Confusing justice with mercy

U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and a member of the famed progressive “squad,” recently tweeted, “Student debt cancellation is racial justice. Student debt cancellation is gender justice. Student debt cancellation is economic justice.” As I read the tweet, I couldn’t help but think that the American left has lost the thread on justice by confusing it with mercy.

How does student debt arise? In the past three to four decades, most Americans who attended college have accumulated debt from their student loans. They or their parents, or both, signed an agreement to take on debt to finance the quest for a college degree.

The use of debt as an instrument for obtaining some good and then paying back the amount over an agreed-upon term is as old as the ages. One of the most antique usages would be the farmer borrowing to invest in planting a crop and then seeking to yield a surplus by which the principal could be paid. We use debt to purchase cars that serve us for years that typically exceed the loan’s term. The debt that finances homes builds the equity that serves as the primary source of wealth for many Americans throughout their lives.

All of this is to say that debt, although not ideal, is fairly normal in our society. It is entered into voluntarily by individuals and organizations that use immediate financing to achieve longer-term goals. No one is forced to take out a large amount of debt to go to school. There are a variety of low-cost options for training for the workforce after high school. For many Americans, community college is an excellent, inexpensive alternative (frequently free or almost free). In addition, a broad network of lower-cost regional state schools is within reach of nearly everyone. There are also ways to keep debt down, including living at home and taking on a job while attending school (and working summers and holidays).

Combine these realities with the existence of simple prudence when it comes to financing college. Different courses of study have different results in terms of expected income. While having a college degree tends to increase lifetime earning power for most people, the most rapid return on the investment accrues to those who major in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields and/or seek professional training. We hear horror stories of students who majored in a course of study that predictably would not have a high likelihood of a large income and yet piled up shocking amounts of debt. Is it an offense against justice if a student studies anthropology, takes six years to graduate, and owes $120,000? Or was that simply lousy judgment or a massive lack of prudence?

I’m not seeking to make an argument against the cancellation of debts, though I think there are sound reasons to oppose blanket amnesty. In this case, the American left has grown dependent upon an excessive reliance on injustice as a rhetorical sledgehammer. For liberals, the cancellation of voluntarily assumed student debt amid a broad array of options is somehow “economic justice.” We see a parallel example in another context when attempting to regulate immigration in any kind of orderly way triggers a call for “immigration justice.”

Given this tendency to turn the desire of a political coalition into the essential content of justice that must be vindicated, it is important to be more accurate in our perception. The cancellation of debts voluntarily incurred is not properly the demand of justice. There is a better category to fit this situation. And that would be mercy. Rather than cynically pursuing the blanket erasure of debts in a way that would be prejudicial to the millions upon millions of Americans who have successfully paid off their loans, it would be sensible to pursue a policy of mercy for clear (and rare) hardship cases. But to say that student debt—willingly taken on and willingly spent—is an “injustice” is to mock real injustice. Furthermore, what is just about foisting the debt of some onto those who bore no responsibility, the American taxpayers?

The problem, of course, is that we have almost no experience in thinking about mercy because the megaphones crying out for justice have completely obliterated it. To ask for mercy is to admit that one has chosen or acted badly, but that would go against our political culture in which humility or admission of error finds little purchase. Mercy cannot be demanded, or it is not mercy at all. Furthermore, a massive cancelation of debt might be merciful to some but unmerciful to those who will have to pay the bills. It would also come as no mercy to those who acted responsibly, made hard choices about higher education, and paid their bills.