We’re hearing and reading a lot about “fairness” these days and, this weekend, I came across a passage that jumped out at me. It’s from The Road To Freedom by Arthur Brooks, page 48.
The fact that there is more than one definition of fairness led the great Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman to write that “‘fairness’ is not an objectively determined concept. ‘Fairness,’ like ‘needs,’ is in the eye of the beholder.'” Many economists have taken this to mean that people should dismiss the whole concept of fairness and ignore it as hopelessly subjective, even childish, like the argument between my kids.
This is a mistake. To dismiss fairness is like dismissing love: a difficult phenomenon to identify quantitatively, but a central facet of life and hugely important to nearly everybody.
The real question is not whether fairness matters – it does – but which definition is correct for public policy. Is it equal outcomes, rewarding merit, or something in between?
Equal outcomes are not fair. If everyone is required to reap the same reward, there would be no competition in any field of endeavor, no winners, no runners-up, no losers. Fairness ensures that people reap the fruits of their labor. Kind-hearted, moral people voluntarily share those fruits as a helping hand to those in need.
