Fairness

 

British politician and journalist, David Hannan, narrated a Prager U video, entitled What Is Fair? On 1/13/2020.

 

I took notes on the video and would like to comment on it.

 

Hannan: “Life is not fair and it can’t be.”

 

My response: Life is not fair and cannot be made completely fair, and nor should it be. If people are treated fairly under the law with equal opportunity, equal treatment and with equal justice for all (only one system of justice under which the laws are applied fairly and equally to all as all are treated about the same), then it is a fair society.

 

We do not want tyrannical government being the arbiter and policeman of some economic standard of fairness to soak the rich through wealth confiscation and redistribution to the poor, or to guarantee equality of outcome in the workplace.

 

I want income inequality, free markets and laissez faire, unbridled capitalism with guaranteed results like unequal, “unfair” outcomes in income.

 

We want each person to maverize and make enough money to live well, and this requires liberty and not worrying about how unfair it is that others, greater or lesser than yourself, have more money or less money that you have. Fairness is a collectivist moral standard of grievance, tying people together. We want a society where people make it or not on their own, and that equal chance to go for it is where fairness belongs, and then no more. If others have done better, go try again and increase your wealth rather than confiscate their wealth.

 

Hannan: “The word fair does not mean justice, equity, or anything very specific. It is an all-purpose statement of moral superiority paradoxically tinged with victimhood.

 

Fairness is some contexts has an exact meaning. If kids play a game, the rules are applied impartially, as if each young person was demanding equality before the law.

 

As we get older it is a whine by a teenager saying it is not fair that you will not let me do what I want. Now, adults sound like this self-centered teenager. It is now a catch-all assertion of wounded entitlement.

 

My response: He is right. Fair is used by social justice warriors who carry the mantle for the poor, virtue signaling that they are here to protect victims that they are entitled to their fair share of the money taken by government from the well off. The poor, if sane and able-bodied, need to get educated, work hard, and make something of themselves in America where there are an abundance of opportunities to improve oneself, and that access is fair.

 

Hannan: “Now adults use this whine all the time. Do they mean justice, equality, need or something else? Should the economic cake be split up proportionally, by strict egalitarianism or by just soaking the rich?

 

Fairness gives Leftists the cover of ambiguity. Fairness is not the same as proportional, impartial, or equal. It means whatever you want it to mean, like, look at me, I am a nice person, telling the world how decent I am while you do not have to contribute a penny to public costs.

 

The only fair way to cut up the economic pie is to see how much people will pay for their slice. How can you in the abstract judge someone else’s worth? Test worth in the marketplace, not as an abstraction, and the market aggregates our preferences. The only way to do things.

 

Under other economic systems, things are distributed based on birth, caste, and favoritism. Here it is fair: your money is no better than mine, and if you have it, you can play in the marketplace. There is nothing fairer than that.

 

My response: I agree.