“Fairness” has become one of the compelling issues of our time. Almost every day, new books, articles and other media items on this subject show up in my routine internet searches. And — needless to say — in the newspaper headlines, from the wages of fast-food workers to voter suppression laws and prison sentences for drug offenders. Fairness has also become a hot research topic in various academic disciplines.
Even President Obama has become a champion of fairness. In his celebrated Osawatomie (Kansas) speech on fairness during the 2012 election season, he invoked variations on the term no less than 14 times. After the election he fought for and won a tax increase for high income earners – the one-percent – on fairness grounds, and these days he’s calling for an increase in the minimum wage as a matter of fairness to low-income workers.
The problem is that fairness is an elusive concept; it’s not some cook book recipe. It can mean very different things to different people, and it can change its stripes, chameleon-like, from one situation to another, or even from one person to another. Indeed, many of the conflicting fairness claims in our society end up being fought out in our courts.
Some cynics hold that fairness is simply a mask for self-interest. As the playwright George Bernard Shaw put it, “The golden rule is that there is no golden rule.” However, the cynics are wrong. The emerging science of human nature, a diverse research enterprise that spans at least a dozen different scientific disciplines – from anthropology to behavior genetics, the brain sciences, experimental economics and even studies of our close primate relatives – has begun to zero in on what fairness means. It refers to a pre-disposition – a gut impulse – that’s deeply rooted in our biology and psychology.
Our sense of fairness has to do with our relationships with one another. It directs us to take into account the needs and interests of others and to try to strike a balance among them. Most of us are predisposed to do so; empathy is signature human trait. However, it’s equally clear that our sense of fairness is labile. It can be subverted by various cultural, economic and political influences, not to mention the lure of our self-interests. And, of course, there are always the “outliers” – the Bernie Madoffs.
Some of us are “fairness challenged”
In fact, our predisposition toward fairness, like every other biological trait, is subject to major individual variations. Numerous studies have indicated that some 25-30 percent of us are more or less “fairness challenged.” Some of us are so self-absorbed and egocentric that we are totally insensitive and even hostile to the needs of others.
Thus fairness is not a given. It’s an end that can only be approximated with consistent effort and often in the face of strong opposition. And in the many cases where there are conflicting fairness claims, compromise is the indispensable solvent for achieving a voluntary, consensual outcome. Failing this, the other alternatives include adjudication through customs and laws, or arbitration by third parties like parents, mediators, judges, and juries, or democratic decision-making processes. Whenever coercion is used to settle a dispute, it means that the pursuit of fairness has failed.
What is also becoming clear in the growing body of research on human nature is that there are at least three distinct kinds of substantive fairness – equality, equity, and reciprocity. It turns out that these three different forms of fairness have very different meanings, and each provides us with a pointer for how a society can approximate the enduring ideal of social justice.
Equality comes first
“Equality” is a term that evokes a wide range of interpretations, from the “self-evident” proposition in our Declaration of Independence that we are all created equal to the legal doctrine of equality before the law and Rousseau’s (and various socialists’) vision of economic and social equality. From a modern, biological perspective, however, equality has a more concrete, survival-related meaning. All of us are equal in terms of our basic survival and reproductive needs (with some obvious variations, of course), and all of us will suffer more or less severe harm if these needs are not continuously satisfied.
Furthermore, these needs are far more encompassing than many of us suppose; they cut a very broad swath through our economy and our society. A research program conducted by the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems has established that there are no fewer than fourteen distinct domains of basic human needs. These include a number of obvious items like adequate nutrition, fresh water, physical safety and physical health, as well as some items that we may take for granted, like healthy respiration (which can’t always be assured) and regulation of our body temperature. Indeed, “thermoregulation” can involve many different technologies, ranging from clothing to blankets, heating oil and air conditioning, with potentially life-and-death consequences. Perhaps least obvious but equally important are the needs associated with reproduction and the nurturance of the next generation.
