Day 226: Deserving Life or Death - Social Justice and Human Rights - Part 5

This blog-post is a continuation to:
Day 118: Justice and Human Rights
Day 220: Justice and Human Rights - Part 2
Day 222: Justice and Human Rights - Part 3
Day 224: Justice and Human Rights - Part 4 - Social Justice: Merits and Deserts

In the Previous blog-post we discussed the Principle of Merits and Deserts as a basis for just distribution of resources. It became clear that to distribute goods and services based on 'who deserves them' is a more complicated matter than it may initially seem to be. There are different definitions to the word 'merit' or different conditions under which it could be applicable and it is not clear which is preferrable. As such, there is also no way of measuring merit in an objective way.

Furthermore, the implications of distributing goods and services based on merit must be understood. Distributing goods and services is not a matter of distributing 'prizes' after a match. Everything a person requires to live in this world is either a good or a service. Therefore, can we really make such things as whether or not a person has a lifeline, dependent on a game of 'see who's better than who'? Do we need to deserve to stay alive? Currently this is implied in our economic system. I know we've all been taken in by the 'Survival of the Fittest' Theory and regardless of the debate on its validity - do we really want this to be who we are? That we let people die because apparently in some way it has been 'assessed' that they weren't worthy of life, that they didn't deserve to live?

We were all born onto this planet, we are all alive - where does it state that we now also have to deserve to be alive? Because - that is what we literally do by participating in this economic system and going to work: trying to 'earn our living'. Isn't that an absurd idea?

We grow up as a child, some of us in the illusion of being able to play all day and have fun, still ignorant about the 'complicated stuff' of the 'grown-up world' - where we still believe in magic, because we don't see how it's a problem that something just pops up out of nothing and that there must be a trick behind it - where we trust what others tell us because we don't see a reason why we wouldn't - to then some day wake up in a world of competition and struggle, where you're now told: This world is a scary place! You better prepare yourself because otherwise you won't make it! You can't pay the rent, get out! You can't afford that, put it back! Didn't anyone ever teach you that in this world it's every man for himself! Toughen up!

Obviously - if you hear these words by the time you're a teenager, you're lucky, you still had a pretty good life - there are children out there who are exposed to the cruelties of the world from as early as they can remember.  What do we say to them? Sorry, you just don't deserve any better? What apparent superpower decided that the world has to be this way that we now apparently all have to continue living our life in service of it?

In the next part of this series we discuss the Principle of Need as a basis for distribution.

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• Day 223: Equality of Opportunity: Introduction - Equality and Human Rights - Part 3
• Day 315: How many Human Rights Can You Afford?
• Day 224: Justice and Human Rights - Part 4 - Social Justice: Merits and Deserts
• Day 220: Justice and Human Rights - Part 2
• Day 221: Are Humans Equal? - Equality and Human Rights - Part 2
• Day 222: Justice and Human Rights - Part 3 - Substantive Justice
• Day 219: Equality and Human Rights
• Day 367: Investigating Human Rights
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Day 224: Justice and Human Rights - Part 4 - Social Justice: Merits and Deserts

When Aristotle discussed the concept of Justice - he spoke of remedial or corrective justice, which specified how to punish offenders of the law, but he also spoke of distributive justice, where he asked how much each one should get of what, or: how should resources be justly distributed? Aristotle's concept of distributive justice is what is currently known under the term 'social justice'. It is thus not a 'new' concept, but one that has been occupying the minds of people since the ancient period.

We'll have a look at three principles that are often put forward as a basis for 'just' distribution of resources:
1. The principle of merit and desert
2. The principle of need
3. The principle of equality

The principle of merit and desert states that people should be treated according to what they deserve. Material rewards should only be handed out to the deserving. When someone receives something they didn't deserve or when someone doesn't receive something they DO deserve, an injustice occurred in this view.

The question that arises here, of course is: What constitutes a merit?

Is the fact that someone is more talented a basis on which to provide them with more material wealth? Does the person deserve this or is a person's talent merely a matter of luck or chance, and so - not part of one's merit? But then, what about those people who have a talent that they developed themselves through hard work, something they did not have a natural disposition towards, but a skill they developed until they became talented in it? And then - how to distinguish between natural endowments and merits?

Or does merit have to do not so much with how much one contributes by virtue of one's talents, but based on how much effort a person puts in. Here - two people who are equally productive may not be rewarded the same way, because for one it was a struggle while for the other it was a breeze. So - then, the reward-system of distribution based on deserts would create incentive for individuals to place themselvs in positions of struggle just so they could 'earn more'. But is that the kind of life you would encourage for individuals? And - if each one acts accordingly, by choosing a profession or a task they struggle at most - will this really produce the best results for society as a whole?

