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True Fairness Means Rewarding Merit, Not Spreading the Wealth

May. 20, 2012 9:11pm

Arthur Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute.

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President Obama apparently aims to turn fairness into the theme of this election year. He used the word “fair” or “fairness” nine times in his State of the Union address, and fourteen times in his Osawatomie, Kansas speech the month before.

This goes beyond mere rhetoric. Take the so-called “Buffett Rule,” a proposed special tax hike just for families making over a million dollars in a year.

Though the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the Buffett Rule would raise only about $47 billion over a decade–roughly the amount Americans will spend on Halloween and Easter candy over the same period–the White House has spent an exorbitant amount of time the last few months plugging this idea. This is not because it would do anything meaningful to address our fiscal imbalance, but because it would be “fair.”

But here’s the problem: The president never defines what he means by “fair.” And this is for a simple reason: his definition is simply not recognizable to most Americans.

There are two main ways to define fairness: fairness in terms of opportunity, and fairness in terms of outcomes. The first means leveling the playing field, and the second means spreading the wealth around. The first means lifting people up on the basis of merit, and the second means bringing successful people down.

By focusing on raising taxes on the wealthy rather than pursuing meaningful policies to reduce unemployment or encourage economic growth, the President is using this second definition of fairness.

Fortunately, most Americans understand that the president’s definition is completely off base. They believe that true fairness means rewarding merit, not spreading the wealth. Consider the following question from the 2006 World Values Survey. A large sample of Americans were asked to envision two secretaries of the same age doing the same job, but where one secretary was more efficient and reliable than the other secretary. Respondents were asked if it was fair that the better secretary was paid more than the other. Over 88 percent of respondents thought it was fair.

Brooks: True Fairness Means Rewarding Merit, Not Spreading the Wealth

Dr. Brooks's new book; The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise (Basic Books)

Of course, this is only fair if the better secretary got her skills through hard work. Americans would say she most likely did. The idea that hard work and success are closely, if not perfectly, related is a core American value, and one that we’ve held for a long time. For almost 40 years, the General Social Survey has been asking Americans whether “hard work” or “lucky breaks and help from other people are more important” in determining whether people set successful. Every time the question has been asked, between 60 and 70 percent of Americans have said “hard work.” The highest percentage of respondents to say “lucky breaks” is 16.

In a 2005 Syracuse University poll, researchers asked a cross-section of Americans if they believe that “everyone in American society has an opportunity to succeed, most do, or only some have this opportunity.” Some 71 percent of respondents said that all or most Americans can get ahead.

This is consistent with most of our experiences. It’s almost impossible to argue that American success is not earned. We can all think of times when our hard work has gotten us ahead or when we’ve been punished at work or in life for making poor decisions. Even if America’s not perfectly meritocratic, we all see how hard work pays off.

Now, of course, America is far from perfectly fair. But that’s because life isn’t fair. For instance, all other things being equal, taller men and prettier women make higher salaries than their shorter, plainer counterparts. Believe it or not, there are studies that show these things (as if we needed them). More seriously, some people have substandard elementary education or childhood nutrition, which creates a lifelong disadvantage. Worse still, some children are born into families that don’t emphasize the values that beget opportunity: honesty, hard work, and education.

We need to address these inequities. Still, we shouldn’t abandon the idea of meritocratic fairness just because not everybody has completely equal opportunity. But this is what the president appears to be asking us to do.

America is built around the shared values and aspirations of mobility, opportunity, and merit. Even if only, say, half the outcomes in our life are due to merit, that’s still the half within our control. We should focus on increasing the role of merit, not dismiss the idea because it’s imperfect. Without a belief in meritocratic fairness, we have little incentive to work hard, be honest and optimistic, and create value in our lives and the lives of others. Fatalism and envy are simply not American values.

Besides, what is the alternative? There’s only one: a society based solely on luck or power. In other words, we can fashion a society around the idea of merit, however imperfect, or just give in to a society of bank bailouts and corporate cronyism.

