Social Equality vs. Fairness

I had a really interesting conversation over lunch today, which extended over Facebook into a wider discussion with other friends on the merits of equality vs. fairness.

This was sparked by the news that Lloyds TSB are to offer bank accounts which obey Shariah Law, and as part of that pay no interest, but interestingly, charge no overdraft interest either. This led me to kick off a discussion around how this was unfair on non-muslims. In general, as an atheist, I see many things in society that are deemed acceptable because they have a religious basis, which are ridiculous if you actually treat all religion with the same disdain. Why, for instance, do religious bodies get tax benefits and CoE ministers are paid by the tax payer to attend the beds of the terminally ill? This is surely not fair on the rest of us?

Now it turns out these bank accounts are actually available to anyone, so in theory, anyone could move a credit card balance to an agreed overdraft facility at Lloyds and get it interest fee. So, despite the pandering to the Islamic community to get more business (too cynical?) it's actually not unfair in that everyone is treated equally in that case, but let's stick with the equality-vs-fairness theme a while longer.

It got me thinking a little about the nature of fairness and equality in society, and I wondered if maybe fairness and equality are mutually exclusive. Let me try to explain my reasoning.

I suggest that fairness cannot be measured quantitively, and as such is a purely relative and subjective measure. Equality, however, CAN be measured. Let's look at an example to try to illustrate my point. I pay a higher rate of income tax because my income is in the high rate tax payers bracket (like nearly every other white collar IT consultant I'd say). Is this fair? Not on me it isn't! A percentage based system ensures the more you earn the more you pay, but arbitrarily I am on a higher percentage. That doesn't sound fair at all. However, society has deemed a certain set of social services which must be paid for, and that only works on a raked income tax system. If I agree with paying for schools, hospitals, care for the elderly, etc. that's just the way it is. We all have equal access to these services - the rules are largely applied equally to every member of our society, but it's hardly fair. I'm paying more for the same set of services.

Let's try to make this mathematical sounding to see if rules of equality and fairness can be made simple - let us talk about applying rule A to bodies X and Y. If rule A is applied to both, irrespective of any properties of X and Y this might suggest that both bodies have been treated equally. Rule A is applied blindly without any cause to refer to the bodies to which the rule is applied - a bit like access to the NHS. The NHS is free at the point of use, and all of us can rock up at A&E if we need to. Easy. If, however, the properties of X or Y are considered in the decision as to whether or not to apply rule A this would suggest that they are not treated equally in order to attempt to treat them fairly. So you get rules which target certain individuals which are fair, but by definition not promoting equality.

Let us make this a bit more real - let us say that body X is a man, and body Y is a woman. Now let us say that childcare benefit is provided only to body Y on the basis that she is a woman - this may seem fair (and indeed is largely how our society is still geared up) but it's hardly equal.

So society decides some abstract, empirical, historical, political and perhaps religious rules for defining the properties which define different types of bodies, and then these properties are factored into the rules, making any potential for an "equal" society surely impossible. Given that we can also not be fair to everyone it feels like in our attempt to be "fair" we are actually perpetuating social inequality in the truest sense of the word.

Would it be better to only apply rules which can be applied equally to everyone, and discard the rest? Most of our laws are like this - religious people who feel compelled to wear certain clothing still have to wear crash helmets on motorbikes, for instance. Equally, rules around trade and industry do not take account of Jewish dogma regarding the Sabbath - there are many examples like this. Those people may choose not to do certain things on certain days in the week, but there's no law (nor should there ever be a law) that says I can't buy stuff and work on a Saturday.

One problem with this whole post is that back to my first example, because, actually, anyone can apply for an Islam account with Lloyds TSB the rules are applied irrespective of any religion "property" the applicant may have, and so it is an equal rule, but in this case that also sounds fair, so it's possible this is a circular argument as in this case it is both equal and fair, which may make the whole thing moot, but I think the end result is that it is not possible to treat everyone equally because we are not equal. Some people need more social support than others, some people need to pay more tax than others, and we need to treat these people unequally in order to be fair.

The only thing society then needs to work out is what is a valid set of properties on which to base the differentiating rules - I would argue that we should restrict this to empirical and scientific based properties only, otherwise we'll end up chairing arguments between religions, psychics, homeopaths and astrologers, and that can only end up in a world of shit!