“Social Injustice: A social injustice obtains when an institutional arrangement generates a distribution of goods [broadly construed] that is unfair [broadly construed], independently of the deliberate design of individuals comprising the institutions.”

A Rawlsian libertarian at the ‘Bleeding Hearts Libertarian’ philosophy blog posted the above definition of social justice. The focus of his argument is that social injustice can be the result of human actions within institutional frameworks which do not have the intent of creating harm. If I may paraphrase, the unintended consequences of institutional behavior create social injustice.

But if this is true, then how to punish the crime? An injustice results either from intent or by some degree of negligence, but according to the BHL definition, no intent is required to decide that an injustice has been committed. Suddenly, the crime is separate from its perpetrator.

In such a justice system where anti-social intent is absent, the ‘crime’ becomes arbitrary. Are libraries ‘guilty’ of social injustice because they are closed on Sundays? Or banks? At what level are corporate profits ‘unfair,’ violating social justice? Couldn’t the entire recent financial explosion be considered social injustice? Who is to be arrested, tried, and convicted of crimes against social justice? The borrowers who knew they could never afford to pay the mortgage, or the banks who found a way to lend money to high-risk borrowers to satisfy government regulations?

In theory, every government action could be a social injustice. After all, someone is going to be adversely affected by whatever government does. By the same thinking, every government action is exempt from ‘crime,’ since every action by society is just.

All definitions of social justice fail because there is no such thing as social injustice created without intent or negligence. Absent intent to inflict harm or negligence to prevent it, human behavior is innocent of committing a crime. There can easily be unintended consequences to human actions, but they are not the crime. Trying to make them a crime is a social regress committed in the name of social progress, because the default position is innocence until proven guilty.

Social justice is a myth because it makes guilty what is innocent of any intent or negligence to inflict harm.

David Crane in Bloomberg today argues for Jerry Brown, California’s governor, to work to repeal Proposition 13, the hugely popular initiative that limited increases in real estate taxes to 1% on pre-Prop properties. The map above shows the scale of the vote for Prop 13, something Jerry Brown is well aware of since he opposed Prop 13 as the Golden State’s governor back in 1978. The approving vote was a tidal wave, and it is hard to believe Governor Brown will try to swim against this tide a second time in his long career.

A house does not generate revenue, but a farm does. The farm house is a working business which can tap a revenue stream to pay property taxes; the residential home cannot. When inflation (government-created) in the 1970′s sent property values and taxes skyrocketing, people saw their annual tax bills increase beyond their mortgage payments, effectively impoverishing many homeowners. Prop 13 was the taxpayer’s revolt against government-inflation generating increased government-revenues at the expense of the family home. Mr. Crane, economic advisor to former Governor Schwarzenegger, wants this taxpayer revolt reversed, and bravely volunteers Governor Brown to lead the charge against Prop 13.

Mr. Brown has been down this anti-taxpayer road before, and he still has the scars. He is much too bright a politician to make the same mistake twice.

For the second time this half-year, the price of gold today dropped below $1,400 an ounce. Gold prices have increased each of the past four years, but early 2013 looks as if the ride is at the crest and now is falling.

There are plenty of theories about why gold prices are down in 2013, with the dramatic surge in U.S. domestic oil production from fracking being the top reason. With Europe in recession and U.S. oil production up, look for gold to keep falling during the second half of 2013.

Bruce Waller has an interesting question about free will and moral responsibility. He asks, why not mix the two concepts instead of treating them as one and the same? Sounds pluralistic to me, and I’m all for the pluralism freedom gives us.

In the “kerfuffle” over linking John Maynard Keynes’s sexuality with his famous focus on short-term fiscal policies, Bruce Bartlett has a piece in The New York Times. In Mr. Bartlett’s view, the kerfuffle misses what is more important: Keynes’s recommended stimulus of aggregate demand by government spending is needed now more than ever, because the stagnant American economy is in Keynes’s “liquidity trap.”

Although Keynes is identified with the political Left, there have been a large number of Keynesians–such as Mr. Bartlett–who are from the political Right. Three of the top six Keynesian presidents were Republicans, and they would be vociferous in denying that they support Fabian socialism. Yet Keynesianism is the intellectual force behind Fabian socialism’s incremental attempt to institute socialism without a violent socialist revolution (found on page 375 of Keynes’s General Theory).

It does not matter what Keynes’s sexuality was, and it does not matter whether the call for fiscal stimulus comes from a socialist or a capitalist. What matters is that the RETURN on the taxpayer’s money in the stimulus is greater than the cost. There is no example of the dollar benefit from the many Keynesian stimuli attempted over the past decades being in excess of the dollar cost. Therefore, Keynesian fiscal stimuli are identified as “death spiral” economics, where every dollar spent on stimulus returns less than a dollar to the taxpayer.

