Liberty

In past postings, I suggested social justice might be achieved by some proportional cap on the top income echelon. I argued that the wealthiest individuals could increase their own incomes only if they would also bring the lowest economic level up as well, because the prosperity of those wealthy individuals is in some measure due to the fact that the workers with the lowest income allow the wealthy business owners and investors to achieve low production costs and high profit margins.

I'm not married to this solution and I wanted to revisit the problem now that I've been exposed to some more different views. Upon further reflection, I'm not certain such a system is even practicable. That is the first problem. The second issue which I believe obliges us to answer is whether we can justify limiting the economic liberties that result in the economic inequalities in all societies.

Rawls, whose writings I've cited in the past, proffers two principles upon which he suggests just laws could be formulated.
1. laws ought to grant the greatest liberty compatible with like liberty for everyone.
2. social and economic differences are tolerable so long as they mutually benefit all citizens and so long as all citizens have equal opportunity to fill the more powerful positions and offices in a society.

I wanted to lay out some of the key points of common ground that I think all of us share as followers of Christ, whether we lean towards conservative/literal interpretation of the Bible or a liberal/metaphoric interpretation. I believe that these common points are also foundational components of progressive politics. I don't intend to unpack each of these extensively here, but rather I want to put them on the table for discussion and for everyone's consideration.

1. Reciprocity as derived from the Golden Rule and the command to love our neighbors. The idea of reciprocity is a foundational principle for most secular formulations of liberalism. Jesus says of the command to do unto others as we would have them do to us, "...this sums up the law and the prophets" Mt 7:12. It is a command that directly dictates the manner in which we are to relate to others. The laws that we support and advocate through our political involvement effect our neighbors and so this command is perhaps the most relevant in the Bible to the way in which we ought to formulate our political agendas.

The neo-orthodox Catholic Right often define liberty as "what one ought to do." But this narrow definition raises a very troubling question for those of us who value the separation of church and state: By whose standards are we to decide what "one ought to do?"

Catholic Rightists Michael Novak, Richard John Neuhaus and George Weigel are trying to tell the world it should be an orthodox Catholic standard.  Of course, they could never get away with that religious supremacist claim outright. So, like their Protestant co-belligerents of the religious right, they say that's what the Founders wanted.