The Pursuit of Equity

The Target

Probably all the people in the United States—left, right, and center—would say they are in favor of an equitable society. The differences arise with regard to what exactly is meant by equity, and the divergent evaluations of the costs and benefits in conflicting ways of achieving equity. Since, in our democratic country, the society’s idea of a fair distribution of economic resources depends upon some bringing together of our various individual ideas of equity, the first problem is to determine how each of us would specify an equitable society. Only then can we move on to the problem of determining and implementing our collective wisdom.

To aid in this process, perform the following ...