Friday, November 21, 2008
“Fair” Rides Again
Dr. Helen Smith is a bright and articulate woman—you’d hardly expect otherwise, considering who she’s married to—but it looks like she shares, with a lot of other Americans, the notion that submitting meekly to a coercively imposed burden is some kind of ethical obligation:
Latino shoppers, [Latino retail specialist Jose de Jesus Legaspi] suggests, also have been less impacted by the stock market collapse than other consumers. After all, relatively few, particularly immigrants, have large investments on Wall Street. In addition, even if they have lost their jobs, particularly in construction, Legaspi adds, they tend to pick up other employment, even at lower wages, often in the underground economy. “They get paid in cash, and they pay in cash."…
One of the customers having her hair done was talking about how flush in cash she was because of her new job. “I’m making a lot,” she stated to the hair sylist, “it’s all under the table, of course.” “That’s the best way,” replied the sylist. Is this really fair to the other Americans who pay their fair share of taxes? I don’t think so, do you?
You’ve probably heard that sort of argument before—next to certainly if you have any liberals in the family. It silently presumes that a burden imposed on a person under threat of punishment can be evaluated by the standards that apply to free negotiation and agreement.
Fran just directed me to this. Here’s what he said in the comments:
“Fair" has no meaning except as it applies to the unforced assent of an autonomous agent. When two or more persons freely agree on the terms of a deal, then, assuming none of them has been defrauded or deceived, the result is “fair” according to the ancient usages of the word. But when one party to an arrangement asserts a unilateral power to set the terms and compel the other(s) to accept them on pain of punishment, “fair” is inapplicable.
The notion of a “fair share of taxes,” a phrase I hope never again to hear in person as long as I live, is utterly ridiculous. Neither you nor I nor Dae Kwong Yuk (apprentice cuticle technician at Miss Kim’s Nail Emporium and Massage Palace) was permitted even the fantasy of having assented to our tax burdens. We suffer them regardless of our opinions about their “fairness”—in the usual case because, the technologies of space flight and terraforming being insufficiently far along, we have no acceptable alternatives.
Drop the “fair” nonsense when discussing State exactions levied under pain of fines and imprisonment.
Fearless Leader hit the nail on the head.
We don’t use “fair” in discussing parental punishments for a child’s bad behavior. (How often have you heard a toddler whine “It’s not fair!”—? Go to a few supermarkets and pay attention.) We don’t use “fair” in discussing the ransom demanded by a kidnapper. (Negotiate the price of a loved one’s life? What, he’s not worth the whole million bucks?) We don’t use “fair” in discussing the sentences imposed on convicted felons. (You can bet the rent that the felons don’t.) We speak instead of effectiveness, or of justice. “Fair” comes into play only when each person in the tub has a say in how hot the water will be—and is free to get out if he doesn’t like the final decision.
When it comes to politics, “fair” is always the wrong word. Politics is about power. The payment for access to power, in a democratic society, is unfairness: advantages and subsidies for your supporters at the expense of everyone else.
Communism taught me that. Americans should already know it.
