>>equity refers to fairness, whereas equality refers to sameness.
>
>I'm reminded of South African finance minister Trevor Manuel, at the World
>Economic Forum. As I reported at the time:
>
>At 10:13 AM -0500 2/4/02, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>And, during his presentation, he made a point of distinguishing equity
>>from equality. I went up to him afterwards to ask to develop that theme.
>>He said something like this: "There are difference conceptions of
>>equality to start with. There's equality of opportunity and equality of
>>outcome. But equity is about creating stakeholders. For example, both
>>employers and employees have a stake in good labor practices." To which I
>>said, "This sounds more like perception than any material reality." He
>>said, "It's all those things. It's all those things."
>
>Doug
yes. i was thinking of Deborah Stone's work. here's something i wrote elsewhere, coz i'm too lazy to type up fresh stuff
remember how i said once that "fair" doesn't mean equal slices of the pie for everyone? priest dug that as i recall. one of the functions of participating in voting is to have people go through a process. by participating in it, they feel it's legitimate. it's not about real influence, but participation in the process.
every semester i illustrate this by making a big chocolate cake. the students know that the price for a piece of cake is homework. they have to figure out all the ways we could divide up the cake so that the distribution is "fair" or "equitable" and not necessarily equal (this is what sin is getting at in his response to cp.).
when chocolate cake day comes, however, i pretend that i didn't have enough to make a whole cake and so i made a very small one, only big enough for two people.
so now they have to decide how to distribute limited resources. what would be fair. the answers are usually
1. vote (participation in the process; this is SD's thing in a couple of posts when he suggests that it's not good to have a large mass of people disenfranchised) 2. give everyone a fork and go at it in a contest where might makes the winner (equal starting resources; unequal results = fair) 3. an essay contest. the best essays win 4. base it on grades (then i ask: for this course? for this semester? for your entire college career? include high school? why or why not?) this approach is the use of merit to determine the distribution of scarce resources
then i have the secretary and dept chair or dean bring in the real cake. they have been instructed to complain and say that they want some too. the secretary reminds everyone that she helps make the course possible and does a lot of hidden work that none of them notice, but she still deserves some of that luscious cake. the dean says that faculty make the university. that w/o the fac, then there wouldn't be a uni and so he wants a slice for himself and the faculty, the same portion as everyone else, but to be served a clothe napkin and silverware.
then i ask who did their homework and tell the ones who didn't that they can't have any. i also usually get one of my favorite students, someone who likes to ham it up, to burst into the classroom and complain: had he known that there was going to be cake served, then he would have signed up for the course. he wants some too. he also claims to speak for all the people who dropped the course or who were absent that day. they deserve a chance to change their minds. they want a remedy for their stupidity or for my irresponsibility in full disclosure about the full benefits of course membership. had they had full information to make their choices on, then they would have made better choices. (i figure you'll like that one what with that rant on structural oppression)
he, its always a he, also says, "this sucks. women should get less be/c they've historically had access to the kitchen, have always baked cakes with the exception of a few lucky male pastry chef homos in france. they even got to lick the bowl and got to have the crumbs AND a piece of cake. therefore, men deserve more cake than women because men have been denied access to the kitchen. we must make up for historical oppression against men."
usually someone gets a kick out of it all and says, "i don't like chococlate (I don't like the benefits being distributed by the state) or i'm allergic (i'm disabled) and so i want something else. it's not fair that people are getting cake. i don't want any. i want something else.
another person, usually a woman , says she's on a diet and she thinks that all of this is a real waste and she wishes her professor (the state) would spend resources (time and intellectual development) on something other than baking cakes. godamnit. she paid for a college education, for knowledge, not a cake! she demands that the teacher stop wasting time on chocolate cake. or she wants arefund.
heh. thort you'd enjoy that kmart. kinda ties together all these discussions, eh?