What Liberals Believe About Fairness

Third in a series on the liberal perspective on human rights.

Liberals also support human rights because of an innate sense of fairness.  Liberals understand that legal equality does not mean equality of condition or results.  Some people will always be wealthier or smarter, some are good artists or athletes and others are not.  Not every student who applies will get accepted for enrollment into the college of their choice.  But what liberals really want to foster is a society where everyone has an equal opportunity to try, and a fair chance to acquire the tools for success. 

That’s why liberals always fight so hard to get better funding for poorer school districts, or poorer areas within a school district.  That’s why they are in favor of keeping college tuition as low as possible, with plenty of scholarship help available.  The statistics strongly show that kids from poorer families and families in which English is not the primary language do worse in school, have lower graduation rates, lower college attendance and graduation rates and lower lifetime incomes.  They also have higher incidences of unwed pregnancies, incarceration, chronic health problems and shorter life expectancies. 

Part of the reason liberals are concerned and want to do something about these problems comes from empathy and compassion.  It doesn’t feel right to send kids into the struggle of life with two strikes against them due to the financial conditions of their parents.  The other reason is pragmatic.  If equalizing school funding will help reduce crime, the dropout rate, the prison population, health care costs and result in more qualified students going to college and becoming successful members of the middle class, liberals wonder why would anyone not want to do it?The fairness issue goes beyond this to many facets of life and policy.  It’s why liberals favor a graduated income tax rather than the “flat tax” idea wealthy conservatives push.  In the early twentieth century Liberals and Progressives, including Republican and Democrats, passed the Sixteenth Amendment authorizing a federal income tax.  The principle was to make wealthier folks pay a higher rate of tax, based on the idea that first, they could afford it better, and second, they benefit more from what the taxes buy. 

How so?  Why not collect everything from, say, a sales tax, where everyone would pay the same percentage?  Well, the poor have to spend just about everything they earn just to get by.  Rent, groceries and the essentials of life take up almost the entire income.  So the poor would pay taxes on everything they earn.  The wealthy have a bigger cushion.  They don’t spend all their income, so they would not have to pay taxes on the part they invest or put away for things like college and retirement, things the poor person can scarcely do.  The rich also benefit more from the services government provides.  Police and fire protection guard the tycoon’s mansion, worth millions, from harm, conferring a much greater benefit than the same service provided to the average person’s humble house or apartment. 

Consider also that the same city street is worth different amounts to different interests.  Suppose a bank teller needs the street to get to work, and makes $30,000 a year.  Without the street this worker couldn’t get to the job, costing him or her $30,000 in earnings.  But the same street is worth a lot more to the bank.  Suppose the bank has 1,000 customers and $50,000,000 on deposit.  If the city doesn’t keep the street up and customers can’t get to the bank, they will likely take their deposits somewhere else.  The street, maintained at taxpayer expense, is worth $30,000 to the teller but $50,000,000 to the bank owner.  Is it fair to assess them the same amount for its upkeep?  Based on their relative abilities to pay and the relative value they get back, the liberal would say, “Definitely not!  That’s not fair.”