The Dark History of Social Justice

Firkin after Industrial Workers of the World, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

For nearly two centuries, the purpose of social justice has been to prop up the ruling class. In the 1840s, when Europe was in turmoil and the monarchists saw the looming threat of the democratic revolutions of 1848, a conservative Catholic priest named Luigi Taparelli promoted “social justice” to keep kings and priests at the top of the social pyramid. His philosophy was an update of noblesse oblige: he believed the rich should…