Absolute fairness and relative fairness

Abstract

Liberty and equality have now become two basic values of modern people and societies, evaluating and directing the human behavior and the reforms of social economic systems. In the realm of economic institutions, the pursuit for liberty and equality is incarnated by the pursuit for efficiency and fairness which has become two basic principles in economic ethics and basic evaluation criteria to direct economic behavior and work out economic policies. However, most economists think that there is irreconcilable conflict between efficiency and fairness, in which peoples are made bogged down in the dilemma of “efficiency versus fairness” when directing their economic behavior and working out economic policies: either efficiency or fairness. Hence a big problem in economic ethics: how to handle the relation between efficiency and fairness and how to balance efficiency and fairness. This paper tries to explain that the key to the difficulty is the absolutist concept of equality and fairness. According to the author’s opinion, there is no irreconcilable conflict between efficiency and fairness, the real fairness should be consistent with efficiency although either of the two is reducible to its opposite.