The Quest for Cosmic Justice

The Quest for Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell, Free Press, 1999. 

Trilogy

This book is an extension of his earlier books, A Conflict of Visions and The Vision of the Anointed. The first book discussed how an economic philosopher’s economic ideas depend on his view of human nature. The second book criticized those who are satisfied with merely appearing to have compassion for the poor, instead of objectively proving that they have compassion for the poor, by testing their social programs against reality. This third book is an examination of social justice.

Inequality Begins at Birth

Cosmic justice concerns itself with the fact that we have unequal atarting points in Life. Some people are born into loving families, others are orphans. Some people are born healthy, others suffer from lifelong disabilities. Some people are born with talent, others are born slow. Some people are born sane, others are born with a predisposition to schizophrenia. The fact that some individuals are born into unfavorable circumstances or with disabilities has lead many to believe that society should compensate them for deficiencies that are no fault of their own.

This view of justice is cosmic in the sense that it asserts that the basic laws of the universe are unfair, because people are born unequal.

A Cure that is Worse than the Disease

The advocates of social justice fail to make the important distinction between what can be changed (culture), and what cannot be changed: the laws of causality, the laws of economics, and the laws of biology. Sowell’s main point is that in our attempts to rectify these inequalities of origin, we usually do more harm than good. In fact, we often even increase the amount of inequality. Sowell points out that the advocates of social justice are guilty of dismissing these costs as unimportant. Sowell gives several examples of good intentions gone awry:

Mainstreaming Diverse Students

Mainstreaming disruptive special needs children has social costs to their well-behaved classmates, and mainstreaming gifted children caused them to become bored with school.

Disrespecting the Working Poor

The respectable poor use to be able to feel proud that they were better behaved than the misbehaving poor, but now they feel like chumps for refusing to get onto the gravy train of unearned welfare benefits.

Income Transfers

Income transfers from the prosperous to the poor have negative effects on the behavior of both parties, damaging the economy as a whole.

Promoting Envy

The promotion of envy is an unfortunate consequence of the Progressive movement’s attempts to make society more equal. Envy is insatiable; no matter how equal things become, people will still remain envious of others who have some slight advantage. While envy encourages some people to work harder to obtain what others have, envy can also encourage people to engage in vandalism. Vandals damage the possessions of others in order to bring them down to the level of the envious vandals.