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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Before we start I'll admit I truly believe that Obama is a socialist who does not believe in American execptionalism. I also believe if he had his way he would radically change this country. That being said I don't think he's been able to do much. But here are my questions:

What do you mean by "social justice"?

What is enough "equality"?

By what objective standard does one test "fairness"?

Love to hear the answers. [/quote]

OP, I grew up in a country that has a bona fide socialist party so it's really funny to hear people in this country call Obama a socialist. Shows that they indeed have no clue about socialism.
As far as American exceptionalism is concerned, I believe in it: this country is exceptionally dynamic, exceptionally open to outsiders, exceptionally law-abiding, exceptionally arrogant, exceptionally ignorant of outside perspectives, etc.

To answer your questions:

Social justice: how about the utilitarian definition, which is "the greatest good for the greatest number."

Enough equality: corresponds to a Gini coefficient somewhere between .25 and .4

Fairness: achieved when the marginal utility of that extra dollar that the rich person gets to keep equals the marginal utility of that dollar to the poor person to whom it could be redistributed. You could hypothetically measure the marginal rate of substitution of that dollar against leisure time for instance? So if a very wealthy person and a very poor one are told that they can each give up one minute of their leisure time for a dollar, you measure how much each is willing to give up to see how much should be redistributed from the very rich one to the poor one. It's a crude example, but you get the general idea.[/quote]

Now we're talking. As I stated in my post I believe he's socialist but due to our system of government he can't enact and fully Change our country. But he sure would love to.

The problem with that wealth distribution is that[b] it doesn't take in to effect that wealthy person did more to achieve that monetary value than a poor person.[/b] I hear liberals saying "you can't legislate morality", well you can't legislate economic equality. [/quote]

You are saying that the wealthy person deserves every penny he or she earned by virtue of having worked harder. I think if that were strictly the case then your argument would be justified. 
 However, you are assuming that the wealthy person achieved this wealth solely by virtue of his or her own effort, absent superior starting advantages (better education, better connections, etc.) or simply better luck. That sometimes happens, but far less than we are led to believe.

You are assuming a fair playing field , but the last five years have displayed in plain sight the type of crony capitalism that is widely practiced in this country, the financial industry being its prime example.

You are assuming that the wealthy person's economic activity has a value that is intrinsically higher--i.e., it is more beneficial to society--that the poor person's. I would argue that if a lot of these young financial engineers out of Wharton (full disclosure: I have an MBA from an Ivy so it's not like I begrudge them their creds) had become garbage men over the last decade, the country would be in a far better place.

You are assuming that the wealthy person works (!) when our system rewards rentiers who have never lifted a finger in their life and are just living off a trust fund with a 15% tax on capital gains, lower than the tax on work for a good proportion of the population.

And you can legislate higher equality. Scandinavian countries have done it successfully for decades, and at this point they rank higher than we do on most measures of development.[/quote]

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