Jamin Hübner on ‘Distributive Justice’

Dr. Jamin Hübner recently participated in a discussion at the University of Mississippi pertaining to distributive justice. Those on the left (including the Christian left) are often quick to use the state to push their visions of economic fairness. The Christian left will often cast corporations and wealthy people in an inherently bad light; worse, they typically have no problem allying with the state to play Robin Hood and take (read: steal) one person’s property to give to another.

The Christian faith has historically held that greed is sin. God commands us to be generous with our possessions; all we have is a gift (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:7), and we are commanded to use our possessions (which are really the Lord’s, anyway) to serve others. However, in no respect does this justify the coercive, state actions of economic redistribution. In this video, Dr. Hübner breaks down leftist arguments from every angle, covering points such as:

1. Inequality can result from free and voluntary transactions; it isn’t necessarily caused by injustice at all
2. Legal selectivity, by carving out special categories of people, is actually itself a cause of injustice
3. Natural law v. positive law (and negative rights v. positive rights)
4. The Non-Aggression Principal applied to economics
5. The example of Christ and the early Christians in their relation to state power
6. The inherent theft, inconsistency, and violence resulting from state-imposed economic redistribution
7. How forced charity is no charity at all

…And much more.