So here we are in the final week and back to Peters for his final chapter. In this edition, Peters combines cost-benefit and ethical analysis into a single chapter. While I generally prefer to discuss these two issues separately, I think the combined chapter works for the purposes of this class. This chapter helps serve as a teaser for two 400-level courses we offer (or will be offering) as part of the Public Service and Public Policy major. PAF 471: Public Policy Analysis will be a required course for the public policy concentration and will likely focus on economic models of policy analysis, specifically cost-benefit analysis and quantitative analysis. PAF 460: Public Service Ethics is our required ethics course and will help you navigate current ethical issues in public policy, public administration, and the non-profit sectors. I hope that this chapter sparked your excitement for these courses.
There are other reasons why it may make sense to combine these two chapters. In some ways, cost-benefit analysis can be thought of as a specific type of consequentialist ethics. Consequentialism is just a fancy way of saying "the ends justify the means". Of course, this form of ethics can lead to many actions that we would consider unethical, but it is often used in public policy creation. Basically, cost-benefit analysis is attempting to reach a Pareto Optimal outcome, where no one is made worse off but at least one person is made better off, or a Kaldor-Hicks outcome where society experiences a net-gain. In this case, the ends and the means are quantified so that the ends justify the means if the outcome is a net monetary benefit. Of course, opportunity costs, consumer surpluses, unintended consequences, and net values need to be considered in the calculation you use to determine the costs and benefits. I think Peters does a good job of walking you through these concepts using a basic example of cost-benefit analysis. It is important to note that although we rarely use Pareto Optimality as a goal in policy analysis (because it is usually an impossible standard to meet) it likely works much better as a criterion for ethical analysis. Certainly, ensuring that no one is made worse off by government action is a stronger ethical stance than assuming that the individuals who benefit from government action will somehow compensate those who are burdened by government action.
As Peters points out there are many problems associated with the use of cost-benefit analysis. It requires a lot of assumptions about risk and future circumstances. Small changes in those assumptions can drastically change the predicted net benefit of a program. In a policy world where solutions are often looking for problems, interest groups have substantial power, policymakers are politically motivated, and competition for funds is the primary rule of the game the temptation to make favorable assumptions about the future of one's preferred project is overwhelming. I believe the perception that cost-benefit analysis is preferable to other forms of analysis because it is straightforward is really an incorrect perception. Cost-benefit analysis can be just as subjective as ethical analysis.
Further, while cost-benefit analysis can help us choose projects out of a list, it offers very little normative advice. It cannot answer the question "what should government do?" We have to draw on our cultural and social values for that. Peters' discussion of "ethical analysis" is really about these value questions. After Stone, his recommendations likely seem a little quaint but they are as follows: the preservation of life, the preservation of individual autonomy, truthfulness, fairness, and deservedness. In many ways these parallel with Stone's values of security, liberty, and equity with truthfulness added for good measure. Of course as we saw with Stone, actually defining what these values mean and whose definition we should use is the difficult part.
I agree with Peters assessment that we as policy analysts are over-reliant on cost-benefit analysis because of its apparent objectivity in comparison to ethical analysis. Policymakers are a different story. Some policymakers have become little more than rubber stamps for programs with positive cost-benefit analysis, but currently values seem to be the prominent metric determining whether or not policies proceed through the policy process we discussed during the first few weeks of class. Many of the policies Congress is considering are policies that invoke those tough ethical questions such as Don't Ask, Don't Tell; defunding Planned Parenthood, immigration policies, and even the debate over the deficit. Cost-benefit analyses have played very little role in these debates. This leads me to two questions: Would we be better off if policymakers used the cost-benefit analyses provided by policy analysts rather than relying on their own definitions of values, and what is the state of the policy analyst profession if their primary means of analysis is often ignored by policymakers?
Showing posts with label Equity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Equity. Show all posts
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Free to be You and Me - My Thoughts on Stone Ch. 5 - Liberty
Liberty is probably the central American value. Freedom is an inherent aspect of the American Revolution and an important part of the American story. We are fairly certain that we know what we mean when we say liberty or freedom, but when we take such a grand ideal and operationalize it into policy action, it is just as complex as all of the other values. In the United States, we tend to focus on negative liberty or freedom from restraint. This is the idea behind our Bill of Rights. Government cannot restrict your ability to practice religion as you choose or to speak your mind. We could also take the lead of some European countries and define liberty as positive rights or rights to the prerequisites of freedom. A right to health care would be one such right, as would the right to a basic living wage. The right to a basic education and the right to emergency medical care are two such positive forms of liberty that we practice in America, but negative liberty is still dominant in the United States.
