Fairness

Pssts! Hey, you wanna lose an argument? I got a sure fire approach. All you gotta do is read this!

What? You don't wanna lose an argument? Read on anyway. If you learn how to lose one, you're probably smart enough to figure out how to not lose one.

The surefire secret to losing an argument is to let your opponent define the terms of the argument. If your opponent defines the terms of the argument, your opponent wins. See how simple it is? Oh, by the way, if this is the first time you've ever read this, it means either I am a profound genius, or maybe you aren't very well read. And nobody, not even me, thinks that I am a profound genius.

Let's look at the argument about economic fairness. Some people earn a hell of a lot more than others. The top 2% of the income folks pay some 50% (or whatever the number today is) of the income taxes. Some people live in austere poverty, while others bemoan their difficulties in hiring good help for staffing their (fill in the blank: yacht, private airplane, house servants, gardeners, etc.). Our system just does not work, because it obviously is not fair!

There probably isn't much of an argument about income disparities, because they are there for all to see. We could argue about the fairness of some people paying a disproportionate share of taxes, but you would probably have to be “one of them” to make that argument. For the sake of income fairness, we have removed about 50% of the citizens of this great country from the income tax rolls. Now that's fodder for a fairness argument!

But wait. Don't we live in a capitalist country? Aren't people supposed to be rewarded for working hard, taking risks, and investing wisely? Doesn't that necessarily mean that some folks are gonna make more money than other folks? Are there limits on how much more before things get unfair? If so, who is wise enough to define those limits?

So, do you see what I mean? If the “fairness” argument is defined in terms of income, socialist liberals win and capitalist conservatives lose. It's just that simple. I cannot answer the unfairness questions in the previous paragraph, and neither can you. No one can.

Now let's suppose that we redefine the fairness argument from one of income to one of opportunity. Let's suppose that everyone is given opportunities that are equal to those of everyone else. Do we still care that those who pursue a good education, work hard, and risk and invest wisely earn more than those who do not? Should we really strive to give the high school dropout the same income opportunities as the PhD who spent 7-10 years pursuing his education? Should the guy who risks his home, his car and his savings have his income pared by taxes or whatever to have an income on a par with that of another guy who sought the risk-free safety of a job at the corner store or factory? Of course not.

So, if we frame the argument about fairness in terms of equality of opportunity rather than in terms of equality of outcome, we wind up with a totally different set of solutions. We can view the vast disparity of incomes as a natural result of our capitalist system, not as some evil that must be remedied. We can look at the vast disparities of opportunities with alarming disdain and strive to resolve those disparities.

If we pursue fairness as equality of opportunity, we would really change our priorities. Rather than taxing the hell out of the “rich guy” to mitigate income differences (someone please really, really define “rich”), maybe we should focus on the really crummy education that our society offers inner city and many rural kids. Maybe our values of protecting our failing public schools and its teachers’ jobs, we should be looking out for the customers of our education industry; you know, the students and their parents.--- All in the interest of fairness. --Fairness of opportunity. Maybe our values on charter schools and education vouchers might change.

I focus here on inequality of education as a fairness of opportunity issue, because that is where we see today's primary inequity. While job opportunities are not as fair as one would wish, tremendous strides have been made in the past few decades. Strides have also been made in entrepreneurial lending, housing, and other areas.

I am not suggesting that we sit on our laurels with a sense of achievement, but I am suggesting that we recognize where our obvious shortcomings lie. We then need to resolve then act to do something about those shortcomings.

Fairness today does not mean that we need to address inequality of outcomes (or incomes). Fairness today means that we need to address inequality of opportunities. It's really simple when the argument is framed properly.

Earl Franklin, © 2009