Fairness

Posted Dec 3, 2012 16:07 UTC (Mon) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
In reply to: Fairness by neilbrown
Parent article: Quotes of the week

>>> I once asked a libertarian friend of mine, after he had been disabled by a freak accident, if he thought fairness demanded that society compensate him with things like free bus rides and good parking spaces.

> Fairness might not demand free bus rides, but generosity would certainly suggest them.

Agreed, so long as they are provided voluntarily, and not by coercion. There is a world of difference between freely offering what generosity suggests, without obligation, and giving in to a demand for compensation from "society", meaning in fact coercion against those who did one no harm, but were simply more fortunate than oneself.

Fairness

Posted Dec 6, 2012 15:19 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

This then falls foul of the fact that coerced "generosity" actually results in the majority being better off ...

Take whooping cough, for example. We've just had a nasty outbreak. Providing free vaccinations means we don't have many victims and the average person benefits far more than the cost.

Cheers,
Wol

Fairness

Posted Dec 6, 2012 17:02 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

Providing free vaccinations means we don't have many victims and the average person benefits far more than the cost.

That's an example of an entirely different thing. There is no generosity or fairness involved. People who volunteer to pay to vaccinate other people are doing so out of selfishness. The person being vaccinated may benefit from a positive externality (a by-product of the payer protecting himself from the disease), but is not the recipient of a gift or an evening out of wealth.

It's also an example of increased efficiency (ergo increased overall societal wealth, but not necessarily fairly distributed) that can sometimes be had by central management of a society (as opposed to a system of individual choices).