Equity and reciprocity matter too
The second fairness category involves “equity”, or just deserts. Equity means that the rewards in life (as well as any punishments) should be apportioned according to “merit”. Like the term fairness itself, merit has an elusive quality; there is no absolute standard. It’s relational, and context-specific, and subject to all manner of cultural norms and practices. Ultimately, the claims of merit depend on what others are willing to acknowledge and accept. In general it implies that the rewards a person receives should be proportionate to his or her effort, or investment, or contribution – and, conversely, that any punishments should be commensurate with the harm that he/she may have caused. For instance, is it fair to claim credit for an article or book you did not write, or a final exam that somebody else took in your name? Plagiarism and cheating on exams violate our innate sense of fairness. .
“Reciprocity” is the third, but no less important, fairness category. When a disciple of Confucius asked him for a single word that would describe the basic principle of social life, he is reputed to have answered “reciprocity”. Organized societies have always been based on mutualism and reciprocity, with altruism being limited (typically) to special circumstances under a distinct moral claim — what could be called “no-fault needs.” As the great Roman legal scholar Cicero put it, “There is no duty more indispensable than returning a kindness.”
Reciprocity puts a counterweight on the fairness scale. It obligates us to “reciprocate” for the benefits we receive from others, and society. Otherwise, our society would soon devolve into an unsustainable pattern of altruism and exploitation. Not only is the “norm of reciprocity,” in sociologist Alvin Gouldner’s term, a universal ethical principle in human societies, but a rudimentary version of it has been found in primate societies as well.
Capitalism versus socialism
For the past 150 years, the political debate in Western societies over how a society should be organized, and what is fair to all of its citizens, has been dominated by two simplistic, one-sided doctrines – capitalism and socialism. As I discuss in some detail in my recent book, The Fair Society, both of these polarizing ideologies are based on flawed assumptions about human nature and the basic purpose of a society. Both also discount the extent to which our cultural norms and expectations, including our ideologies, shape the “rules of the game.” And both have been responsible for inciting some of the most colossal human tragedies of our era. But most important, both capitalism and socialism are at once fair in some ways and deeply unfair in others.
Capitalist and socialist ideologies are dinosaurs on their way to extinction
Briefly, capitalism encourages initiative, innovation, and risk-taking, and it lavishly rewards economic achievements — although it can also be brutal toward worthy efforts that are not successful, or just unlucky. More serious, capitalism is indifferent to any external standard of reciprocity (and shrugs at economic exploitation), and it is cavalier about whether or not the basic needs of a society and its members are adequately provided for. The theory that the benefits of capitalism will “trickle down” to the workers and the rest of society is, to put it mildly, unreliable. Witness the fact that about one-quarter of the population in our own “rich” capitalist country is living in more or less severe poverty. And our society is hardly an exception.
Socialism, on the other hand, comes in many different flavors, but the common core is an egalitarian concern for our basic needs and a more equal distribution of wealth. Yet socialism can also be blind to (and may even suppress) the claims of merit, and it displays little concern for the norm of reciprocity. Karl Marx’s mantra “From each according to his [or her] abilities, to each according to his needs” is insufficient. It needs to be supplemented with: “From each according to his/her benefits, to each according to his/her contributions.”
The alternative: a “Fair Society”
We need to move beyond the dead-end debate between the promoters of capitalism and socialism. We need to develop a “third way.” I refer to it as the “Fair Society” model. It’s a vision that combines the three fundamental fairness principles – equality, equity and reciprocity — and it seeks to strike a balance between them.
How can we do that? The first obligation of any society is to provide for the basic needs of all of its members as a “social right.” This is our “prime directive,” to borrow a term from the TV series Star Trek. Although the idea of social rights is hardly new, we now appreciate that it poses a major societal challenge. Fully implementing it would require an ambitious “fourteen-points” reform agenda that encompasses all of our common basic needs.
Beyond the provisioning of our basic needs, however, any “surplus” wealth that our society produces should be distributed strictly according to “merit” – which means we must rein in the excesses and the many distortions associated with what has variously been called crony capitalism, predatory capitalism, klepto-capitalism, casino capitalism and winner-take-all capitalism.
Finally, it’s imperative that everyone should contribute a fair share. This requirement applies to the rich and poor alike (with certain obvious exceptions like children, the infirm and the extreme elderly). We have a duty to reciprocate in return for the benefits we receive from society. Otherwise, we are in effect “free riders” on the efforts and the contributions of others. We turn them into involuntary altruists.