So how do we become a fairer society? We have to rely more on the institutions that support merit and less on policies that reward naked power. Policies that allow and support free enterprise and entrepreneurship make it more likely that we’ll have a meritocratic society based on hard work, ingenuity, and responsible risk taking.

We’ve seen too many instances of cronyism masquerading as free enterprise and meritocracy. When companies get ahead because of friends in Washington or by gaming the regulatory environment, that’s not meritocratic. And we should all stand up to these excesses and call them out, and we should work to limit the ability of politicians to play into these games. There’s nothing meritocratic about bailouts or special tax breaks for favored industries.

And to the extent our society falls short of its meritocratic ideals in ways we can control, we should seek to rectify the causes, not the symptoms. That means both dealing with the root of alterably unequal opportunity and decreasing the ability of the politically connected to make up rules for their own benefit.

Most Americans believe that we are an opportunity society, albeit imperfectly. We may have differences of opinion about the policies that best support opportunity. But we should have no doubt about the goal, and we should acknowledge that the vision of an opportunity society, warts and all, still lies at the heart of the American dream.

America is not perfectly fair, because life is not perfectly fair. We should focus on building a fairer America based on opportunity and merit, not envy and anger.

That is, after all, what true fairness is all about.

Arthur Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute and author of The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise (Basic Books). Learn more about making the moral case for free enterprise and why it matters at arthurbrooks.aei.org.

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Comments (13)

grumpy77
Posted on May 27, 2012 at 1:15am
The reason you see only two alternatives is because you don’t want to give up the one you have, because its unfairness benefits you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t stop at “We need to address these inequities. Still, we shouldn’t abandon the idea of meritocratic fairness just because not everybody has completely equal opportunity.” You would say “meritocracy doesn’t actually mean anything unless there is completely equal opportunity. That’s the first thing.” But no, you’re intellectually lazy and comfortable in your white maleness, and beside that, are really only pretending to care. So I guess I won’t, in the end, order your book.

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okredstate
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 1:41pm
No matter how right the right is on this issue, how do you deal with people like the nut job teacher in North Carolina? Facts mean nothing.

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fbanta
Posted on May 21, 2012 at 10:51pm
Obama has no rational concept of ‘fair’. If he did he wouldn’t embrace Black Liberation Theology or Critical Legal Theory both of which are based on the precept that nothing in society is fair to people of color: holding everyone to the same standards of performance to them is prejudicial against them. This of course is pure racism because they are essentially claiming that based solely on their race they are unable to compete on an equal basis.

The great irony of course that racism is applied in order to create the illusion of non-racism. Unfortuantely it has corrupted the entire education system in America as verified by the steady decline of US academic performance since 1965.

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The Third Archon
Posted on May 21, 2012 at 6:53pm
“And to the extent our society falls short of its meritocratic ideals in ways we can control, we should seek to rectify the causes, not the symptoms. That means both dealing with the root of alterably unequal opportunity and decreasing the ability of the politically connected to make up rules for their own benefit.”
I agree with you there, in fact so do most Radicals, Liberals, Conservatives, and Libertarians alike, at least most of them claim to, but the devil is in the details and the problem is that there is no clear solution TO the causes that is agreed upon–the whole REASON why there are different political ideologies isn’t always a difference of goal, but often (as the case is here) a disagreement about HOW that goal can be achieved and the best way to do so.

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The Third Archon
Posted on May 21, 2012 at 6:40pm
“This is consistent with most of our experiences. It’s almost impossible to argue that American success is not earned. We can all think of times when our hard work has gotten us ahead or when we’ve been punished at work or in life for making poor decisions. Even if America’s not perfectly meritocratic, we all see how hard work pays off.”
If only that were true of the whole economy, and the whole society. It’s not surprising though, that you would have that experience–those who DON’T succeed are largely unrepresented, and socioeconomic stratification on a geographic basis is more pronounced than ever before. You and those you know only share your experiences BECAUSE they largely share your socioeconomic class. The higher up the socioeconomic ladder you are, the more you have to go out of your way to even COME IN CONTACT with people of lower socioeconomic class than you. So it should come at no surprise when the wealthy lead entirely separate lives from the poor, that they know nothing about their life experiences, viz-a-viz Romney.