Stone asks two important questions about liberty on p. 109. "When, if ever should community or social purpose be allowed to trump individual choice? Under what circumstances should public policy ever limit individual privacy and autonomy?" Many political theorists would turn to the work of John Stuart Mill to answer these questions, as does Stone. Mill's On Liberty argues that society can only restrict an individual's liberty if it causes harm to others. This brings to mind the "fist-swinging" analogy. I can swing my fist around in the air as much as I want as long as you are not close enough that I would hit you.
This can be considered the standard of bodily harm. It sounds like a simple standard to uphold, but as you know by now, nothing is ever simple in the polis. There are bodily harms that affect some people more than others, for example air pollution affects asthmatics, young children, and the elderly more than the general population. There are bodily harms that accumulate over time, for example exposure to small doses of toxic chemicals may not be hazardous in the short-term but may cause cancer in the long-term. There are indirect bodily harms, for example a budget crisis could lead to a lay-off of air traffic controllers, which could cause the remaining controllers to be overworked, which could lead one to falling asleep on the job, which could lead to an accident. We then must also ask the question, which action should we take to prevent these harms. Do we keep asthmatic children inside for recess on bad air quality days, regulate air pollution, or both? Both of these solutions restrict someone's liberty. The problem of bodily harm is rarely ever the simple issue of one person intentionally causing an immediate harm to another.
Of course, if you think about our criminal justice policies, causing bodily harm is not the only standard of harm that we use as an excuse to restrict liberty. We are also not allowed to inflict material harms on others. We cannot take our neighbor's new big screen television, even if they are on vacation, it is not being used and there is no way we would inflict any bodily harm on them. This would not only be illegal but it violates the norms and values of society.
Stone discusses two types of material harm on page 112: harm that destroys property and harm that destroys the market value of property. The latter reminds me of proposition 2, which Phoenix residents rejected in the last local election. The brief summary of the proposition is that it would have allowed the re-zoning of a plot of land so that a gas station could be built on a vacant lot in East Phoenix. Neighborhood residents opposed the station because they argued that it would bring crime to the area. In other words, it would indirectly harm them. While it does seem like a bizarre issue to bring to referendum, it seems like a perfect issue to discuss in this context.
Residents of the neighborhood could also have argued that the gas station would have amenity effects. They could have said that the 24 hour gas station would make the neighborhood less pleasing because the lights will be on all of the time and it will bring late night traffic to the area. Certainly, a gas station is not aesthetically pleasing. It could have also been argued that a gas station is more aesthetically pleasing than a vacant lot. Of course as Stone points out, now that we are dealing with harms that are not physical we are engaging in argument, debate, and claims-making.
The most abstract harms are emotional, psychological, moral and spiritual harms. Many of these harms would not have been recognized 50 years ago. Should we restrict an individual's liberty because it causes stress to another individual or group of individuals? What if it violates the religious or spiritual beliefs of another individual? Should a pharmacist be able to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions because it's against his or her religious beliefs? Should a group Muslims be able to build an Arabic cultural center a few blocks from Ground Zero? Should Westboro Baptist Church be able to protest the funerals of soldiers killed in battle? Although emotional, psychological, religious, and spiritual harms are relatively new issues, they have certainly been hot policy topics over the past few years. Of course, if we granted protections based on these harms, we would likely be harming others; specifically women seeking birth control, the Muslim community, and the families and friends of military heroes. We must find the delicate balance here.
Of course, in the polis we also have harms and liberties related to community. Mill argued that there are some community duties that individuals can be compelled to perform. We often restrict the liberty of individuals for the good of the social order. Citizens have to pay taxes, serve on juries, and obey the laws. In America, all males 18 and older have to register for the draft. Structural harms are a community harm that affects the ability of a community to successfully function. Stone uses the example of school vouchers as a structural harm because it reduces integration and the visibility of the public education system. Another structural harm could be google books because it reduces the use of the library by relatively well-off citizens and makes the library less important as a community meeting place. Of course, in both of these cases, removing the structural harm would likely cause individual harms. Accumulative harms are actions that are not harmful in isolation but become harmful when everyone in a community does them. The individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act is based on this logic. If one healthy person does not buy insurance then it won't raise premiums by much, but if every healthy person does not buy insurance than premiums will sky-rocket and the health insurance industry will go broke. Finally, we can extend individual harms to examine their effects on the community. Remember, in the polis all actions have ripple effects. Here again, we must strike a delicate balance.
Stone firmly believes that we cannot restrict our understanding of harm and liberty to the individual. Corporate actors including businesses, churches, non-profits, and government agencies can harm people and be harmed. Further, because they generally have a much larger reach than an individual, the harms they cause can have a greater impact on the community as a whole.