A three-legged stool
What would a “Fair Society” look like? How can we achieve equality in relation to providing for our inescapable basic needs, along with full and fair recognition for merit and proportionate reciprocity? The answer, to borrow a metaphor from the sociologist Amitai Etzioni, is that we need a three-legged stool.
The first and most important leg of the stool is an unqualified commitment to our prime directive. I refer to it as a “basic needs guarantee.” This requires us to take collective responsibility for satisfying the fourteen basic biological needs of all the members of our society. A basic needs guarantee would not simply be concerned with mending our badly frayed safety net, so that we are better able to cope with calamities. The goal is to assure that the full range of all of our common needs is satisfied on an ongoing basis, especially the needs of the next generation.
This implies a commitment to positive social development and a cradle-to-the-grave “package” of goods and services (from adequate pre-natal care to end-of-life care). It includes such basic resources as ample (clean) fresh water, clean (renewable) energy, convenient low-cost transportation services, accessible and affordable health care (including mental health services), safe streets, quality child care, free lifetime public education and job training (because it ultimately benefits our society in many different ways), along with such traditional basics as healthful food, adequate shelter and a healthy environment.
A cradle-to-the-grave basic needs program would not have to start from scratch, of course. It would build on our existing private enterprise economic system and a century of public sector social welfare experience in this country, not to mention our vitally important private and religious institutions and charities. However, it would also require a mobilization of resources far beyond anything now on our national agenda.
Impossible? Just look at some European countries…and the U.S. during the New Deal and the post-war years.
By far the most effective first step toward achieving this goal would be to provide quality employment to everyone who is willing and able to work, at a realistic living wage and not our delusional minimum wage. This is an older social ideal that has been largely abandoned as a policy goal in this country over the past 30 years. Employment opportunities for everyone who is able work is by far the most dignified, efficient and fair way to provide for the many unmet basic needs of our people. And where the private sector cannot generate good employment, a more robust public sector employment program should provide a back-stop as the “employer of last resort.” (This is an idea that traces back to the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, in the 1930s and the Employment Act of 1946.) A public sector jobs initiative could also provide many additional benefits for our hard-pressed states and local communities, including much-needed public service jobs and a reduction in safety net financial burdens for the states. At the same time, it would satisfy the requirement for reciprocity. The benefits would be earned.
From shareholder to stakeholder capitalism
The second major element of the Fair Society model – the second leg of the stool — involves reforming the private sector, so that it is tethered more closely to the underlying purpose of society as a collective survival enterprise. Capitalism is preeminently a system that rewards various forms of “merit” – the second of our three fairness precepts. This remains a crucially important moral value. But capitalism in its present form violates this principle in many ways.
One part of the solution involves an increase in the role of local not-for-profit and cooperative enterprises. But equally important, there needs to be a shift in our corporate sector toward what has been called “stakeholder capitalism.” Although the term itself is only now gaining popularity, the basic concept is not new. Its roots can be traced back at least to origins of the “corporatist” industrial model first developed in Germany in the 1870s, where workers are given seats on corporate boards under a policy called “co-determination”
Stakeholder capitalism implies that all of the stakeholders in a company – investors, managers, workers, suppliers, joint venture partners, customers, and, of course, the community at large should have a greater voice in influencing its key decisions, policies and practices. Stakeholder capitalism is preeminently a way to change the power balance in capitalism, in the interest of achieving fairness toward all of the stakeholders, including society at large.
One example of how this model can work is the Organic Valley Family of Farms (and its CROPP farmer cooperative), a remarkable success story that may be the best thing that has happened to small family farms in this country in the past 100 years.
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A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT DISGUISED AS A BUSINESS
Most farmers today, especially small farmers, are in thrall to the huge, powerful food conglomerates – General Foods, General Mills, Nabisco, Swift, Smithfield, and others – and are completely at their mercy when it comes to the prices they receive for their produce and the level of debt they are required to take on in order to be “efficient” and “competitive”. Organic Valley is changing this exploitative dynamic.
