In our society, Justice is a loaded term, perhaps one of the most. In some instances it is used to denote what is right (e.g. the principle of Justice Superman stood for). In other cases its use denotes what is fair (e.g. “is there no Justice in the world?”). However, in this paper I shall be arguing a different sort of “Justice”—one which was examined during the time of Socrates and assumed in Hobbes’ Leviathan. Justice is the interests of the strong; it is a form of trickery used by those in positions of power. This sort of Justice originates in humans and groups vying for power within social settings. I will start with an outline of Thrasymachus’ argument in Plato’s Republic, staying away from his dialogue with Socrates. Because it is a fundamental concept in this Thrasymachus’ theory of Justice, an outline of the concept of power will follow. Lastly, I will further Thrasymachus’ argument with an examination of making and maintaining laws in the United States.
I
Thrasymachus is briefly recorded as a member of a dialogue on Justice in the first book of Plato’s Republic. His basic argument is as follows:
Premise 1: The ruling party defines what is right by making laws, and what is wrong by punishing those who go against the laws.
Premise 2: These laws reflect the interests of the ruling party.
Therefore: The ruling party defines as right that which is in their interest, and
punishes those who go against their interests.
During the course of the debate with Socrates, Thrasymachus points out the difference between positions of power (i.e. those who have power and exercise it as rulers) and the incumbents who are the officially recognized sovereigns. Following this, Thrasymachus loses his temper and focus. He counters one of Socrates’ arguments by stating that what those in power do is bound to be harmful to the subjects, and that injustice pays because of this. Socrates presses more counterexamples based on this; and so the choleric Thrasymachus takes leave with Socrates as the presumed winner.
However, Thrasymachus’ argument does not die there. In the essay In Praise of Thrasymachus, Robert Hall argues that Thrasymachus had a potential comeback to Socrates’ last counterexample. Socrates’ counterexample could have been done away with had Thrasymachus pointed out that, if his notion of justice was right, then people would be divided, hate one another, and be in conflict.[1] This was definitely the case at the time. The Peloponnesian War left Athens in shambles, and the reign of the thirty tyrants left its citizens broken and divided. However, Thrasymachus was blinded by anger, and thusly either could not come to this logical conclusion or did not care enough to voice it.
II
Power is a fundamental idea in Thrasymachean Justice. It is expressed in the concepts of ‘the strong’ and of ‘the ruling party’. So in order to understand the theory, one must understand the concept of ‘the strong’ and ‘the ruling party’. These are best understood through the lense of power.
There are two elements of power: the expression of power and the form of power. Power is generally defined as the ability to control and coerce. Control and Coercion translate into soft and hard power. Hard power is that of physical or economic coercion, and soft power is that of seduction and rhetoric. At the same time, there are different states of power—that is to say, power has different levels of readiness from the perspective of an agent. A cowboy’s gun can be either drawn, holstered, or forgotten. In the same way, power may be conscious, dormant, or sleeping. Conscious power is ready to be used, like a gun which has been drawn and is at the ready. Dormant power is that which is known and ready for future use, but is holstered, unready for current use. Sleeping power is a forgotten power, one that may be remembered.
Strength is a property of humans. It is a manifestation of power, one which has the potential to be quantified. When one thinks of strength, one typically thinks of muscle. But it can stem from skill and others, both hard and soft power. It is the summation of all one’s power. The strong are those who have greater strength than others. But it is more than that. For from an individual’s perspective, the strong are identified as those who have power over the individual and his interests. And in any form of society, it is the case that those who are the strongest are the ones who have more strength than anyone else. The ruling party is just that, the strongest political force in a society. Although the ruling party has connotations of longevity, it does not mean indicate any necessary minimum term as strongest. At the same time, it does not need to have more strength than everyone else; it is sufficient for it to have more strength than any one other group.
III
Politics in the United States is generally thought of as a dirty power struggle, but the process of making laws is thought of as either a rational method of compromise or the product of a dominant ideology; this process is seen as the most morally correct one because it stems from the many.[2] People obey the laws that are created because they are just (here, right and fair) since the process of making the law is just. Likewise, the Supreme Court and their rulings are just. When one breaks the law, they are brought to Justice because their act against what is right and fair must be paid for in penance. They are punished because it has been deemed right to do so.
But in fact the system is not populated by the just. Individual politicians vying for their own interests make up the system. This is because the politician’s job is maintaining her seat; it is no longer a thing of public servitude, except in that in serving the public the seat can be maintained. Enacting laws is a system of phrasing a law such that representatives can agree upon enough to pass. But the process of enacting laws is itself an extension of political parties fighting for dominance. The parties only care about others and certain interests or causes because doing so advances the agenda of eventually putting their true interests into law, whatever they may be. In other words, if our issues are commonly held enough, then our issues become the issues of political figures; their own issues are not as important as seeing to some of our commonly voiced desires, because this is what will give the political figure power to see to their own issues. Their Justice is the interest of those citizens who hold power over the politician’s seat, the interests of the strong.
A chair on the Supreme Court is a place of sovereignty over constitutionality. In the Supreme Court, one would think that the interests of the Justices are not an issue; in achieving a seat, they acquire tenure, and thus have no need for reelection. However, the Supreme Court ruling on corporate funding seems to counteract such thought. The Supreme Court says that “that the government has no business regulating political speech,” because it is a violation of the first amendment. And yet their ruling violates an even more basic constitutional principle: what a person is. The ruling implies that corporations are people as much as any citizen, for only people can be promised constitutional protections. Corporations are obviously not people, and yet the Supreme Court decrees that they are. The reason any Justice would do so is because it is in their associate party’s interest. That’s why they deemed it wrong to ban corporate donation: not because corporations are protected under the Bill of Rights, but because doing so would further the Justices’ interests. Justice in these United States is but a thing of trickery, as it is in the rest of the world. It does not embody rightness or fairness. Justice is whatever the strong’s interests are. And the strong’s interests include the interests of those who have power over him.
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