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What Is “Fair”?

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“Fairness” has become a Progressive obsession. The childhood lament, “it’s not fair!” is now a common refrain among many adults. No political discussion seems complete without someone insisting that the wealthy pay “their fair share.” But what does anybody mean by “fair”? In this video, social commentator Daniel Hannan attempts to answer this critically important question.

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Script:

Life isn’t fair.

And you know what? It can’t be.

Here’s the problem: The word “fair” doesn’t mean “justice” or “equity” or, indeed, anything very specific. Instead, it’s become a sort of all-purpose statement of moral superiority—superiority tinged, paradoxically, with victimhood.

Now, fairness does have an exact meaning in certain contexts. For example, if we’re playing a game, fairness means that the rules should be applied impartially. When we are kids and our parents and teachers set the rules, the word still has that essential meaning: it’s a young person’s way of demanding what we might call “equality before the law.” But as we get older, the word becomes more of a whine. In the mouth of a teenager—trust me on this—“it’s not fair” means, more often than not, “You won’t let me do something I want!”

In recent years, though, something odd has happened. Adults have started using the word in much the same way that teenagers do. More than in any previous generation, people today retain their teenage sense of self-centeredness. They use “it’s not fair” as a catch-all complaint, as an assertion of wounded entitlement.

Look at a Google graph of the use of the word “fairness.” From around 1965 it looks like the proverbial hockey stick—flat and then it suddenly shoots up.

We’ve developed a “fairness” obsession.

But what do we mean when we use that word? Do we mean “justice”? Do we mean “equality”? Do we mean “need”? Or do we mean something else?

Suppose you and Jane buy a cake together. You pay $6, and Jane pays $4. What would be the “fair” way to split it up? You could do it on the basis of proportionality—in other words, you get 60 percent of the cake and Jane gets 40 percent. Or you could do it on the basis of strict egalitarianism—half each, regardless of who paid what. Or you could do it on the basis of wealth. Jane has much less money than you for non-essentials like cake, so maybe she should get the larger share.

A case can be made for each approach. But the beauty of the word “fair” is that it doesn’t require you to come down clearly in favor of any of them. It gives you the cover of ambiguity.

So, for example, when a politician says, “We want the rich to pay their fair share,” he doesn’t usually mean that he wants the rich to pay taxes at the same rate as everyone else. He means that he wants them to pay extra. The word “fair” lets him present higher rates of taxation as a form of justice. But only if we don’t think about it too hard.

That’s the beauty of it. “Fair” doesn’t ultimately mean “proportionate” or “impartial” or “equal.” You can use it to mean almost any positive thing you like.

“I want fairness” generally means “Look at me—I’m a nice person.” Demanding fairness lets you tell the world how decent you are without your actually having to contribute a penny. It’s a kind of vanity: “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”

Let’s get real. The only just way to distribute the cake is to see how much people are prepared to pay for their slice.

For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/what-is-fair

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44 Comments

  1. Life isn't equal, and yes, the notion of fair is overvalued. Also, money and fairness as per the conclusion of this video is somewhat contradictory to it's purported context as suggested at the beginning.

    Money can not be fair. How much one is willing to pay for something is dependent on how much those who have it are willing to fork out for something, and can bear little semblance to fairness.

    Money can be distributed unevenly, and this issue can be perpetuated for a long duration of time. Money isn't everything and can be made in different ways. Thinking that it represents power or control all the time is flawed.

    Some things can not be bought with money, treatment, judgement, service etc. We know that from historical events.

    The cry for fairness is for something fundamental. It can be flawed and selfish, or it can be valuable. To assume it always means something bad by drawing on specific negative examples only is poor taste.

    We can hope for goodness in the human race, but if we continue to peddle ideas that it is corrupt and full of garbage would mean to further spiral down the path of destruction.

    There are many who have sacrificed to the extent of the own destruction to keep the world going for few token emotions regarding their 'loved ones'. However, thanks to the information age, we now know that often times, the ones being sacrificed for a worthless scum, as are most of society.

    As such, the world has now fallen from it's ideals and will meet it's eventual doom far earlier than hoped for, as less and less are willing to give or sacrifice.

    There will be less nurses, less doctors, less good police, less ethical businesses, less good teachers. Everything becomes surface value garbage as long as it 'sells', and for as expensive a price as can be.

  3. I can relate to the "fairness" of the story below. The word fairness is often misused by people who didn´t put in the effort. The example of the two brothers with the same upbringing and opportunities perfectly shows this idea. One of them has smoked ten joints a day since his early teen years, quits school, is lazy and has friends with the same bad habits. The other studied, graduated as a doctor, surrounded himself by people with the same ambitions, AND took care of the family business after their father passed away. Is it fair that both get the same share of the family business profits? There's a huge gap between having rights and fairness. Justice should be to give someone what he deserves, not what he expects for being born. Thank you for the video.

  5. Lol "the only way to distribute the cake is to see how much people are prepared to pay" and "how can we judge someone else's economic worth?"…from the beginning of this video I knew he'd soon get around to equating morality with wealth…and he's outraged at other people's definition of fair. Unbelievable (not).