In essence, Organic Valley is a kind of hybrid cross between a member-owned cooperative and a textbook for-profit business venture. It was founded initially by a small group of Wisconsin farmers as a dairy cooperative back in 1988, and it continues to this day to be controlled and managed by its farmer-members. Now numbering more than 1,500 farms nationwide with annual revenues of more than $600 million, Organic Valley is managed in a remarkably democratic fashion. The CEO is one of the founding farmers. The board of directors is elected by farmer-members, and each of the company’s product lines (referred to as product “pools”) is actively guided by farmer committees that are also elected. The CEO, George Siemon, likes to call it “a social experiment disguised as a business.”
The most important achievement of Organic Valley, however, is the prices that are paid to the farmers. They are much more stable and much more generous than is the case with conventional agricultural prices. In 2008, when milk prices for most dairy farmers followed a saw-tooth pattern and ended the year at about $16.75 per hundred weight, Organic Valley farmers were receiving a consistent price averaging $24.75. In other words, the higher prices you may pay for Organic Valley products in your grocery store also directly benefit our hard-pressed small farmers.
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The third leg of the stool, which is vital to support the other two, is reciprocity. We should take to heart the saying attributed to the great fourteenth century Muslim scholar and polymath, Ibn Khaldun: “He who takes from society without giving back is a thief.” The question is, How can we close the loop? What social obligations must we as beneficiaries of the common good undertake in return?
Part of the answer involves what could be called a public service ethic. National service in the form of a military draft was an obligation that previous generations of Americans accepted as a legitimate duty, although the tragedy of the much-hated Vietnam War undermined this tradition. Nowadays, national service programs like the Peace Corps and Americorps provide other opportunities for public service beyond joining the military, and more new service programs have recently been added by President Obama.
But this is only a start. Why not expand on these precedents and establish a life-long public service obligation? This could include, say, one full year of national service for everyone who is able to so, or two years for those who receive special benefits like college tuition assistance. In addition, we could build on our rich volunteer heritage as a nation and greatly augment the volunteer work that is already being done by so many of our churches and civic organizations. Everyone should be expected to volunteer for unpaid community service on an ongoing basis – like the volunteer fire fighters and hospital volunteers who still serve in many of our communities. If all of us were to give volunteer time on a regular basis, imagine how much our local communities would be enriched.
Grasping the “third rail”
A more formidable reciprocity challenge involves firmly grasping what has been termed the “third rail” of American politics and making radical changes in our tax code, in the interest of having everyone pay a fair share of the cost for having a fair society. (Some of the many reform options are discussed in my book.) This would also include significant tax increases, despite the strong political opposition to the idea. The fact is that our tax burden is currently the lowest by far of any industrialized nation. In 2012, according to the authoritative CIA World Fact Book, our taxes (including Social Security and Medicare) amounted to 22% of our Gross Domestic Product. This compares with, among others, 40.4% for the United Kingdom, 45.1% for Germany, 46.3% for the Netherlands, 51.3% for Sweden, 51.9% for France, and 55.9% for Denmark. Even Canada ranks well ahead of us at 37.5%. Not surprisingly, every one of these nations has a smaller income disparity and better health statistics and life expectancy than we do.
All great political changes begin with a vision of what the future could be like. As the saying goes, the idea is the father (and mother) of the deed. The vision of a Fair Society that combines equality, equity and reciprocity in every part of our society represents a moral foundation that could undergird a broad, many-faceted agenda of cultural changes and political reforms. The key to achieving this goal will be to build a broad political movement that is dedicated to making it happen. We know such a goal is attainable. As a nation, we saw great progress toward fairness during the New Deal era and after World War Two. Today we can point to a number of other, mostly European societies that are much closer to the goal of a fair society.
There are also many precedents in our own history for major political sea changes – the abolitionist movement against slavery in the nineteenth century, the progressive reformers who reined in the “robber barons” at the turn of the twentieth century, the battle for women’s suffrage in the early decades of the last century, the convulsive struggle for civil rights in the 1960s and, most recently, our breathtaking progress toward gay rights.
These days there are many nodes in our society that are working to catalyze progressive change, including the movements (such as the People Centered Development Forum) inspired by the visionary work of David Korten. As the TV host and commentator Bill Moyers has observed, “The only answer to organized money is organized people.” In other words, our future is up to us.