Army Bob: Social justice and law of unintended consequences

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” and virtually all actions have unintended consequences.

Both statements are facts and both need to be considered when we judge the value of the social justice movement. An advocate for social justice will cite the need to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour; after all, who can live on the current federal minimum wage? The answer is almost no one. Social justice requires a raise in the federal minimum wage to provide people with a living wage.

If anyone points to the unintended consequences of a minimum wage increase, they are attacked by the socialist movement as harsh and greedy. Reality is a pesky thing that gets in the way of good feelings and good intentions. A raise in the minimum wage will result in a good number of folks making more money, but also the loss of a large number of minimum wage jobs, an undeniable fact. Job loss is the unintended consequence of the increase in minimum wage.

Fifteen years ago you could not find an automated checkout; at most stores today you can. As the cost of labor increases, the development of labor-saving devices and technology also increases. I was at a store a few days ago and watched one clerk supervising eight automated checkout stations. A few years ago, before automation, the store would have had four to eight clerks to perform the checkout function. Drone delivery systems seem farfetched but so did automated checkout stations and ATMs a few years ago; as labor costs increase more and more innovative ideas will produce cost-effective alternatives to labor.

I can hear the social justice advocates now; they will not attack the argument, but they will say I hate the poor, women, children, minorities and immigrants. The welfare portion of the Great Society program was designed to help the poor bridge hard times and give a temporary hand up to the needy; a very noble cause, and it indeed did that for many people. The unintended consequence is that we now have three generations of welfare families; child, parent and grandparent who have never known a life other than welfare dependency. The number of totally welfare dependent folks is in the millions.

Dependency on welfare was never the intent of the social justice movement, but it is the unintended consequence of the social welfare system. Dissolution of the poor family was never a goal of the social justice movement but it is an unintended consequence of it.

If the social justice movement is the be-all and end-all to society’s problems, why do social justice advocates not defend the programs but instead attack anyone who disagrees with them? If the argument can stand on its own feet and if it is the right thing to do, why not defend the programs and stop attacking those bold enough to question them?

The federal income tax system currently has more people riding in the wagon than pulling the wagon. More than half of Americans pay no federal income tax — a positive step toward socialism a negative step toward equality. The consequence of the social justice movement is to punish the achievers through the progressive tax system; punishment is not the goal of the left, it is the unintended consequence of their actions.

The progressive movement is led by cabal of multi-millionaires who advocate for higher taxes on the rich, but should not they just give away every penny they make above the national average to be fair? Would that not be the socially just thing to do?

The average American family has an annual income of around $60,000. To be true to the social justice ideals, the leaders of the progressive socialist movement should live like average Americans and redistribute all income in excess of $60,000 to the government.

Every time former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemns the 1/10th of 1% who are the richest in our society, the people and the media should break out in laughter. She demands $300,000 per hour for a speech to poor and deeply in debt college students and has the gall to condemn others for being overpaid.

Social justice is a program that has the best of intentions, but we need to look at the unintended consequences of all proposed social engineering programs. Socialism has always failed over time because after a while it destroys initiative and runs out of other people’s money.