  8. What is Teacher‘s demand to do something different when were very young like talking about transgender is it but not reality this is a question I’m answering So one of your Prager you videos but life is that fair if you don’t fight for it

  13. Life is unfair, and we can't demand fairness. If fairness came, it's a fairness. Unless you fight for yourself until you get even. But you need to know how unfair you have been treaten to work on it till you reached the point you wanted to be.

  15. The only was "fair" can be applied is if the parties involved have both agreed on the circumstances in question. For example, a baseball hit outside of the lines of the field is not a "fair" ball. Why, because both teams have agreed in advance that this would be the case. In football it is not "fair" to hold an opposing player. Why, because, again, both teams have agreed in advance that this is the rule. To say that the so called rich don't pay their "fair" share is the talk of fools. In order for that to be true is if the government and the taxpayer agree in advance what the taxpayer will pay. Then if he doesn't pay up, that could then be regarded as not being "fair".

  17. I don’t care if taxing on the rich is not “fair” by definition. It’s just the right thing to do. Language or atleast the English language doesn’t have strict lines on words, if people use a word for a different meaning it gets that meaning. Saying “I’m going to start.” doesn’t make sense, “start” is not a place, but “going to” got a new definition. Language changes.

  20. its so weird that you made up a tweet of someone saying they want fairness like just find an actually example of what youre talking about theres litterallt no evidence provided for any of these claims except a google trends graph with no y axis

  21. the other thing your "my money is the same as yours" comment ignires is that rich people dont buy things in cash really anymore the economy is increasingly credit based and a rich persons credit is more valubal than a poor persons. like if jeff bezos goes to a bank and wants to expand amazons capital they will loan him however much he needs but i cant go to a bank ask for more than like 10k.

  22. when we say we want to tax the rich more the reason we want that is because rich people dont just make more money than the rest of us they make it in a different way. when i go to my job as a line cook i am paid a wage set by an employer for the time i work, but the resturant owner is paid the surplus value of my labour. the owner doesnt actually do anything except own the facility and the stove and the plates and freezer and everything in the resturant

  23. see youre technicallt correct when you say "my money is the same as yours" in that if a homeless person had a genie and wished for 200k in cash he could buy a Porsche just the same as a rich man but youre leaving out that some people will never have a spare 200,000 dollars lying around no matter what they do

  33. Oh the irony that exactly one year after this video was made the word "fair" is now the whine of the right. Turn on Fox News and listen to every anchor, every member of congress being interviewed, to that worthless President who was just impeached for the second time, to the CEO of Parler, they're all using the word "fair" over and over again. I'm going to repost this video to as many Facebook pages as I can just to show that what I've said all along is true, my biggest reason for remaining independent is that Republicans have proven over and over again to be hypocrites and Democrats simply don't manage systems very well.

  37. rich should be taxed highly ….but not that high that it compelled them to shut down their factories . As a Indian I came to know from the news that American small businesses are going to shut down due to excessive rules , regulations and taxes. As America is a great country and she is one of our allies ….I will request the American Govt to give tax cuts and stop unnecessary regulations for small corporates

  39. I remember the time when I whining to my parents why my 5 year older brother than me get more lunch money than I do. I came out with arguments we shared the same school and I'm so angry at that time because it wasn't fair. But my parents told me yes it is fair. My mom told me what you mean isn't about fairness but it's more about equality. I didn't understand back then what my mom mean but the more I get older I realized what she mean. Now I'm happy that my parents had told me what fairness is at the very young age.

  40. This video is poorly titled. If the title were 'What is economically "fair"?', then there would be less dislikes. As to the original matter of "fairness": Yes, a child does have a more tangible form of fairness, if their parents have laid out at least a semi-rigid set of rules for them to live by. One of the least discussed reasons for the uptick in entitlement, during the last few decades, is the loss of God's rules in our society. Without rules, yes, there is no real fairness.

  42. Fairness is complex… thus it cannot be made a blanket statement. It has to be precise. Especially because not only is there no shortage of unfairness and thrownness in existence, we can get it dangerously wrong in a malicious way when we choose a type of fairness and, regardless of the choice, we take it too far, fast and hard. I think we need to acknowledge all possible conceptions of what fairness can be and bring them all to the table and decide which ones to put forth to fix a multi-level complex issue. And the definition and decision of fairness can change again to account for another multi-level complex issue, that differs to some degree or another from the others. It's not a "best" and one-size fits-all" approach – that is not only childish and immature, but worse than that, it's a contributable suicidal threat towards existence itself (and it's the type of threat that people that want to look for trouble to make things worse and to see things burn, would look to push and further hide under the falsely portrayed and exaggerated, benevolent facade – just seeing how they act and how that deviates from their words and appearances tells you so much).

    We can talk about it for an indefinite period of time… and we probably need to, because the alternative makes things much worse, for example, a crippling scenario that is lead by (to use a simple summary) either a "too fair" or "too unfair" strategy. Either side of the spectrum is a dangerous cliff that you can fall off and die painfully. I reckon we have to strike that balance, and it's dynamic because the road and it's side-cliffs are changing all the time to some degree or another. Thus we have to always either reserve a current functionable balance or, if not, recalibrate, recast and discover a new functioning balance that is ideally better than the previously decaying one… because by then, the road (ie. External or internal factors outside of our control) has changed it's course.