When equal can mean unjust

Australia has always prided itself on its sense of ‘fairness’; it is central to the national identity. But what does this widespread commitment to the notion of "giving people a fair go" really mean?

The hegemony of the Left

The ‘Left’ assumes that fairness means ‘egalitarianism’ – the forcible reallocation of money from one group of people to another by use of State power. They think that a ‘fair society’ is one where the distribution of income and wealth is made more equal through government tax and welfare policies.

In a recent article in the Melbourne Age Pamela Bone, its associate editor, described egalitarianism as "part of the great Australian tradition of the ‘fair go’" and she took me to task for asserting that egalitarianism belonged to a specifically left-wing political agenda. Seen through her eyes, economic equality is one of those principles we should all unquestioningly accept. Increased equality indicates a move towards a more decent, caring and civilised society, while any move in the opposite direction indicates a decline into barbarism and the dog-eat-dog society of ‘social injustice’.

This seems to have become the orthodox position in Australia. Even in the higher reaches of the public service bureaucracy in Canberra, there is now apparently an assumption that egalitarianism is one of those self-evident ‘good things’ that we no longer need to debate. How else can we explain the recent report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (Measuring Australia’s Progress) which sees nothing contentious or political about defining ‘social progress’ as the achievement of greater income equality?

This is an extraordinary assumption for a statutory body like the ABS to have made, for the idea of ‘fairness’ is essentially contestable. It need not equate with economic equality, for there are at least two other, equally plausible, interpretations of what ‘fairness’ and ‘social progress’ entail. Far from being obvious, the link between fairness and equality is highly tenuous.

Egalitarianism as fairness

The basic assumption of egalitarianism is that everybody is as good as everybody else. I don’t have to do anything to prove I am your equal, for Jack is as good as his master, even if Jack stays in bed all day and his master works all hours to build up some assets. It is this belief (which egalitarians suppose to be ‘moral’ and ‘ethical’) that lies behind the regular calls from bodies like ACOSS for those who earn higher incomes to pay more tax to help those who are worse off. Egalitarians don’t really care whether or not people have worked hard for their success, for their focus is on outcomes, not causes. What matters for egalitarians is the final distribution of rewards. An unequal society is an unfair society, regardless of what factors have led to the inequalities.

Equalisation of incomes and wealth is an article of faith in the western socialist political tradition. For most people on the left, such a policy needs no justification – it is a moral end in itself. Wide disparities between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ are deemed to be ‘unjust’, and because socialist politics are about rectifying social injustice, it is felt that there is a compelling case for seizing resources from the first group and reallocating them to the second.

But is it fair to expect working people to share their earnings by paying taxes to support people who do not work? Is it fair, for example, forcibly to take money away from hard-working people to hand it over to young unemployed people, or to single parents of teenage children who prefer to stay at home than take employment? If you believe all this is fair (as opposed to being unavoidable), then you are an egalitarian.

Meritocracy as fairness

One alternative interpretation of what the notion of "a fair go" means is grounded in the principle of meritocracy. This is the idea that people should be properly rewarded for their talent and ability and for the personal effort that they make to improve their situation. Meritocracy is grounded in the ethic of ‘equality of opportunity’ rather than ‘equality of outcome’. Egalitarianism wants us all to cross the finishing line together, whereas meritocracy demands only that we line up on an equal footing at the start of the race.

From the point of view of ‘meritocracy’, a fair and just society requires only that everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed (e.g. there should be open access to education and no legal barriers preventing particular groups from practicing any trade or profession). Social justice does not require that all individuals end up with the same, for this would reward those who are lazy and would penalise those who work hard, and this is the antithesis of justice and fairness.

Is it fair to reward talent and hard work? Many wealthy individuals were born into humble circumstances, but have blended their inborn talents with a lot of training, dedication and hard work. Is it fair that they should now enjoy such high rewards? Is it fair that the bright kid in your class at school who swotted in the library while you were smoking behind the bike shed has now gone on to become a mega-successful brain surgeon while you are plodding away in a boring office job on one-tenth of their salary? If your answer is "yes", then you are probably a meritocrat. If it is "no", then I suggest you inspect your motives very carefully to ensure that your response is (as you probably believe) an ‘ethical one’. Are you sure there is no trace of envy?

Liberal freedoms as fairness

Another ideal of the fair society is the liberal or free market ideal, in which fairness has nothing to do with equality, nor with how bright you are or how hard you work. Rather, fairness is the inevitable result of free exchange of goods and services between consenting adults. Provided the exchange does not involve deception or coercion, if someone offers goods or services that people want and someone else chooses to purchase them, then the end result is fair.

