Socioeconomic Fairness: Two Views

Both liberals and conservatives want socioeconomic fairness but they approach it in very different ways due to different definitions of “fairness”.  I will argue that the philosophical and empirical force for socioeconomic fairness is on the side of conservatives, not liberals.

President Obama and many liberals have repeatedly said that the wealthy need to pay their "fair share" and pushed for certain policies in the name of fairness.  For instance, Obamacare, Gary Bauer (2012) wrote in his Politico article "'Obamacare': Fairness vs. Justice", concerning fairness and the Constitution:

Many conservatives and others have accused Obama, a former constitutional law instructor, of being profoundly ignorant of the Constitution.  But he may just believe that “fairness” supersedes constitutionality in the hierarchy of legal values. […] Obama has called access to free contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs for all women a matter of “basic fairness” and a “core principle” that needs to be balanced against the constitutional rights to religious liberty and free speech.

Another example of liberal policies under the mantra of fairness is the House bill H.R. 4170, the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 introduced by Democrat Representative Hansen Clark.  This bill’s explicit purpose is:

To increase purchasing power, strengthen economic recovery, and restore fairness in financing higher education in the United States through student loan forgiveness, caps on interest rates on Federal student loans, and refinancing opportunities for private borrowers, and for other purposes. (emphasis added)

When it comes to socioeconomics, liberals define “fairness” and “justice” in terms of equality.  For liberals, socioeconomic inequality is a form of injustice; what’s fair and just that is everyone has their fair share of wealth or enough of it so that social justice is achieved.  Therefore, affirmative action, graduated (progressive) tax-scales, redistribution of wealth, single-payer healthcare, etc., are just because these are fair.

Regardless if individuals believe such things (e.g., redistribution of wealth or affirmative action) are unfair or violate their individual liberties, if these actions create or potentially create an egalitarian society, then those actions are justified because the interests of (liberal) society trumps all other considerations.  For liberals the collective (i.e., society) is more important than the individual because, in the context of American liberals, “fairness” is a higher-order ethical value than upholding the Constitution.

Turning to conservatism, first I will examine the philosophical side of the conservative position.

When it comes to fairness, conservatives define socioeconomic fairness upon the idea of a meritocracy, the idea that people get in life what they’ve earned by what their actions merit.  If there are individuals who work hard and become successful, then they are reaping what they have sown.  If there are individuals who are lazy and end up living in poverty due to their own laziness, then they too are reaping what they’ve sown.  Under a meritocracy there will be societal inequalities that no amount of government intervention can change or rectify.  Not everyone is equal in the sense that not everyone has the same talents, skill sets, work ethic, ambitions, dreams, etc.  Some will simply work harder and use their talent more in life than others.  This is self-evident.

Despite these inherent inequalities, social classes are necessarily fluid and dynamic simply given the nature of a meritocracy.  However, if someone is kept in their social class, especially the lower classes, simply due to race, gender, social class, or unwarranted discrimination, this is unfair, unjust, and unethical because such individuals aren’t able to earn what they’re actions merit.  Under these circumstances, government should intervene to rectify injustices, which explains why Republicans/conservatives have consistently voted affirmatively for various civil rights bills.

A necessary contrast point is that individual’s interests aren’t always trumped by egalitarian considerations.  Conservatives believe that upholding meritocratic practices is a higher-order ethical value than egalitarian fairness.  A small and limited government because individualism and individual liberties are essential for a fair and just society as Richard Stroup (1976) argued:

Restraints on government, however, are the key to freedom and fairness.  Few would dispute the need for restraints to maintain freedom, but the restraints on government are necessary for fairness as well.  Why?  Individuals are not equally endowed with effectiveness in market earnings, nor in the market for political influence. […]  Thus a government with the power to prevent arbitrary abuse of some people by others, but with sharply limited power to coerce others directly and in detail, is likely to provide maximum freedom, and hence maximum prosperity and fairness as well. (405-406)

I believe Stroup’s argument explains why American conservatives uphold and defend the Constitution because it necessarily limits the power of government, but it doesn’t weaken government to the point that it can’t maintain civil order and justice.

Many conservatives hold a view as presented by Charles Fried (1981):

If the situation of individuals depends on collective claims for contribution to the well-being of others, that situation is insecure and their liberty is threatened.  If the very definition or conception of what a person’s situation is depends on collective claims directed at collective goals, including collective goals about fair distribution, the distinctness of the concept of liberty is undermined.  To put the issues crudely at the outset, if everything about an individual—his person or his product—is available for redistribution, then individuals are not free.

