By Jim Jordal

Many of us aren’t too happy with the world the way it is, with rampant and growing poverty, social injustices of every sort and, as we’ve written before, an economic system seemingly dominated by wealth and power, often to the exclusion of justice, decency and hope.

Some of us, including myself, work toward a new society transformed by institutions of justice, freedom and opportunity. And this could happen as a response to massive crises like economic collapse, global warming, nuclear war, or social revolution. As economist Milton Friedman, whom I’ve quoted before said: "Only a crisis—real or imagined—creates real change. When a crisis occurs leaders resort to ideas that are just lying around. Our task is to keep these ideas alive and before the public until what is now politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."

By Jim Jordal

If you do not believe in justice for all, then you do not believe in justice at all. Most of what we commonly call justice is applied in such a discriminatory manner that it really can’t be called justice. We favor and assign extra value to individuals and groups based upon race, gender, education, family background, occupation and retained wealth, but we do not believe in justice for all. Universal equal justice is a nice sounding platitude for philosophical pursuits, but is a long distance from being fully achieved in our society.

Political and economic dominators devise injustice by law as they influence lawmakers through hordes of lobbyists, campaign contributions and plush jobs in the power structure after they leave office. How can we believe that justice under law really exists under such conditions? We believe because we want to believe, since the alternative of accepting injustice as a perpetual condition is too frightening to contemplate.