There must be government of the toddler, by the toddler, for the toddler - a comment on fairness

“It’s not fair!” The shrill voice of a young girl from across the café. “They don’t do hot chocolate with marshmallows.”

After a little smile at this innocent comment from a seven year old, I thought about the big bad grown up world. And there I hear that same cry every day – “it’s not fair” they say. “I have a right”, they say as if the conjuring of rights and of fairness changes anything about the fact that someone else has something you don’t.

There are times when the conduct of democratic politics becomes a toddler-esque bidding war over supposed “rights” and alleged “unfairness”. We are getting the revolution of the five year old – lots of stamping of feet, waving or arms and appeals to fairness. And – if that doesn’t work screaming and shouting, yelling and throwing things about.

One of the things I learned when I was five – and that I was reminded of every day henceforth – is that nothing’s fair and nothing’s right. We get dealt a hand in life and we make the most of it – there are some people who started with nothing who end up with plenty and a few others blessed with plenty who end up down there in the gutter. And it’s not fair.

So why is it that politicians from every direction seem to think that invoking “fairness” or speaking of “rights” is good thing? How did we get to the place where we could set out the appeal to voters as toddlers rather than voters as grown ups who know that we can’t have what we want?

As I heard that little girl’s voice, my thought was that – however her mum responded (and she didn’t say “life’s not fair” like she should have done) – we grow up to believe that we can appeal to Government to make things “fair”. And the politicians promise to make it all OK – to give us our “rights”, to make things “fair”, all the while knowing – as anyone who thinks about it for a second knows – that you can’t make it fair, you have no rights granted by government.

But we still vote for marshmallows don’t we.

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How do you measure "fair"?

OK so we are used to political campaigns, political parties and the media crying foul about one thing or another being “unfair”. You only need to look at the political slogans in this current election to see how important the word “fair” is to campaigning. “A Future Fair for All” cry the Labour Party, “Building a Fairer Britain” echo the Liberal Democrats and from the furthest corner pipes the Green Party with “Fair is Worth Fighting For!”

Now as my regular readers know, I have issues with the idea of fairness – not that I think we should set out to be “unfair” but that life is (as nearly everyone’s mum and dad says at some point) not fair. Some folk seem to be more fortunate, prettier, cleverer, wittier and less prone to saying stupid things when keeping one’s gob shut might be more sensible. But, since ‘fairness’ is so important, I thought I’d ask how we know whether this or that policy is actually making things more fair.

If I play Newmarket with you and clean up all the pennies – is that fair? If we both turn up for an interview and I get the job because the interviewer liked me and not you – is that fair? Is it fair to take something off Fred and give it to Joe because Fred has more of that something? And when Fred’s extra is the result of good fortune (or what we see as good fortune), what then?

Surely (and assuming we can define it) luck is normally distributed? Some people are very, very lucky and some unfortunate folk seem cursed with ill-fortune. Now the latter may be the result of getting on the wrong side of The Gentry but I suspect it more likely just the curse of mathematics – that bastard normal distribution curve again! It seems the only way to make things fairer is to compress the curve – to have fewer fortunates and fewer unfortunates.

Measuring fairness requires us to measure good fortune, to assess luck and to then take action to redress (in part) the negative impact of luck by removing from the lucky that which they have gained as a result of good fortune rather than some other means (hard work, for example). This is plainly nonsense – and perhaps explains why so many advocates of “fairness” reject out of hand any sensible quantitative approach to the assessment of Government policy. That it is seen as “fair” by these advocates is quite enough! We shouldn’t worry whether is really makes for better or happier lives – misery will be fairly distributed!