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The Method
of Social Justice

Matching Our Goals
and Our Aims

By Punkerslut

By Punkerslut
Image: By Punkerslut

Start Date: September 16, 2009
Finish Date: September 16, 2009

"The relation between humanity and its environment is very close. Strong-willed, intelligent people may create or modify environment. The weaker-willed, the careless, and the unreflecting are dominated by environment. Such is a fairly rough estimate of the relation. For all but the exceptionally strong and virile, home environment determines the trend of life. Populous masses herded together, as they are over large areas of the tenement regions of New York City, with difficulty resist the influences by which they are surrounded."
          --E.R.L. Gould, 1899
          "The Housing Problem in Great Cities," Quarterly Review of Economics 14

     All self-thinking individuals see the countless evils of today's society. Each considers them in relationship to themselves and to the world. And those who have suffered are capable of sympathizing with suffering. The closer an image of misery relates to a personal experience of yours, the deeper your sense of sympathy.

     The social order is full of iniquity and injustice. Developed nations exploit and oppress third-world nations. Just as Europe picked and plotted colonies in Africa and the Americas, the Western World continues its hateful heritage. It developed with a religion that excluded the other gender, and allowed contact with god only through a priest. It fostered and grew with Feudalism and Mercantilism -- the enslavement of the poor at home and the conquest of the poor abroad.

     In the Feudal era, the peasants were tied to the land, and were forced to hand over the majority of their production to the landlords. This system has been replaced with wage slavery -- poverty is created by the wealthy to ensure that the people accept starvation wages. The environment is sacrificed for Capitalist profit, gender and racial discrimination persists, there are still wars for colonial expansion, police brutality haunts our cities and urban areas, and there has yet to be an honest politician.

     If these things do not directly effect you, they effect the people around you -- these will be the social conditions that our children inherit. We look to the peasant in revolt who overthrew their king and landlord as the source of our liberties today -- and we, too, will be critically examined by the world's future peoples.

     How are we going to create social change? All of these problems are caused by the wealthy exploiting and oppressing the common people. How is it possible that we can change things?

"Torrents of blood were now poured forth, and millions of human victims sacrificed, in appearance to the God of peace, but in reality to satisfy the lust of that metal which represents every species of pleasure."
          --Cesare Beccaria, ~1700's
          "A Discourse on Public Economy and Commerce"

     The first suggestion is a political party. But a political party can only have effect if it is elected, and an election is a money contest. Support, from judges to petitioners to lawyers, can all be bought. It would become a contest of money: between the wealthy and the poor. And in that competition, those seeking to create social justice would naturally lose.

     The next suggestion is a militant political party -- one that seeks to overthrow the political order with a violent uprising. But then this becomes a competition of arms. Who has more guns? The governments and Capitalists of the world, or those who have always been repressed, imprisoned, and exploited? And a government founded on weapons and force, maintains itself by weapons and force, becoming the new problem of the people.

     The only thing that has worked is cooperative and voluntary action. People who organize to effect social change, without the intent of becoming a ruler with subjects, have produced undeniable results. In a competition of money, or a competition of arms, the Capitalists and the government will win. But if it is a competition, of who has more oppressed people struggling to be free, then the Revolution will triumph over the old system!

     The boycotts, demonstrations, and strikes through India brought the nation's independence from a foreign power; and this case has been multiplied in the colonies of Syria and the French Caribbean islands. Strikes have brought down the Russian Tzar, created the eight-hour workday, and have removed oppressive dictators. It is the only thing that has worked to produce the aim!

     The method of social justice is much like its aim: free, cooperative, and voluntary associations. Do not rely on the political party or the company union, whether it's the Socialist Party or the American Federation of Labor. Social justice comes with Radical Unionism -- or Anarcho-Syndicalism.

"...the plundered found that the courts, the governor, and the legislature of their State, and the Congress of the United States were the tools of the plunderers..."
          --Henry Demarest Lloyd, 1910
          "Lords of Industry," chapter 1


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