In some intellectual circles the desirability of equality of outcome has become an article of religious faith: everyone should finish the race at the same time. As the Dodo said in Alice in Wonderland, "Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.".....
if what people get is determined by "fairness" and not by what they produce, where are the "prizes" to come from? What incentive is there to work and produce? How is it to be decided who is to be the doctor, who the lawyer, who the garbage collector, who the street sweeper? What assures that people will accept the roles assigned to them and perform those roles in accordance with their abilities? Clearly, only force or the threat of force will do. -------- Milton Friedman in his book "Free To Choose"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
hehey, one of my favourite paragraph in the book as well. However, I was started thinking that, if we viewed gaining the entrance to good university is an end/result/goal to some (after the hard work of study), but to others it is part of the mean (they might think that getting good job via good school). Get what I mean?
Always, the result of one thing is the mean to achieve something else, so there isn't any incompatibility of means and results. More important is whether everyone is given the same, fair consideration based solely on his/her abilities and hardworks when it comes to deciding whom should gain access to the said means and results. In that we see the virtue of equality of oppportunity as the fundamental force which drives our societies forward.
Post a Comment