Quid pro quo

What is fair in a society? Does it mean everything equal for everyone? Or does it mean that allocation for the majority. What if the minority is consists of thousands of people? Surely if you are one of the thousand people considered as the minority, you would feel unfair for whatever plight you are in. You look around you, and you are able to find a quite a lot of people in similar condition(in absolute terms) and you therefore wonder what the hell the government is doing.

The problem of fairness in a society is a perplexing and vexing one for there is no 1 good solution to it. The concept of what is fair and what is not needs a little defining. If by fair we mean equality, then that is a no good definition. Because by simple observation, the world is created unequal. By fairness, we mean getting what we deserve. But how do we judge how much we deserve? There is no absolute guidepost here, but only relative and cultural norms to guide us. The amount of effort put in, deserves what quantity of result, is a big question. And then, there's the problem of high quality effort, and low quality effort. Using brute force, but not actually accomplishing anything, does it merit any reward? Certainly we feel unfair in such situations, having expended so much effort, but only to find little output and hence little reward.

A society may allocate/reward on basis of output, or it may allocate/reward on basis of input. But which one is better? Allocation of rewards on basis of output, such as meritocracy, performance, profits, etc, leads to one group of people getting little reward. For them, the situation appears unfair. "Hey, I have put in alot of effort here, but why am I not getting what I deserve?" The problem is that quality is a big factor, and these people simply have only expended low quality effort, despite them of putting in a large quantity of effort. Others who expended high quality effort, find that they achieve the required output, for much less effort. Is this fair? If a society allocate/rewards on the quantity of inputs, we find that the resulting allocation is less than optimal, or even likely to impede the incentive for society to improve itself over long term. This is because there is no incentive to engage in finding new ways to improve quality of input. One simply puts in some low quality effort, draws a comfortable level of reward and life goes by day after day. After all, if one needs to improve the quality of effort, one needs to invest time and more effort, to learn skills, or do some thinking. Then the only times, when society will ever progress in terms of productivity, is when the aha! factor comes in, and that is a random event.

Recently, the price of rice has been shooting upwards. For the rice growers, the farmers, people who have writing and ranting about the oppressively low prices/wages of these farmers, it is good news. Finally some form of better life in sight. But what about the rest of us who do not grow rice, unable to grow rice? We have to endure with higher living expenses for we spend alot on rice everyday. So which is the fair situation? One where the people enjoys lower living expenses on commodities, but the people who sell these commodities have to suffer low income, or one where the living expenses are high due to high prices of commodities, but people who sell these commodities get to enjoy better living standards, thanks to rising profits.

Curious how the concept of fairness is so frequently founded on the basis the self-centered interests.