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The Third Archon
Posted on May 21, 2012 at 6:34pm
“Of course, this is only fair if the better secretary got her skills through hard work. Americans would say she most likely did. The idea that hard work and success are closely, if not perfectly, related is a core American value, and one that we’ve held for a long time. For almost 40 years, the General Social Survey has been asking Americans whether “hard work” or “lucky breaks and help from other people are more important” in determining whether people set successful. Every time the question has been asked, between 60 and 70 percent of Americans have said “hard work.“ The highest percentage of respondents to say ”lucky breaks” is 16.”
That probes what people THINK is responsible for success, not what actually IS responsible for success, and OF COURSE people prefer to believe that the factors determining their own success are in their control rather than not.

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The Third Archon
Posted on May 21, 2012 at 6:25pm
“There are two main ways to define fairness: fairness in terms of opportunity, and fairness in terms of outcomes. The first means leveling the playing field, and the second means spreading the wealth around. The first means lifting people up on the basis of merit, and the second means bringing successful people down.”
Yes, and in the status quo, neither of those is the case. Drive through a ghetto, get to know the people there–then tell me if you REALLY HONESTLY believe, that those people have the SAME opportunity to succeed and achieve the fantastic levels of wealth held by the capitalist class, as say someone born into a middle class family with nice home in suburbia, two cars, the ability to get loans from home equity, some semblance of an ability to pay for college, etc., or even better someone BORN into the capitalist class, with everything money can buy, from educational opportunities, leisure time, healthcare, good food, etc.

Those who claim otherwise, that people DO have equal opportunity to succeed based upon individual merit and effort, that all people have the same choices, the same opportunities, from which to choose our destiny, are simply ignorant of the facts, having enjoyed the privilege of blessed ignorance of the constraints upon one’s choices and opportunities that socioeconomic class imposes.

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- Tom K
  Posted on May 22, 2012 at 4:38pm
  @ THE THIRD ARCHON : Four Posts, but what is the point ? Dictators, whether Socialists or Communists, are NOT Fair and have No concept of Fairness. The ” Ineligible One ” must be removed at the ballot box or by other legal means.
  
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blair152
Posted on May 21, 2012 at 5:35pm
Unfortunately, there are some people who want to be on the road to serfdom.

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Count Yob
Posted on May 21, 2012 at 3:25pm
The mantra of the wealthy banksters is to privatize the profits and socialize the losses. They’re “too big to fail” you see.

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BetterAngelsofournature
Posted on May 21, 2012 at 2:24pm
Well put. Also, watch Mark Rubio’s recent speech where he states it plainly: “Never before have we been a nation who teaches our children that the way to move up is being holding others down, to envy those who are successful rather than to celebrate their achievements…” I’m paraphrasing him but his words are spot on.

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AllAmericanGirl22
Posted on May 21, 2012 at 1:21pm
That’s exactly right, and also common sense: you work hard, you make money, you should get to keep it.

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fbanta
Posted on May 21, 2012 at 10:37am
I can find nothing in the Constitution that requires or authorizes the president to define, invoke, monitor, or establish “fairness”. I do see that he is required to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution” (that ISN’T fundamentally transform, BTW). I do see that he is required “to take care that the laws are faithfully executed”; that he is required to assure every State has a Republican form of government; and that he is required to assure that States are not invaded.

Federal authority is predicated on compliance with the solemn oath of office. If and when a federal officer acts in such a manner as to repudiate their oath of office, they consequently repudiate their authority to continue to serve their office.

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