According to liberalists, the free market is the best system to evaluate merit and desert, where prices and wages determine what a person's contribution is worth to others in society. Yet - herein is not considered that most successful businessmen or businesswomen are not so because of 'merit' or 'desert', but because of privileged backgrounds, because of heritage, because of luck and because of socio-economic access to opportunities. And a classic example I like to use is: who deserves the highest pay: the mineworker who physically works every day or the CEO of the mining company whose most strenuous effort is to place a signature here and there? What is often argued is that the CEO has an investment to lose, and therefore is putting more on the line - but then the counterargument is of course: is the mineworker not putting his life on the line and is the CEO's investment worth as much as his own life?

Liberalists like to pretend that the free market models are perfect for assessing the merit of individuals in how much they contribute to society, but they are actually merely using these models to justify why such huge inequality exists - where they can say: 'Well, you're worse off because that's what you deserve'. And then difficult-sounding jargon is used and graphs are presented that apparently prove their point - but the truth of the matter is: the free market system is not based within merit - it is merely based within competition - and herein, the system does not consider who works harder or who deserves more - it does not make such value judgments - it simply balances opposing forces and then ends up somewhere in between.

Others of a more socialist orientation propose a planned economy, where a person's merit is directly measured by a public institution, such as a government. However, the problem still remains in objectively stipulating the conditions under which we are now speaking of merit and whether such merit-based system will provide the most favorable resutlts.

Psychologically speaking, deserts are linked to a person's expectations. If a person expects to receive high material rewards and then does not receive them, a perception of unjust deprivation will arise, whereas - if a person has adjusted its expectations to previous patterns and as such, does not expect much, may not feel as though they are being deprived of what they deserve - simply because the expectation pattern is different. However, does that mean that the one person is really being deprived and the other not? Is there an objective way of establishing just reward versus unjust deprivation or are these concepts too much influenced through relative perception?

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• Day 218: Justice and Human Rights
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• 364.Education is a Human Right |Equal Money
• Day 220: Justice and Human Rights - Part 2
• 367. Children's Human Rights | Equal Money
• Day 221: Are Humans Equal? - Equality and Human Rights - Part 2
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Day 161: The Principle of Equality within an Equal Money System

The principle of Equality is directly linked to the principle of Honoring the Right to Life.

Within our current socioeconomic and political system, Life is not valued as a Right, but something each one has to ‘earn’, and within that it has become a privilege. Money has become the medium through which one is able to access those goods and services that ensure one’s subsistence. One’s ‘Right to Life’ is not a given, but restricted to those who have money. This way of doing things within the current world system is reflective of what we value as a society, which indicates that money is valued over Life.

Many religions and ideologies promote the concept of Equality but have so far failed to bring the point of Equality to a level of practical implementation that can be lived by, where the concept of Equality merely remains in the realm of the abstract and ‘theory’.

Within an Equal Money System, the point of having ‘equal money’ is to assist with the psychological harmonization of the human into a harmonious character that no longer lives in fear of his own survival, but lives as Life, gives as Life and receives as Life - equally.

Since we’ve allowed ourselves to invest value into the concept of money, we use money, and more specifically ‘equal money’ as an interim step within the Equality Principle and the Equality Constitutional Development to bring about a psychological re-connection: through distributing money equally, we are “equally distributing value” through what money represents.

This is only a temporary point to rectify the psychological damage that has been done by money and our ideas of money, debt, power, choice, fairness, etc. Once this point of psychological disharmony has been corrected, money as a concept in itself will disappear completely as it will have lost all relevance.

Related articles

• Day 156: Honoring the Right to Life in an Equal Money System
• Day 147: Constitutional Equality and Voting in an Equal Money System
• Day 158: Prevention is the Best Cure - Equal Money System
• Day 155: Constitutional Equality as the Rule of Law
• Day 151: Media, Law and Information Accessibility within an Equal Money System
• Day 159: Energy and Equal Money - Blind Spot

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Day 158: Prevention is the Best Cure - Equal Money System

Prevention is the Best Cure

Decision-making within an Equal Money System will adhere to the Constitutional Principle of ‘Prevention is the Best Cure’. This implies that with every decision made, all possible ramifications, consequences and outflows must be considered in order to design the policies and regulations in a way that do not cause unnecessary harm to the current or future generations of plants, animals and humans.

The moment disharmony exists, it indicates that the point of disharmony was not adequately prevented. Becoming aware of such a point of disharmony places us in a reactive mode. A reactive mode always takes place after the harm as a result of disharmony that has already occurred, and thus, it is in essence ‘too late’ as the harm cannot be undone. To design a regulatory political system based on reactive measures is therefore unacceptable, as it implies that we wait for harm to take place before action is taken. Currently, policy and regulations are mostly based on the interest of select groups. This causes harm to manifest on other levels that were not included in the equation, causing us to continuously be in a reactive mode as we attempt to correct the mistakes of our past. This is why it is so important to always design policies and regulations according to the Principle of What is Best for All, as it will enable us to prevent disharmony before it occurs.

