A 2017 Yale study revealed that people prefer fair inequality over unfair equality (eg, BBC, BT, Nature, NS). I recognised this outcome immediately, and only wondered Why. This study may even explain the fall of communism, the continued decline of social democracy, and the current attacks on privileged segments of society (eg, Incel movement, men, Whites).
Fair and unfair are personal and subjective views while equality and inequality are more or less objective and impersonal criteria for a society at large. Obviously, anyone prefers her or his (personal and subjective) situation to be fair rather than unfair. Hence, “half” of the outcome of this study already makes perfect sense.
In general, people do not like economic equality (eg, communism) as this ignores their individual talents, which is deemed unfair. Moreover, “experiments” with economic equality only caused enormous inequality between the masses and the people in power (eg, China, Cuba, Russia).
The American Dream is based on economic inequality and the (personal and subjective) hope that a person’s situation will improve in the (near) future. Taking that dream and hope away is deemed unfair. Hence, the American Dream is – probably – most people’s dream.
The assumption line – from the left lower corner to the right upper corner – expresses our hope that our future situation will improve.
The optimal situation is fair inequality instead of fair equality. Fair equality might even be an oxymoron – or contradiction.
A lack of economic inequality has been achieved in most Western countries, apart from UK and USA. Hence, Western socialism and social democracy have little left to offer to their voters. Both have thus been rapidly declining in Continental Europe. Their turn towards either Globalism (a.k.a. Internationalism) or Nationalism offers new opportunities in future elections (my blogs).
The contemporary attacks on privileged parts of society are efforts to remove remaining social inequality (eg, Incel movement, men, Whites). Their view is that privileges should be earned rather than inherited. By definition, some “privileges” are inherited, like sex and/or skin colour.
As always, the initial 80% of our efforts requires 20% of our time, while the final 20% of our efforts takes 80% of our time. This Pareto principle has nothing to do with fair or not fair.
Not Fair (2009) by Lily Allen – artist, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise
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