De Prada defends social justice against Milei's 'satanic' label

De Prada vs. Milei: Social justice is not left-wing

"The idea of social justice is truly an aberration... it is theft." This phrase, attributed to Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, encapsulates the framework established by Javier Milei and Isabel Díaz Ayuso during the Argentine president's visit to Spain in May 2024. According to De Prada, Milei even used the term "satanic" to describe these policies. The rebuttal came on Hora 25, on Cadena SER: Juan Manuel de Prada labeled the messages "very dangerous" and added that they are "fanatizing people by telling them absurd things."

The writer threw back the adjective—those ideas seem "satanic" to him—and concluded: this right-wing is "decidedly anti-Christian." The dispute quickly moved beyond a clash of statements into more uncomfortable territory: what exactly social justice is, who formulated it, and whether Christianity supports or refutes it.

What did Milei say about social justice?

Milei maintained that social justice is an "aberration" because, in his view, it implies unequal treatment before the law and a redistributive policy consisting of taking from one to give to another. Espinosa de los Monteros summarized it in one word: "theft." The underlying argument is that in a decent rule-of-law state, justice must be equal for all and admits no exceptions.

De Prada spoke of a "rehash" and placed its origin elsewhere: ideas circulating in a certain right-wing that wants to pass off as liberalism what, in his opinion, is an attack on the core of Christian social doctrine. The most repeated response from the other side was that continuing to vote for socialism has fixed nothing, and that those who work and see their fruit distributed end up demotivated.

Thomas Aquinas' distributive justice and the problem of definitions

Here the conversation goes into the manual. In Thomas Aquinas, two species are distinguished: distributive justice, which requires distributing goods proportionally to each person's contribution under community supervision, and commutative justice, which governs exchanges between individuals based on the basic equality of the parties.

Those who cite the text conclude that Christianity requires this proportional distribution and that liberalism has disengaged from it. Those who combat it respond with two objections: that proportional to contribution is not the same as proportional to need, and that the Gospels do not mention social justice as a concept. The Church's social doctrine appears on both sides of the ring, and each side reads it as it suits them.

Christian charity versus mandatory tax

One stream argues that Christians are called to be charitable, not socially just, and that charity, by definition, is not collected coercively. The sarracena obligation would be to feed those who cannot help themselves, not to fund with taxes the life of those who do not want to work. They add that imposed solidarity ceases to be solidarity.

On the other side, the argument is that social justice is part of Christianity long before the label existed, and that reducing it to voluntary almsgiving empties the mandate. The phrase "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's" is cited in both directions, which is exactly what happens when a verse has been circulating for two thousand years.

From aid for those who cannot work to the 'allowance'

The consensus here is wider than the tone of the confrontation suggests. Almost no one disputes that those who cannot help themselves due to age, illness, or accredited disability must be attended to. Disagreement begins one step higher: the subsidy for those who could work but do not.

It is argued that this design discourages employment, punishes those who do work, and ultimately generates dependency: aid converted into a right, this line maintains, produces more subjection than poverty itself. The example repeated as a warning is Venezuela. From the other side, the objection is that without this safety net, the adjustment is always paid by the same people, and that a degenerated welfare state is not the original.

Third position, social democracy, and companies larger than a country

When looking for solutions, the range opens up. One stream reclaims the European social-democratic model and the social peace built since the post-war period. Another rescues the "third solution" formulated by Francoism in Burgos in 1961: a State that stimulates private initiative without renouncing the common good.

And a third points out that shrinking the State does not change distribution if the pie is divided among fewer hands. The objection is concrete: there are corporations with economic power greater than Spain's GDP and with the capacity to impose conditions on anyone. With this data on the table, the discussion on who redistributes and at whose expense becomes quite complicated.

With definitions still in the air, the deadlock is this: both sides take for granted something no one has fixed in writing. Distributive, commutative, charitable, or snatched. The disagreement is not in the adjective, but in identifying who collects and who pays.