Treating goods as static obscures the social relations that produce unjust distributions.

Evidence

Young (1990) made the earliest direct and forceful challenge to theories of justice based solely on issues of distribution, criticizing those theories for focusing overwhelmingly on schemes of distribution, while ignoring the social context in which unjust distributions exist. Simply put, Young insisted that distributional patterns happen for a reason, and the reality of domination and oppression must be taken as the starting point for any thorough and pragmatic theory of justice. Young argues that while theories of distributive justice offer models and procedures by which distribution may be improved, none of them thoroughly examines the social, cultural, symbolic, and institutional conditions underlying poor distributions in the first place. The critique is not simply one against the various models of distributive justice, but of the way distributive theories simply take goods as static, rather than due to the outcome of various social and institutional relations. — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 62

Categorization

• XREF: Contrast with Rawlsian original-position abstraction; the ‘goods are not static’ point carries across to how EJ litigation treats environmental harms as fixed rather than produced. — connects to: Justice requires addressing recognition and distribution as distinct yet linked injustices. — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice:…, 65; The ideal of nonpolitical knowledge obscures the political conditions of its own production. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 69; The economy is not a machine but a set of exploitative social relations. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 38 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The economy is not a machine but a set of exploitative social relations. #exemplifies (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 38
• The ideal of nonpolitical knowledge obscures the political conditions of its own production. #expands (0.82) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 69
• Market relations are real yet structurally unable to express the underlying social labor #corroborates (0.80)
• Inflationary crises endanger capitalism by exposing its unjust distribution of goods. #qualifies (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 277
• Humans are constituted by their social relations rather than an intrinsic essence #expands (0.72) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2517