Now, I will examine the empirical side of the conservative position.

Liberals, especially Obama, have argued that economically America as founded never worked.  This claim is soundly proven false via empirical evidence.  Before the United States was founded, according to his autobiography Benjamin Franklin started out in the printing business and after much work and personal discipline he became rich, later to become one of the most influential individuals counted among the Founding Fathers.  After America’s founding, J.D. Rockefeller started out from “humble beginnings” but through diligence and determination, he became one of the richest individuals in US history.

Rockefeller soon impressed his employers with his seriousness and diligence.  He was very exacting and scrupulously honest.  For example, he would not write out a false bill of lading under any circumstances.  […] (For all this work, he was not well paid.  But whatever he was paid, he always gave to his Church and local charities.) […] Rockefeller was extremely hard working.  He traveled extensively, drumming up business throughout Ohio, and then would go to the banks and borrow large sums of money to handle the shipments.  This aggressive style built the business up every year.

Another example would be William Shatner who lost everything but now is wealthy, successful, and influential.  These are just a few examples.

However, when presented with empirical evidence showing that socioeconomic egalitarianism fails over the long-term liberals retreat to a priori ethical arguments for fairness.  To use single-payer healthcare as an example, Obamacare is touted as “fair”, but when examining single-payer healthcare systems we can see that have serious socioeconomic consequences.

According to Edmund Conway (2009) of The Telegraph states that healthcare costs are going to play a major factor in forecasts that the UK national debt could quadruple within the next few decades.  Thus the financial stability of the UK has been called into question.  Additionally, Canada, which has a similar system to the UK and considered fair, is looking to private sector solutions to their health care because their current health care system is bankrupting them.  I fail to see how bankrupting and/or putting the nation’s economy under severe strain is fair.

One socioeconomic worry that was brought to my attention by a liberal friend is that without a single-payer healthcare system, bankruptcies due to rise in medical costs will sky-rocket.  Therefore, we need single-payer healthcare to keep costs down.  This argument is empirically false.  For example, in Canada, in 2009 researchers Skinner and Rovere found that there was a higher percentage of medical-cost related bankruptcy in Canada than in the US.

Unlike the United States, Canada has a universal, single-payer, government-run, socialized health insurance system.  Advocates of socialized medicine argue that the mixed public-private health insurance system in the United States causes many Americans to become financially bankrupt, and that this would not occur if the US adopted the Canadian health system.  Following this logic, we should expect to observe a lower rate of personal bankruptcy in Canada than in the United States.  Yet the most recent data (2006 and 2007) shows that personal bankruptcy rates are actually higher in Canada (.30% for both years) than in the United States (.20% and .27%).  Research indicates that medical spending was only one of several contributing factors in 17 percent of US bankruptcies, and that medical debts accounted for only 12 to 13 percent of the total debts among American bankruptcy filers who cited medical debt as one of their reasons for bankruptcy. (1)

Skinner (2009) states:

Indeed, if we define medical bankruptcies the way Himmelstein and colleagues did for their study in the United States, we find such bankruptcies also occur in Canada.  Survey research commissioned by the Canadian government found that despite having a government-run health system, medical reasons (including uninsured expenses), were cited as the primary cause of bankruptcy by approximately 15 percent of bankrupt Canadian seniors (55 years of age and older).

Therefore, in contrast to single-payer systems based upon “fairness”, the United States’ healthcare system (despite its flaws), which is loosely based upon meritocratic principles, is fairer from a socioeconomic standpoint than many single-payer systems.

While the UK and Canada are only two examples concerning healthcare and I don’t want to commit the fallacy of composition, I fail to see how this data can be used as evidence for the “fairness” of liberal single-payer healthcare policies.  Liberals can use all of the a priori ethical arguments all they want for fairness, but those arguments are soundly defeated by empirical evidence.

Furthermore, socioeconomic egalitarianism only leads to economic destruction; this cannot be more plainly shown than the Grecian debt crisis, Spain's bankrupt green-energy programs, and the decline of the US economy under Obama’s liberal agenda with our out-of-control debt and record unemployment, despite all of the government spending on stimulus bills and green-energy jobs.

Conservatives have the philosophical and empirical advantage because meritocracies work both in theory and practice.  While meritocracies do have their issues, all one needs to do is examine liberal-run US states and countries to see the failure the liberal socioeconomic policies and see that accepting meritocratic socioeconomic policies are the most fair and just while rejecting the liberal premise that fairness and justice are contingent upon egalitarianism.