Social Justice Fallacies

(By Thomas Sowell, 2023)

Described by economic historian Niall Ferguson as a tour de force, Social Justice Fallacies arrives, like Spiderman, just in time, the imminent end of Peak Woke (aka Peak Stupid).

Wikipedia defines Social Justice thus (footnote omitted):

“Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals’ rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive their due from society. In the current movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets, and economic justice. Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation. The relevant institutions often include taxation, social insurance, public health, public school, public services, labor law and regulation of markets, to ensure distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity.”

Whilst your reviewer’s chest tightens, from learned and lived experience, at the phrases “distribution of wealth,” “receive their due,” “breaking of barriers,” “assign[ing] of rights and duties in the institutions of society,” and last but by no means least harmful, “equal opportunity,” prima facie, there’s none who could quibble with these aims, right? Well, with profound respect, dive into Mr. Sowell’s book and get some perspective. Sowell, originally a Marxist, converted by a hefty common sense and preference for hard facts (plus the likes of Friedman, Stigler, Becker, and Hayek), painstakingly shows, via real data and wide reading and research, that social justice warriors, some of whom no doubt mean well, harm the very people they either wish, or pretend, to help. Yes, we’re looking at you Mr. Trudeau.

In 5 short but dense chapters, Sowell expertly shows us that, pace Orwell, “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others;” that folks can’t, or don’t want to be, equal in many respects; that correlation is not causation; that confirmation bias reigns among the socially just; that their myriad crusades rely on the misreading or misrepresentation of data; that the lumpenproletariat aching for salvation happen not to be inert chess pieces, moving according to bureaucratic arrangements; that there are particular types of knowledge often not in the possession of central command; that every redistributive act ever deployed in history has had unintended and often parlous consequences (e.g., forcing banks to lend to people of minority groups with low credit ratings that led to the global financial crisis of 2007/08, the raising of tax rates leading to decreased tax revenues, or legislating minimum wages above market rates as a direct cause of increased unemployment); and of course, that equity is not equality, and equality has human and natural limits. And to paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke, the warriors know much about the origins of poverty but precious little about the origins of wealth.

Some quotes as examples:

“Nature- as exemplified by such things as differences in geography, climate, diseases and animals- has not been egalitarian, despite Rousseau’s claim that nature produced equality.”

“We might agree that “equal chances for all” would be desirable. But that in no way guarantees that we have either the knowledge or the power required to make that goal attainable, without ruinous sacrifices of other desirable goals, ranging from freedom to survival.”

[On Eugenics and its social policy ramifications] “The casual ease with which leading scholars of their time could advocate imprisoning people for life, who had committed no crime, and depriving them of a normal life, is a painfully sobering reminder of what can happen when an idea or a vision becomes a heady dogma that overwhelm all other considerations.”

“...the social justice agenda…included equalized outcomes in the present and reparations for the past…[drawing on] myths presented as history, as well as assertions presented as facts- the latter in a spirit reminiscent of the certitude and heedlessness of evidence in the genetic determinism era…The central premise of affirmative action is that group “under-representation” is the problem, and proportional representation of groups is the solution. This might make sense if all segments of a society had equal capabilities in all endeavors. But neither social justice advocates, nor anyone else, seems able to come up with an example of any such society today, or in the thousands of years of recorded history.”

“The confiscation and redistribution of wealth – whether on a moderate or a comprehensive scale- is at the heart of the social justice agenda. While social justice advocates stress what they see as the desirability of such policies, the feasibility of those policies tends to receive far less attention, and the consequences of trying and failing often receive virtually no attention.” [A recent example might be the City of Los Angeles cutting $18m from the Fire Department’s budget, which began hiring under an aggressive DEI regime, instead distributing money to various LGBTIQA+ causes and events, and demolishing dams to appease first nations peoples, resulting in a lack of qualified firefighters and available water to prevent large swathes of the city and surrounds going up in flames this month].

“Among the comments from “experts” was that “sex and sexuality have become far too complex and technical to leave to the typical parent, who is either uninformed or too bashful to share useful sexual information with his child”…[But, quoting Sargent Shriver, who led the early charge for explicit sex education in schools, having an epiphany in 1978] “Just as venereal disease has skyrocketed 350% in the last 15 years when we have had more clinics, more pills and more sex education than ever in history, teen-age pregnancy has risen.”

“Stupid people can create problems, but it often takes brilliant people to create a real catastrophe…self-congratulatory elites, deaf to argument and immune to evidence…For many social issues, the most important decision is who makes the decision. Both social justice advocates and their critics might agree that many consequential social decisions are best made by those who have the most relevant knowledge. But they have radically different assumptions as to who in fact has the most knowledge…feasibility…depends on the distribution of relevant and consequential knowledge…Intellectual elites with outstanding achievements within their own respective specialties may give little thought to how ignorant they may be on a vast spectrum of other concerns…as an old saying expressed it: “A fool can put on his coat better than a wise man can do it for him.“”

Sowell eloquently sets out an array of dangers arising from the work of today’s social-justice warriors, compounded by their disinclination to apply logic to test their faith and empirical evidence to their implemented programmes, seasoned with hostility to those who dare challenge their views. They almost invariably make things worse. Exhibit A: The Biden Administration.