An article in the April edition of Nature Human Behavior argues that people are more concerned with economic unfairness than economic inequality, despite popular belief to the contrary.
The study, written by Christina Starmans, Mark Sheskin, and Paul Bloom, suggests humans actually prefer inequality. “Drawing upon laboratory studies, cross-cultural research, and experiments with babies and young children,” the authors write, “we argue that humans naturally favour fair distributions, not equal ones, and that when fairness and equality clash, people prefer fair inequality over unfair equality.”
When the data are examined more closely, the study argues, “it turns out that there is no evidence that people are actually concerned with economic inequality at all.”
Noting that preferences for unequal distributions manifest both in laboratory conditions and in the real world, the paper interpreted and analyzed a wealth of empirical data to conclude, “What really troubles people about the world we live in today are considerations that are related to inequality … such as adverse social consequences, a corrosion of democratic ideals, poverty, and, of most interest to us here, unfairness.”
Citing several studies, the authors observe that the “preference for inequality materializes in a wide range of countries, across people on opposite sides of the political spectrum, and even in adolescents.”
In the context of American politics today, it is possible these findings shed light on the pattern of people gravitating towards politicians, including the president, who frequently invoke the concept of “fairness.” Like progressive leaders who champion “equality,” President Trump speaks often of the “rigged system,” but does not necessarily advocate for solutions to restore equality of outcome over opportunity.
In an editorial published Monday, we noted the relative popularity of minimum wage increases. Per the study’s findings, it is possible that people believe workers who put in a full eight-hour day, say at McDonald’s, returning home with less than $100, is patently unfair. That is not a judgment on the philosophical fairness of those proposals, but a theory on the perceptions of them.
Thus it is possible that the society people desire is, perhaps, one based on an equal-opportunity economic system that is also able to regulate and eliminate consequential unfairness downstream.
This is obviously a deeply complicated subject matter, but the paper’s conclusion – that people are primarily bothered by unfairness, not inequality – is one observers falling anywhere along the ideological spectrum should bear in mind.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
