The need for productive justice is largely the result of inequitable systems of distribution and unfair structures of ownership that allow a shrinking group of the élite to accumulate socially produced and socially needed production resources in their hands.
- Productive justice is having equitable access to productive opportunities.
- Productive justice means not having to beg someone for a job.
- Productive justice means not having to beg for land to grow food on.
- Productive justice means being able to provide for yourself and your loved ones—the very young, the old, the infirmed, and the caretakers—with your labor which produces for all.
- Productive justice means enjoying the dignity that comes from being a productive and needed part of society.
- Productive justice means being a role model and teacher to the young who follow.
- Productive justice means being an independent political thinker and actor, unfettered by fear of displeasing elites on whom you might otherwise depend upon.
Productive justice is needed because the current system means that the control of who is or is not allowed to be productive is in the hands of a small group of people.
This small group has enormous power that derives from this control.
This power is literally power over the life and death of others.
This power robs other people not only of their produce but also of their dignity.
By determining who has access to opportunities, spaces and resources needed to be productive, these owning elite control the actions, direction and rules of the whole community.
They use this power to increase their power and wealth.
This system of the few controlling the many has gotten worse, despite all the talk about democracy.
With the elites controlling even what are the choices put before us, it matters little how we chose.
We need to work in the cracks and fissures of the existing structure to expand and broadly/openly distribute productive opportunities while still looking for ways to undo the historical patterns of power and distribution that have resulted in current inequities.