In All Fairness
eBook - ePub

In All Fairness

Equality, Liberty, and the Quest for Human Dignity

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

In All Fairness

Equality, Liberty, and the Quest for Human Dignity

About this book

Has growing concern about inequality led to proposals to remake American society according to ill-conceived and coercive "egalitarian" measures that are fundamentally unjust and harmful?

This unique book reveals the modern romance with equality of outcomes as destructive folly. Those elites and bureaucrats who advocate such notions claim that they champion the poor—but more often than not the nostrums of this managerial class undermine, rather than advance, economic and civil liberties, mass prosperity and human well-being.

The authors of In All Fairness challenge all of the prevailing "egalitarian ideas," including the claim that market-based societies are riven by the social injustice of inequity in the first place. After all, an economy thrives with a division of labor that allows individuals who are unequal in interests and talents to pursue their own unique goals. Looked at in this way, equality is far more widespread than misplaced rhetoric might lead one to expect—as factual data show.

But it is an equality of a particularly valuable type—one arrived at, not by top-down, oilgarchic attempts to impose economic uniformity, but by our respecting inviolable rules of fair play and the dignity of each person, a dignity that requires everyone to respect the voluntary transactions of others. This approach holds equity, liberty, diversity, and prosperity together. Would we want it any other way in America and anywhere around the world?

The authors draw on economics, philosophy, religion, law, political science, and history to provide answers to a perennial question that especially agitates the American public today: Can the coercive powers of the state be used to achieve a kind of arithmetic equality? The authors, each in their own way, make a strong case that such powers should never be used in this fashion.

Love inequality or loathe it, In All Fairness is full of key insights about the connections among fairness, liberty, equality and the quest for human dignity. You won’t think about wealth and poverty, equality and inequality, in the same way ever again.

Frequently asked questions

Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
No, books cannot be downloaded as external files, such as PDFs, for use outside of Perlego. However, you can download books within the Perlego app for offline reading on mobile or tablet. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
  • Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
  • Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
Both plans are available with monthly, semester, or annual billing cycles.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere — even offline. Perfect for commutes or when you’re on the go.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access In All Fairness by Robert M. Whaples,Michael C. Munger,Christopher J. Coyne in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Economic Policy. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Foreword. The Theoretical and Practical Pitfalls in Egalitarian Thought—Richard A. Epstein
  6. Introduction. New Thinking on Equality, Liberty, and Human Dignity—Robert M. Whaples
  7. Part I. Problems with the Modern Philosophy of Egalitarianism
  8. Part II. The Historical Development of Egalitarian Ideas
  9. Part III. Egalitarianism, Economic Performance, and the Laws of Economics
  10. Notes
  11. Bibliography
  12. About the Editors and Contributors
  13. Credits