Social Justice Activism

Liberal Perspectives
Most modern social liberals, including centrist or left-of-center political groups, believe
that the capitalist economic system should be fundamentally preserved, but the status
quo regarding the income gap must be reformed. Social liberals favor a capitalist
system with active Keynesian macroeconomic policies and progressive taxation (to
even out differences in income inequality).
However, contemporary classical liberals and libertarians generally do not take a stance
on wealth inequality, but believe in equality under the law regardless of whether it leads
to unequal wealth distribution. In 1966 Ludwig von Mises, a prominent figure in
the Austrian School of economic thought, explains:
The liberal champions of equality under the law were fully aware of the fact that men are
born unequal and that it is precisely their inequality that generates social cooperation
and civilization. Equality under the law was in their opinion not designed to correct the
inexorable facts of the universe and to make natural inequality disappear. It was, on the
contrary, the device to secure for the whole of mankind the maximum of benefits it can
derive from it. Henceforth no man-made institutions should prevent a man from attaining
that station in which he can best serve his fellow citizens.
Robert Nozick argued that government redistributes wealth by force (usually in the form
of taxation), and that the ideal moral society would be one where all individuals are free
from force. However, Nozick recognized that some modern economic inequalities were
the result of forceful taking of property, and a certain amount of redistribution would be
justified to compensate for this force but not because of the inequalities themselves.
John Rawls argued in A Theory of Justice that inequalities in the distribution of wealth
are only justified when they improve society as a whole, including the poorest members.
Rawls does not discuss the full implications of his theory of justice. Some see Rawls's
argument as a justification for capitalism since even the poorest members of society
theoretically benefit from increased innovations under capitalism; others believe only a
strong welfare state can satisfy Rawls's theory of justice.
Classical liberal Milton Friedman believed that if government action is taken in pursuit of
economic equality then political freedom would suffer. In a famous quote, he said:
A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom
before equality will get a high degree of both.
Economist Tyler Cowen has argued that though income inequality has increased within
nations, globally it has fallen over the 20 years leading up to 2014. He argues that
though income inequality may make individual nations worse off, overall, the world has
improved as global inequality has been reduced.
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