty to give charity, not ‘steal from Peter to give to Paul’. There is no virtue in giving away the possessions of others, because theft is at the root of such an act. Upon investigation, the Christian faith in no way endorses the tenets of socialism and any attempts to make it so only seem to marginalize its virtues and turn it into a cult of the envious.

Now that the naïve Christian support of redistributive “justice” has been unmasked, the real heart of the matter lies ahead. The crusade for social justice has two additional problems. Social justice is itself unjust and can never be achieved in this world.

In order for the social justice advocate to redress perceived injustices of inequality, they must also get rid of a vital pillar of our American republic; rule of law. The economist Thomas Sowell noted that, “The rule of law, on which a free society depends, is inherently incompatible with cosmic justice. Laws exist in all kinds of societies, from the freest to the most totalitarian… You cannot redress the myriad inequalities which pervade human life by applying the same rules to all or by applying any rules other than the arbitrary dispensations of those in power.” If it were possible to achieve a method of calculating some middle ground upon which to aim all citizens into a sameness of total equality, whatever else the results of egalitarianism, it would mean an end to the concept of the rule of law and not of men that has been the basis for every civilized society since antiquity. Each individual would be governed under a different set of rules depending on the need of each or lack thereof. Even so, true Justice does not condone the taking from the productive to give to the less productive.

Lastly people are not born with equal talent, potential or ability. That is not to say that each individual life is not of equal value, only that whatever gifts are granted they are not of equal proportion. For the egalitarian who is not merely interested in the presence of the most equality of opportunity possible but also equality of outcomes, this reality of nature is a real obstacle. Additionally, their list of grievances goes far beyond the fault of any government or group of people and can only be addressed by the creator himself. There will never be a true redress of all inequalities in every area of society; not only because of the facts of nature but of the corrupting influences of men. All that granting redistributive power to the State does is ensure that those who benefit the most are those with the most political influence. This utopian dream of the social justice advocate will never be achieved because they misunderstand man’s basic flawed nature; Plato’s famed philosopher king is a fiction. Total and true justice of the sort the rabid dog of the social justice movement does not understand, will not and cannot ever be achieved in this life.

Annie Leonard's 2009 Bioneers Conference Speech Part 1 Part 2 Part 3