The Search for a Fair Society: The False Dichotomy between Equality of Opportunity and Equality of Outcome

October 1. Rabbit. Rabbit. Rabbit. With the superstition out of the way, grab a coffee and let’s talk about a realistic utopia of a fair society.

Yesterday, I introduced the two parts of Rawls second overarching principle for a fair society: fair equality of opportunity and the difference principle.

Why the two parts? Why is it not enough to arrange for equality of opportunity? Take this example: We arrange for everyone to have a fair shot at becoming an architect. Does this make it necessarily fair that architects earn so much more than cleaners? Or doesn’t this depend on whether it helps to promote the interests of the least advantaged – by undertaking the long training needed to become an architect and applying the skills to building things that people need? What if the architect only works for the rich and beautiful while affordable housing is scarce?

When we go back to the reason why all members of the group – the society – agree to use the same dataset – the same rules and structures – in the self-generation of their individual models of the world in order to be able to cooperate, we will find the answer. The motive of all members has been to be able to engage in random searches, exploration to better oneself. A fair shot at becoming an architect if that’s what the person’s mind has identified as the best information to interact with, is what the social contract demands. Equality of Opportunity is therefore an integral part of the social contract of a fair society.

But in the end, the fruits of the random search that is studying to become an architect only materialize because of the group’s willingness to cooperate and together offset the high risk of this search and the years’ long ‘failure’ before the success could happen. Therefore the fruits belong to the group, or at least the right to have a say over what is done with the fruits belongs to the group.

For the group to function and to be able to continue to offset the risk for all, most of the payoff of the successfully conducted random searches must go back in the group. The determination of how much can stay behind with those who got lucky must be part of the negotiations and the from the negotiation resulting dataset all people in the group agree to and use to self-generate their individual models of the world. And the most important factor must be how much of their success the lucky ones use to return it to the group in a way that is enabling everyone else to engage in random searches without fear of failure. The more the individual already returns to make the contract work for all in the way it is meant to work, the less the group needs to take back in order to ensure that the social contract works for all the way it has been agreed to by all. But this investment of all success into the group is as important as the initial equality of opportunity. Without it, the cooperation will not give all parties the results for which they have agreed to the contract and paid their dues. Only equality of opportunity is therefore not enough. It takes both parts of Rawls’ second overarching principle for creating a fair society.

Any thoughts? Tell me. Tell all. Since our models of the world change with every new information we gather and the models are only accessible to others when we communicate them, we are part of never ending negotiations that require constant conversation and debate.

To watch this post as a video, go here.

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