In a liberal society, fairness means that those who end up at the top of the heap are those who, by luck or design, have found out what other people want to buy and have provided it. Unlike the meritocrat, the liberal is quite happy to accept that sometimes, stupid and even lazy people can be successful. Equally, bright and hard-working people will struggle if they are not devoting their talents and effort to meeting other people’s wants.

Provided people come by resources ‘justly’ (e.g. they do not steal them), they are morally entitled to keep them, in which case an egalitarian policy will be highly ‘unethical’ and extremely ‘unjust’ if it tries to use the power of the State to take away what is rightfully theirs.

Is it fair that people who spot opportunities and take risks should be rewarded when their hunches prove correct? Somebody like Rupert Murdoch is rich and powerful because millions of people worldwide want to buy his television programs and newspapers. Is he entitled to his success, or should we try to stop him producing successful newspapers, or take away his profits? Is it fair that Mel Gibson should be so wealthy simply because he has a handsome face that millions of cinema-goers are willing to pay to see, or that sports stars earn millions of dollars by entertaining millions of fans? If you think all this is fair, then you are probably a liberal. If you don’t, you should stop to think why you are so opposed to ordinary people freely choosing to pay money to people who offer a few hours of harmless enjoyment. After all, none of us is compelled to buy Murdoch’s newspapers, or to go to see Gibson’s movies – but we are compelled to pay taxes.

The clash of ethical principles

Looked at in isolation from each other, all three of these principles of fairness might seem reasonable. The problem, however, is that all three contradict each other. We cannot simultaneously reward people according to their talents and efforts (meritocracy), allow them to keep the rewards accruing to them through market exchanges, irrespective of effort (liberalism), and make sure that they all end up with roughly the same (egalitarianism).

Research I conducted in Britain ten years ago found substantial popular support for all three ideals. Nine out of 10 people favoured the meritocratic ideal, but the other two ideals also each received the endorsement of about half the population. I suspect that this is also true in Australia, although just 2 percent of respondents in a 2001 Morgan opinion poll mentioned pursuit of greater equality as one of three key issues deserving of the government’s attention. This put it equal 18^th in the public’s list of priorities. The apparent consensus about giving people ‘a fair go’ may therefore actually disguise deep-seated disagreements over what this entails in practice.

Is redistribution socially necessary?

Egalitarians sometimes seek to justify their radical policies of redistribution by pragmatic rather than ethical arguments. They might accept that it is morally questionable to take money away from people who try to be self-sufficient in order to subsidize those who make little or no effort in this regard, but they still support the forcible redistribution of people’s incomes on the grounds that equality promotes social cohesion.

The problem with this argument is that, although the Australian intellectual establishment repeatedly assumes that equality promotes a cohesive society while inequality fragments it, there is precious little evidence to back it up.

Consider the indicators of social fragmentation like rising crime rates, rates of substance abuse, suicide rates or rates of depression and mental illness. It is certainly the case that many of these indicators have been increasing quite alarmingly over the last thirty or forty years – but there is no evidence that this has been associated with increased inequality of incomes. Indeed, while most of these indicators started worsening markedly in Australia from around the1960s, income inequalities were reducing as a result of higher taxes and a massive expansion in targeted government welfare spending right up until the 1980s.

The international evidence also lends little support to the belief that equality promotes social cohesion. Left intellectuals often point to America as an example of a dangerously fragmented society with high levels of social inequality, but American crime rates (other than homicides) are actually lower than in Australia. Furthermore, during the 1990s, when the Americans dramatically cut back on welfare spending, crime rates in most parts of the United States plummeted while Australia’s continued to rise, yet egalitarian orthodoxy would have predicted quite the reverse effect.

Moral dilemmas

All three definitions of fairness have their problems. The clash between these competing principles represents a real moral dilemma for any thinking person, for none is self-evidently ‘correct’. The problem in Australia, however, is that the egalitarians have tended to monopolize the discussion.

Any society needs to be seen as fair and just by its citizens, otherwise people will become disillusioned, alienated and disaffected. But simply insisting that Australia is committed to fairness and social justice is mere rhetoric unless we understand exactly what this means in practice, and why we prefer one notion of fairness over others. If we are going to debate these issues seriously, let us start by admitting that there are different criteria of ‘fairness’ and ‘justice’, and the earnest pursuit of one will result in the violation of others just as important.