Dec 6, 2006

OUTLINE

The Search for Justice:  Part 2 
 
I.  Justice an American passion 
 A. Social Justice 
 B. Economic Justice 
 C. Criminal Justice 
 
II.  Equal opportunity vs Equality of Result 
  A. The New Deal 
  B.  Modern Approaches to Equality of Result 
    1.  Affirmative Action 
  2.  Political Correctness 
  3.  Redistribution 
 
III.  Economic Justice 
  A.  Free Market vs Government Intervention  
  B.  What is the best way to help the poor?

LECTURE NOTES

Service timecards due in labs this week

Final exam 4days only: Dec 16 (saturday) and 18-20th (mon to wednesday)

----

Today we're going to broaden the civil rights movement:

Social Justice and Economic Justice in the present. You will talk about criminal justice in your labs.

The Search of Justice
-seeking 'the good society'
-fulfilling the founding
-balancing rights and responsibilities (we've talking about this a lot this semester)
--virtue and interest

Equality of Opportunity vs Equality of Result
-Approaches to Equality of Opportunity
--13th, 14th, 15th amendments
--said former slaves are citizens
--door of opportunity was opened
--yet in many cases these rights were not secured
---could not vote, certain motels, certain restaurants
-Instead of just opening doors of opportunities (which doesn't always work) we have to ensure equality of result

Equality of result: FDR- New Deal
-Curb farm overproduction through crop rotation, destruction of surpluses to force up prices
-allow industries to form cartels(monopolies), set prices at profitable levels
-guarantee workers a living wage
-guarantee the unemployed jobs or provide welfare provided. Pensions for aged and sick.
-regulate advertisement, business, politics, public utilities, Wall Street
-provide regional development for poverty-ridden sectors (TVA).

TVA- market didn't cause electricity to be provided to poorer regions, so they established electricity provision projects

Equality of opportunity- opening a door
-example: women could vote after 1920, the door was opened for them (didn't equalize result but it opened the door)

Modern approaches to Equality of Result
-Affirmative Action
-Political Correctness
-Redistribution

School districts,
-black communities had own school, white communities had own school
-so schools tended to be divided on community lines
-so desegregation didn't happen automatically
-they had to encourage desegregation through affirmative action
-instead they did affirmative action, forcing racial diversity in schools
-to 'right a wrong'

MEDIA CLIP: college admissions
-students race can be considered in college admissions
-but not in a fixed or numbers system
-racial diversity is important to life

Affirmative Action
-important for college admission?
-ethnic diversity from military leadership
-diversity important to college education

MEDIA CLIP: affirmative action
-supreme court, seattle and louisville kentucky
-deals with quotas
-schools using race to dessegregation
-discrimination against white, and against black
-people ought to be treated as individuals

Political Correctness
-an approach to language, words have been used in the past in harmful ways to create inequalities between people
-50 years ago a doctor's receptionists could be called 'girls' (even if its a 50 year old woman)
-50 years ago a black man could be called 'boy' (even an 85 year old man)

political correctness said, if you change language and the way that people talked about each other, you can help change the way people think (non-discrimination).

an old phrase to refer to African Americans is 'colored people' used to be okay 50 years ago, but not okay today. now you have to say 'people of color'

U of U- ncaa told utes to change name, the ute tribe ncaa to back off and the U of U's usage was respectful and okay

Social Justice:

Taxes
-rich should pay more money than the poor (they wanted to do more than flat tax)
-Income Tax -> changed to progressive income tax
-Progressive Tax- means the rich pay a higher percentage of tax than the poor

MEDIA CLIP: taxes- 2 perspectives
-"no one has been hurt by the tax cut" it paid for itself through economic growth
-other guy said 'no one can show that a tax cut can help the economy', deficit has grown
-tax bill- taxes cut for the most well off
-'tax relief works best when its pointed at the people who need it most'

Economic Justice: Free Market vs. Government Intervention

Free market Benefits
-efficiency
-innovation
-creation of new jobs
--economic growth

Free market Costs
-ignores injustice
-rewards productivity, not morality

Govt Intervention Benefits
-can address injustice or suffering indirectly
-protection from unfair competition
-subsidizes valuable but unprofitable products/jobs

Govt Intervention Costs
-Inefficiency
-creates dependency
-does not reward productivity > economic decline

adam smith: interest motivates

MEDIA CLIP: greed
-greed inspires people around the world to work together
-steak source: ranchers work hard for themselves not for people who eat stake
-gas provider, slaughterhouse workers, safety inspector, truck drivers
-1000s of people have to work together to get the food for market
-they cooperate to make it happen, for self-interest
-free market operates on self-interest

MEDIA CLIP: walmart clip
-flashpoint to controversy
-walmart, some people hate walmart, discriminates, hurts economy
-people say they put profits before people
-ted turner called greed- ambition