Will the Champions of Social Justice Please Stand Up!!!

My attempts at understanding social justice has led me to write this article. Social Justice is defined as “The way in which human rights are manifested in the everyday lives of people at every level of society”. Social justice is about assuring the protection of equal access to liberties, rights, and opportunities, as well as taking care of the least advantaged members of the society according to John Rawls. My process is to come up with scenarios and examples to make it easy for everyone to understand the principle of social justice, and to question themselves if we are doing our part in achieving it. Simultaneously, I hope also to shed light on the indifferent attitude towards this topic and denial of social justice in some cases.

Many times we answer “god only knows” for questions we can’t explain or questions we don’t have an answer to or things we cannot comprehend. In today's world, there are lot of “god only knows” situations. In other words, questions we ask ourselves like “What would Jesus do?”. Hypothetically, if a god of social justice exists then what would he/she do in the current world of social-economic inequalities? There is a growing divide between haves and have nots socially, economically, educationally and culturally.

In this age, there are a lot of non-transparent and non-perceptive injustice meted out to some sections of the community. These occurrences of injustice are so miniscule that the majority is unable to see and acknowledge them. Also, they are so deep rooted that we ourselves may never pay attention unless presented with data and facts supporting such claims. My earlier analogy of comparing tough and non-prominent social issues and inequalities to “god only knows” situations is to bring to forefront the questions which need answers and in some cases questions/issues that must be identified. I feel that to do god’s work in such situations today we have the support of scientific data and social experiments that will define the exact questions required and the answers to find where injustice is happening. These experiments must be run to find the issues that will show that there is a varying level of common and routine unjust occurrences which adds up to show that vast injustices exist. John Rawls' theory of "justice as fairness" could be used to determine if any process or outcome is consistent with social justice. When a process or outcome does not conduct itself with any of principles of this theory, we can conclude that it is not consistent with social justice. The principles are basically Interfering with any person's indefensible claims to equal basic liberties (the "equal liberties principle") or if inequalities in society are not attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity (the "equal opportunity principle") or if inequalities in society are not arranged to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the "difference principle").

There are many circumstances of social injustice where most of the people don’t even know that they are on the receiving end until you bring it up to them that they are being subjected to injustice. This is when warriors for social justice have to rise up and do a lot of work to bring this to the forefront. First and foremost analyze the data, identify the problems. Once identified, they need to educate the people who are being denied the right to their fair share of resources. Convince the majority that the data shows how there is a problem, denial is not good, and it is a social and moral responsibility to make things right.

Lot of times there are certain words like “equality” that are used repeatedly to describe or interpret social justice or to justify social justice. Really, it is a much broader concept than just “equality”. Social justice includes distribution of wealth, opportunities and privileges within a society.

The responsibility falls both on the society and the government for implementation of reforms to achieve social justice. Government should identify the problems and support the resources needed in identifying the problems. This should be followed by responsibility of society to accept the shortcomings and be part of the solution rather than the problem.

In a social experiment if a person making a minimum wage and a person making a million dollars and year are asked if the government is doing its part in providing support for communities to thrive, the answer would vary very much and each will answer it differently. A minimum wage worker is probably just struggling to make his/her ends meet and would probably lay out his/her day to day problems like rising prices of basic necessities or inflation whereas the millionaire would probably complain that the government taxes too much. For different people, priorities and expectations from government are different. Some of the examples of these are economic status, region, industry, social status, race, religion.

Similarly, a global problem like malaria is a life risk for many in underdeveloped countries. As a global citizen, each and every person around the globe should have right to live and access the medicines that could save lives of millions. This is also a perfect example of social justice wherein the benefiters of rights do not know that it is an ethical responsibility they have to ensure access to malaria medicines. This is also a global responsibility and a moral issue for the privileged to provide opportunities for people who cannot help themselves. This responsibility falls on the people who are in a position to help but not doing all they can. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffett who are all founders of the multinational and multibillion dollar companies feeling socially responsible to give away their wealth for social causes in US and around the World where as in India we lack such kind of generosity and gesture which enables in achieving the social justice. It is not only responsibility of state and central government but also responsibility of the big MNCs. Many in developed countries are doing their part in contributing to social justice and even private sector is doing their part in achieving the social justice. In India, social justice means only the distribution of power and reservations in state and central government but it more than that.

