Justice vs Fairness

 What is the difference between justice and fairness?

The classic case concerns the five eight year old boys who decide they need a birthday cake for their party, and they assign one kid to bake it because he knows how and his house has a kitchen, which some of them are too poor to have, and they pitch in for the ingredients. They then ask him to cut the cake and they draw straws for the order of choosing, and he winds up getting the last choice of slices and cutting a cake in fifths, being difficult, he winds up with the smallest slice.

This is an example of fairness--each kid had a equal chance at a slice--but not justice, the baker argues.

He, after all, did more work, which should entitle him to the biggest slice. But the other kids argue he was assigned the task because he was lucky enough to be born rich and to have a kitchen. It was just to allow every kid an equal chance. But he says it was not just because he worked harder and contributed more. 

When we look at Republicans vs Democrats in America today, the typical Republican auto repair shop owner, or HVAC guy tends to see things from the point of view of the baker--I work harder and I should get more of the fruits of my labor. Why should I give away profit to those who did not work as hard?

Democrats tend to say: they never had a chance to work as hard and whatever comes out of a group effort should be evenly distributed, even if the workload is not evenly shared.

The doctor who owns his medical practice may complain about the share of the practice income he has to share with his secretary and with his nurse, especially as they work nine to five but he has to make rounds at the hospital after work and he is clearly the most valuable part of the enterprise.  The efforts of the staff are limited and the responsibility of meeting a payroll are not shared, nor are the responsibilities of meeting higher insurance and rent costs. The staff gets paid no matter what exigencies arise. The doctor has to figure out how to meet those exigencies and meet the payroll no matter what.

(For this reason 90% of American physicians--not surgeons--have given up private practice and are now employees getting W-2 forms as salaried employees.)

There is a wonderful scene in David Lean's movie, "Dr. Zhivago" when Zhivago finally arrives home from the war and he is met at the door to his family home, an imposing townhouse in Moscow, by a woman, an official of the new Communist regime, who informs him that his family now lives in two upstairs rooms in the house, and five other families now occupy the rest of the house. 

"Fifteen people now live in a house which once housed only five people," says the official archly.

"Oh, yes," replies Zhivago, "This is much more just."

The problem with justice, is it often means some individual is shafted.

Another scene, this one from "The West Wing"  when Jed Bartlet, then governor of New Hampshire,  is asked by a voter who owned a dairy farm, and who had voted for Bartlet twice, why Bartlet had vetoed a bill which would have raised milk prices and the voter felt betrayed. 

"Yep, I screwed you," Bartlet replied. "But it was either that or making milk prices unaffordable for the parents of poor kids; so, you make less money now, but kids can get their milk. If you want to vote for someone else, who'll put more money in your pockets, I can't blame you, but that would not be me."

So there you have it, fairness (act in the interest of the people who supported you) or justice--allow poor kids to get their milk.

Paper Boy

In my own life, the classic fairness vs justice story is well known in the family: One Christmas Eve my brother and I went out to collect the monthly payments for the Evening Star newspaper route owned by my brother (who was 12) but I delivered half of the route, for which I collected $3 a month, which he paid me out of the $18 a month the Star paid him. (At 7 years of age, I was too young to be employed by the Star. I was a subcontractor, serving at my brother's pleasure.)

On this particular night, my brother sent me to collect from one building he actually delivered in his half of the route. This was a neighborhood of "garden apartments," brick buildings built during World War II to house government workers who had flooded into Washington, D.C., just across the Potomac; each building had two apartments on each of three floors but there was only one customer who got his paper delivered in this particular building, and he lived on the third floor and my brother resented him, and did not want to hike up those three flights just to collect from that one door. So, I dutifully complied, racing up the stairs, ringing his door, and he appeared to find this breathless seven year old gasping out, "Collecting for the Star, sir."

He rummaged in his pockets and gave me the $3 for the bill and I gave him is receipt and said, "Merry Christmas," and slumped my shoulders dramatically, and slumped off down the stairs, slowly, piteously, hearing the door close behind me. But, by the time I reached the turn in the stairs at the second floor I hear the door open and, "Hey, kid!" and I went racing back up the stairs and the man held out a crisp $5 bill and said, "Merry Christmas, kid!" and I thanked him profusely and flew down the stairs to find my brother, retelling the whole story, flaunting the $5 bill, more money than I had ever held in my hand in my whole 7 year old life, dancing around, replaying how I had played it, slumped my shoulders like some Tiny Tim.

My brother snatched the bill from my hand and said, "That belongs to me."

"Why?"

"Because I delivered that guy's paper for the past twelve months, humping up those three flights of stairs and this is a tip for services rendered. It's my route and he's in the part of the route I deliver. It's only fair!"

That night we convened an emergency session of Family Court and, for once, I was not the defendant but the prosecutor/plaintiff. 

My father, sitting in his reading chair as usual heard the case as judge and jury, and my mother comprised the gallery, as always. Family Court was run according to standard rules of evidence, and the $5 bill lay on the coffee table, coveted by both the plaintiff and the defendant.

My father listened silently as I present the case, complete with a demonstration of slumped shoulders and how I had appealed to the Christian conscience of the customer and how I had played it, how I had walked slowly away to give him time to feel guilty at not having provided Tiny Tim with his Christmas turkey--that part evoked a suppressed laugh from my mother--and how he had responded to the whole act, and how it was the performance that accounted for his beneficence, not the twelve months of unwavering, reliable service as my brother argued.

My father asked for the defense summary, which my brother provided, without new arguments, simply saying it was his route, his customer and he deserved the tip which is a reward for faithful service,  not for collection drama.

My father did not look to my mother, but sat thinking, looking at his shoe tops.

"We cannot know the motivation of the customer," he said. "We do not have that critical testimony from that central witness, and thus we cannot know his motivation."

Thinking this was a case in which King Solomon really could split the baby, he said, "So, I'll give you $5," he told me, "And your brother can keep his $5."

"NO WAY!" I expostulated.  This had gone far beyond fairness. This was about justice!

I refused the $5, and my brother pocketed the bill and I did my best, until at least New Year's, to make him feel like Scrouge and he never spent that bill, as far as I know. He knew ill gotten gains when he saw it, and he knew fairness is not justice.