Apr 19th, 2003, 09:58 PM
On Equity and Equality
After briefly ruminating Vince's arguments on equality, particularly how he claims paying taxes where part goes to welfare (aka. lazy drug addicts free money fund) is not fair and the whole "equal before God" argument, I have realized just how fundamentally flawed his points really are.
Vince is confusing EQUITY with EQUALITY, and he treats them as if they are the same!
Equity is perceived in relation to others. The more inputs one puts in, the more outputs one expects. For example, if you are working in a group and do most of the work and Ronnie sits on his ass, you will expect to be rewarded more, preferably by way of taking away from any reward that Ronnie may have gotten. In this case, you would perceive the situation to be equitable (note: not equal!).
However, if Ronnie got the same or more than you, you would perceive this to be unfair and therefore inequitable (note: still not equality!). Ronnie had an opportunity to work, blew it and still wound up with the loot.
Equality has nothing to do with fairness or opportunities, but has everything to do with outcomes, regardless of inputs. This is where Vince gets it all wrong. He claims that it is "not fair" that someone can get welfare from his tax dollars, especially since the receipient of the welfare cheque isn't equal to him (incidentally, I have to also state that Vince suffers from several very grievous fundamental attribution errors and his self-bias is off the charts... in the wrong direction)!
Of course it's not really that fair when you take it for face value, but no one said life had to be fair. The welfare receipient IS equal in every aspect: they have been accorded all the same rights that Vince has, and they will be treated as such in every aspect.
The welfare receipient however, is not in an equitable relationship when compared to Vince. Vince works for a private school! He has weird rashes and gets letters from the Navy. Aside from the rashes, he has nothing in common with the welfare people. They don't have to work! They get money for free! From him! Vince alone is supporting the entire welfare system! It's not fair!
Rather than seeing the situation for what it truly is, Vince has trapped his mind in a wet paperbag of fucked up English and convinced himself that it's not fair because they're not equal, when it's really not fair because they are inequitable.
Unfortunately, Western society is based on equality. The laws and the government are based on equality. The God that Vince claims to follow is based on equality. Everyone gets treated the same, regardless of what they do or don't do. If the laws were EQUITABLE, there would be the eye-for-an-eye system that was discussed in a recent thread. If God were equitable, why, Heaven would be a million-storey building with all the saints at the top, everybody else crammed into the tenth basement level, and everything in between still for rent.
It really comes down to the fact that equity is the crutch of whiners and complainers. I bet that if Vince was receiving free money in the mail every month equal to three welfare cheques, he wouldn't complain about welfare nearly as much, since that situation would be much more equitable than receiving no money. Of course, he would probably whine about why he thinks he should be getting more.
Bottom line: equality isn't equity, equity isn't equality and life isn't fair, bar none. Stop complaining. Simple as that.
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