is the capital sistem fair with we the people ?

Fairness is neither a law of physics nor a law of nature. Fairness is may be a goal of a civilized society, but it is impossible to obtain with absolute certainty; there are too many variables, known, unknown, and unknowable.

Quoted:

In his latest book The Illusions of Egalitarianism … Kekes argues, in a lucid and thorough fashion, that belief in egalitarianism rests on illusions that prevent people from facing unpleasant truths. …

Perhaps the most dangerous of the many illusions of egalitarianism is the belief that all people should be treated with equal consideration by the government. This is an illusion because no reasonable person can believe that criminals and their victims, terrorists and their hostages, benevolent and vicious people should be treated with equal consideration. People differ greatly in their moral standing, in how just, honest, altruistic, dependable they are, or how much they contribute to their society. The egalitarian belief that the government should ignore these moral differences is utterly unreasonable.

Ignoring these differences is dangerous because one primary responsibility of the government is to protect the conditions on which its citizens' well-being depends. People who are unjust, dishonest, selfish, undependable, or who take advantage of their society without contributing to it undermine everyone's well-being. To make this into a policy, as egalitarians do, is to favor a course of action that cannot but lead to the disintegration of the society that follows it. …

Most academics are egalitarians. They believe that egalitarianism is the morally right political position. From this follows that anyone disagreeing with them is either immoral or irrational. The egalitarian intolerance of dissenting students or colleagues reflects this moralistic bullying. They discriminate against and attempt to silence dissenting students and junior academics that depend on egalitarians for grades or for their jobs. ...

As to bad political arrangements, in our society at least, people have many ways of responding to them: they can work to reform them, leave the country, escape into private life, or prevail despite of hindrances. Countless people have done well even though they started out in poverty or discrimination, with poor education, with less chance than others. The remarkable thing about American society is that the opportunity to prevail over hardship is available to a larger number of people than ever before in history or in any other society.

The egalitarians who are outraged, for instance, by poverty rate of 13% ignore the other side that for the first time ever we have a society where 87% live in moderate comfort. The typical ratio in history has always been closer to the reverse.

http://www.philosophynews.com/common/textharness.a... 09/19/2004