Re: [Marxism] Justice and Sustainability

[J.M.P.Cloke@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Of course justice evolves, like everything else (except 
perhaps certan soi-disant Marxists); it just doesn't 
evolve at the same time, in the same way on a global basis 
- it is also constantly outstripped by the ingenuity of 
humanity in thinking up ways of outraging it.

If you think concepts of justice don't matter, then 
compare the access to justice between what would pass for 
the lumpenproletariat here in the UK today and 200 years 
ago; up to 1808, for poor people the following offences 
were punishable by death:

1) being in the company of gypsies for one month,
2) vagrancy for soldiers and sailors,
3) "strong evidence of malice" in children aged 7-14 years 
old.

The abolition of the death penalty for such ridiculous, 
class-based 'offences' (and then the abolition of the 
death penalty altogether) is one, just one example of 
where "evolving notions of rights, during the expansion of 
global capitalism" were.

The logical fallacy in your reply is to say that because 
injustices are multiplying in type and extent as more and 
more human beings are born and more people from different 
ethnicities, religions and backgrounds come into contact 
with each other and invent ever more ingenious ways to 
oppress each other, then that implies that there is 
therefore no justice. There is justice, both practically 
and conceptually and the evolution of that justice 
struggles desperately to keep pace with the destructive 
ingenuity of human beings and our unquenchable appetite 
for abusing power.

If, as Samuel Johnston said in the youthful period of 
mercantile capitalism: "An injustice anywhere is an 
injustice everywhere", then how did he arrive at that 
conclusion without some kind of conception of what justice 
was, both in its conception and implementation?
  
The problem with you Blackberry Marxists in the US and 
your Second Life Marxism is that you so very rarely come 
into contact with that of which you speak.

Jon Cloke

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