Obviously, taking action before harm takes place also reduces the amount of resources that go into correcting mistakes and dealing with the consequences of carelessness. A simple example is nutrition. There are countless ills that are currently caused through inadequate nutrition, among which are diabetes, heart conditions, cancer, impaired cognitive functions such as memory capacity, and so on. Treatment for such ills requires a whole range of resources and is time-intensive. If the source is corrected, which is the diet, the ills are prevented as well as the need to use up resources for their treatment.

Initially, policy making will still largely involve correcting the mistakes of our past, as there were many, and thus many consequences. However, as we progress as a global society within the ability to prevent disharmony and to direct all matters in a harmonious way, we will be able to bring children in the world knowing that we’ve taken all preventative measures to allow them to live a life without harm. And thus, the principle of fear as it is now part of society will have been addressed and will no longer form part of our co-existence.

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• Day 154: The Application of Justice in an Equal Money System
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• Day 147: Constitutional Equality and Voting in an Equal Money System
• Day 155: Constitutional Equality as the Rule of Law
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Day 111: Evilution - Neocolonialism - Part 2

This blog is a continuation to:
Day 98: The Unholy Trinity
Day 99: Money Votes
Day 102: Liberalism
Day 103: Abstract Equality
Day 104: We have to Protect our Freedom!
Day 105: Human Liberties
Day 106: Structural Adjustment
Day 107: Getting Reality to conform to an Illusion
Day 108: Virtual Democracies
Day 109: Politics as a Double-Faced Game
Day 110: Evilution - Neocolonialism

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself and my ways as ‘civilised’ and ‘best’ while my actions show a completely different story

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that ‘I know best’ and within that impose my ideas/beliefs/opinions upon others/whole countries – in the belief that because ‘it worked for me it must work for you’

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that ‘prosperous’ parts of the world are only in such a position due to a past of extreme oppression and exploitation

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the ‘wealth’ of the so called ‘prosperous’ nations in the world is built on the past as years of exploitation and stealing and so I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that I cannot expect other countries to become prosperous like me – because I am not allowing them the same path of exploitation that I / we have followed in the past – where our richness is based on their poverty within having taking advantage of the ‘weaker’ countries for years upon years – and then blame these poor countries for the position they are in for not being ‘willed enough’ – while all the while they are in a weak/vulnerable position because those who were better off took advantage of them within draining them of their resources and putting into place structures which many years after ‘independence’ still have disastrous consequences/effects

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if these weak/poor countries just adopt my philosophy they will be okay – without seeing and realising that they are finding themselves in a completely different position/context since they do not get to exploit/abuse others for their own economic gain – which is why enforcing an opinion as ideology unto them will never better their situation

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that an exploitative method of gain can only work for some and not for all – the exploiter needs someone to be exploited – and so it is not practically possible for all to exploit because there is no-one left to be exploited – and within that our current economic within adopting exploitative methods is only ever keeping the exploited in place

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the problem will remain as long as one exploit the other and as long as one does not distribute resources equally – some will always be better off than others which will only further tip the scale

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that nothing has changed in terms of how we deal / treat other people – where previously it was very direct and in your face, where we now simply moved to more ‘subtle’ indirect ways of exploitation – but the exploitation is still here


I commit myself to show that the idea of what is ‘civilised’ is completely fucked up, as it has always been used from a starting point of superiority towards others and used as a justification for abuse

I commit myself to show that the reasoning of ‘it worked for me so it must work for you’ does not apply if one does not take into consideration all the factors/dimensions which contributed to having it ‘made it work’ for you and only consider a fraction and then only impose this fraction within self-interest

I commit myself to show that out of proportion prosperity can only come about by out of proportion poverty

I commit myself to show that how things are currently presented as how things apparently work /operate does not agree with what actually happened in history

I commit myself to show that an exploitative way of life can only work for some at the expense of others

I commit myself to show that the solution is not for everyone to become exploiters but for everyone to be treated equally such as proposed in the Equal Money System

I commit myself to show that no change has yet taken place, and that we’ve simply further specified and perfected our methods of exploitations to make them less obvious yet at the same time more effective

Related articles

• Day 110: Evilution - Neocolonialism
• Day 107: Getting Reality to Conform to an Illusion
• Day 109: Politics as a Double-Faced Game
• Day 96: Individual Above Group?
• Day 103: Abstract Equality

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