Everyone needs to do their part in social responsibility but it is also important that your surroundings provide an atmosphere to encourage to do more. I am proud to be part of this company called Eli Lilly, They have really taken social responsibility to a whole new level. Although, for many years the Lilly Foundation established by founders have helped many social causes, recently the company has announced that their new five year $90 million investments in global health will improve access to healthcare for people living in low income areas all over the world, including patients with diabetes in Marion County, Indiana. Our company CEO and President John Lechleiter said "Lilly 30x30 is an ambitious plan to increase access to quality health care, aimed at reaching 30 million in resource-limited settings by 2030". What a wonderful initiative and I can only imagine if every global company were to make social responsibility as their strategic goal. I can proudly say that I am truly happy to be a part of this company which is leading its efforts in Corporate Social Responsibility. I am sure many like me are happy to be part of this true champion.

Social responsibility is one means to achieve social justice. Social responsibility is an ethical theory, in which individuals are accountable for fulfilling their civic duty. The actions of an individual must benefit the whole of society. In this there must be a balance between economic growth and the welfare of society and the environment. If this equilibrium is maintained, then social responsibility is accomplished. The theory of social responsibility is built on a system of ethics, in which decisions and actions must be ethically validated before proceeding. If the action or decision causes harm to society or the environment then it would be considered to be socially irresponsible. Moral values that are inherent in society create a distinction between right and wrong. In this way, social fairness is believed (by most) to be in the “right”, but more frequently than not this “fairness” is absent. Every individual has a responsibility to act in manner that is beneficial to society and not solely to the individual.

When Bernie Sanders brought to light the issue of rising costs of education and the burden of debts that will be accrued for attaining a college degree and pitched it to the outgoing high school graduates about the idea of free education he almost said it was a right to attain higher education available for free of cost and a whole generation of new voters rallied behind him. As much as it looks like it is a difficult achievement, all I can say is that this is a perfect example of social justice. How can you deny the right to education based on the financial situation of the student? Why should every outgoing college student carry a burden of student debt? Why would this becoming a social responsibility not be part of the gift we give to the newer generation?

Warren Buffett has come out and said he pays less tax than his assistant and his effective tax rate is less than his assistant’s tax rate. This shows that there is certainly a miniscule non-transparent injustice going on. However, Warren Buffett is accepting that it is not at all right and accepting there is a problem and acknowledging that there are loopholes. This definitely shows he is a champion and coming out and acknowledging this problem shows that he is a true warrior of social justice. Apart from that his call to other rich to donate and give back to community shows his efforts in achieving a better society.

In the current election, there is not a single issue that parties fight about is related to social justice or social responsibilities like elimination of poverty, reduction of illiteracy, educating the ignorant on issues, providing right to education, eliminating discrimination, avoiding disparities in resource allotment, uplift of the underprivileged, and medical treatments. The parties not only do not fight over these issues but they do not acknowledge these problems as other higher visible problems are at the top of their agendas. These issues could actually become a common ground of items that they can agree upon and be bi-partisan.

What we expect from everyone is to identify those problems that cause miscarriage of justice. We all have a responsibility to understand and identify ways and means to achieve social justice. Political parties have to make a non-profit case for social causes without expecting a return like a for-profit enterprise. More companies need to do their part in making Corporate Social Responsibility as one of their Strategic Goals. Government needs to provide resources for the warriors of social justice for identifying the ways and means to achieve it. Also, we must encourage the warriors in educating the people on the inequalities in the society and encourage the true champions of social justice by identifying them and celebrating their success. As said by John Rawls, striving for social justice is about assuring the protection of equal access to liberties, rights, and opportunities, as well as taking care of the least advantaged members of society. We all need to do our part in identifying if we want to be the part of the problem or the part of the solution.

- Avinash Puli