Keynes’s Fabian socialism ‘toilet-flushes’ an economy, completely counter to its intent to stimulate an economy. Taxpayers receiving back only 95, 90, 80 cents back on every tax dollar spent in fiscal stimulus means the taxpayer is steadily going Keynesian broke.

From CNN, the picture of a building in Syria allegedly destroyed by the Israeli Air Force earlier this week. Syria accuses Israel; Israel has no comment. Syria claimed earlier this year that Israel attacked this same building, so either what was re-built by Syria had to be destroyed or the Israelis simply returned to finish the job.

Or, as a third possibility, Syria moved armaments destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon back into the previously destroyed building, thinking they would be ‘safe’ from a repeat attack. What does all this matter?

Iran has its presidential elections in a month, and the Guardian Council vets all candidates next week. Hezbollah is centered in Tehran. The shattered building is in Syria, but it is theofascist Iran which is the object of the Israeli lesson.

According to First News from New Zealand, the government has banned dozens of names that parents wanted to give their children, including any name associated with royalty such as ‘King’ or ‘Princess.’ So, why not call the child ‘Rex,’ or just call the child whatever you want while not listing a banned name on the birth certificate?

Better yet, get the government in New Zealand to become familiar with the philosophy of freedom. Perhaps then it will understand why it looks so ridiculous in dictating what names parents cannot give their children.

Social-Left and conservative-Right economists are embroiled over a major research paper out of Harvard which found that economic growth was negative for major countries with larger amounts of debt. Using numbers not available to the original authors and correcting for a slight Excel error (very slight!), these are charts of the comparative results.

The conclusion is the same. At around 90% of GDP, debt becomes a drag upon economic performance. The corrected data note the drag drops GDP to around 2% from the original report’s -1%, enabling social-Left economists to crow about the error and issue calls for more debt, while leaving conservative-Right economists arguing against more debt when it reaches 90% of GDP.

They both miss the point, don’t they. If the benefit from the debt (increased profit) is greater than the cost of the debt (the interest rate), then it does not matter how much debt one incurs so long as the growth in profit is sustainable. Similarly, if the cost is greater than the benefit, then it matters a great deal how much debt one has incurred, regardless of however small the amount might be, because the greater-cost-than-benefit debt is toilet-flushing the economy’s capital.

Bottom line: The 1.4T total ‘cost’ of the 2009 stimulus of 787 billions was greater than the ’benefit’ of approximately 900 billions (other research suggests less than 600 billions), so the huge 2009 stimulus actually became a drag upon the economy, the complete opposite of its intent. The U.S. is at now 105% debt to GDP and the debt load is steadily growing worse, putting us in the anemic gray bar of the graphs above.

It’s an old saw but very true: ‘One cannot borrow their way out of debt and one cannot spend their way into prosperity.’ Someone needs to re-tell the taxpayers and voters.

Spanish unemployment. Past 25%, and still rising, after five years of both Leftist and Rightist governments promising they knew how to end the economic debacle. Well, they created the problem so one would think they know how to solve the problem, but if a country is going to base its economic policies according to ideology, then we shouldn’t be surprised when they fail.

Currently, yields on Spanish bonds trade at 4.16%. Debt is at 110% of GDP (more than the entire economy), which means the cost of the debt has to be financed out of annual economic growth.

Oops. Spanish GDP growth is 1.5%, on a good day and after drinking plenty of Spanada wine. So, 4.16 – 1.5 = -3.66. Conclusion? Spain is being toilet-flushed by more than 3% per year by ideological economics of Leftists and Rightists, both of which are utopian and laden with myths. Watch for Spanish youth to be migrating to Latin American economies to escape the toilet-flushing at home.

According to this 15-year chart of Europe’s economy, Europe has now double-dipped into recession. Leftists blame ‘austerity’ cutbacks on government spending for the recession; conservatives blame rising taxes choking off private investment.

Recessions are caused by a collapse in bank lending. To find the true cause of an economic recession–and how to solve the decline–determine why banks are reluctant to lend. In Europe’s case, the banks are so badly broken that they have to borrow to stay afloat, instead of lending to grow their profits.

Scary whispers from Europe suggest that the banks in France are next to need bailouts. If France fails, the Euro fails. Perhaps the idea of two Euro currencies is best: one for the productive northern nations, and one for the southern insolvent nations. Or even better, one Euro for the thrifty nations with healthy banks, and all of the spendthrift, borrowing nations with broken banks each have their own currency.

More and more, as in Weber’s analysis, it looks like there is something about prosperity in Protestantism which is missing in Catholicism, and it looks like whatever is missing in Catholicism is an economic drag upon all of Europe. France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Ireland, by the way, are largely Catholic. Greece is Orthodox, a form of catholic.

So, a philosopher’s question is, How do the different religions affect bank lending?