Once again, Stone ends her chapter with a discussion of trade-offs. This time we have two: liberty and security, and liberty and equity. Starting with liberty and security, Stone presents the traditional or conservative understanding of the relationship between the two: security creates dependence, self-sufficiency is necessary for liberty, and government paternalism reduces freedom. She then presents her understanding: individuals cannot make free choices unless they have basic security, no one is ever truly self-sufficient, and policy can make determinations about who is competent to care for him or herself and who is not. The liberty and equality trade-off is presented similarly. The traditional or conservative understanding is that redistribution for the sake of equality reduces the liberty of the well-off, either you have complete liberty or none at all, and coercion by public policy reduces liberty. She believes that equalizing power, wealth and knowledge leads to positive liberty, liberty is measured in degrees, and society's control of some problems can expand human freedom. I am guessing that if you have not agreed with Stone's argument in the previous chapters, you will not agree this time. Either way, I hope you have taken the time to understand both arguments.
Stone asks two important questions about liberty on p. 109. "When, if ever should community or social purpose be allowed to trump individual choice? Under what circumstances should public policy ever limit individual privacy and autonomy?" Many political theorists would turn to the work of John Stuart Mill to answer these questions, as does Stone. Mill's On Liberty argues that society can only restrict an individual's liberty if it causes harm to others. This brings to mind the "fist-swinging" analogy. I can swing my fist around in the air as much as I want as long as you are not close enough that I would hit you.
This can be considered the standard of bodily harm. It sounds like a simple standard to uphold, but as you know by now, nothing is ever simple in the polis. There are bodily harms that affect some people more than others, for example air pollution affects asthmatics, young children, and the elderly more than the general population. There are bodily harms that accumulate over time, for example exposure to small doses of toxic chemicals may not be hazardous in the short-term but may cause cancer in the long-term. There are indirect bodily harms, for example a budget crisis could lead to a lay-off of air traffic controllers, which could cause the remaining controllers to be overworked, which could lead one to falling asleep on the job, which could lead to an accident. We then must also ask the question, which action should we take to prevent these harms. Do we keep asthmatic children inside for recess on bad air quality days, regulate air pollution, or both? Both of these solutions restrict someone's liberty. The problem of bodily harm is rarely ever the simple issue of one person intentionally causing an immediate harm to another.
Of course, if you think about our criminal justice policies, causing bodily harm is not the only standard of harm that we use as an excuse to restrict liberty. We are also not allowed to inflict material harms on others. We cannot take our neighbor's new big screen television, even if they are on vacation, it is not being used and there is no way we would inflict any bodily harm on them. This would not only be illegal but it violates the norms and values of society.
Stone discusses two types of material harm on page 112: harm that destroys property and harm that destroys the market value of property. The latter reminds me of proposition 2, which Phoenix residents rejected in the last local election. The brief summary of the proposition is that it would have allowed the re-zoning of a plot of land so that a gas station could be built on a vacant lot in East Phoenix. Neighborhood residents opposed the station because they argued that it would bring crime to the area. In other words, it would indirectly harm them. While it does seem like a bizarre issue to bring to referendum, it seems like a perfect issue to discuss in this context.
Residents of the neighborhood could also have argued that the gas station would have amenity effects. They could have said that the 24 hour gas station would make the neighborhood less pleasing because the lights will be on all of the time and it will bring late night traffic to the area. Certainly, a gas station is not aesthetically pleasing. It could have also been argued that a gas station is more aesthetically pleasing than a vacant lot. Of course as Stone points out, now that we are dealing with harms that are not physical we are engaging in argument, debate, and claims-making.
The most abstract harms are emotional, psychological, moral and spiritual harms. Many of these harms would not have been recognized 50 years ago. Should we restrict an individual's liberty because it causes stress to another individual or group of individuals? What if it violates the religious or spiritual beliefs of another individual? Should a pharmacist be able to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions because it's against his or her religious beliefs? Should a group Muslims be able to build an Arabic cultural center a few blocks from Ground Zero? Should Westboro Baptist Church be able to protest the funerals of soldiers killed in battle? Although emotional, psychological, religious, and spiritual harms are relatively new issues, they have certainly been hot policy topics over the past few years. Of course, if we granted protections based on these harms, we would likely be harming others; specifically women seeking birth control, the Muslim community, and the families and friends of military heroes. We must find the delicate balance here.
Of course, in the polis we also have harms and liberties related to community. Mill argued that there are some community duties that individuals can be compelled to perform. We often restrict the liberty of individuals for the good of the social order. Citizens have to pay taxes, serve on juries, and obey the laws. In America, all males 18 and older have to register for the draft. Structural harms are a community harm that affects the ability of a community to successfully function. Stone uses the example of school vouchers as a structural harm because it reduces integration and the visibility of the public education system. Another structural harm could be google books because it reduces the use of the library by relatively well-off citizens and makes the library less important as a community meeting place. Of course, in both of these cases, removing the structural harm would likely cause individual harms. Accumulative harms are actions that are not harmful in isolation but become harmful when everyone in a community does them. The individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act is based on this logic. If one healthy person does not buy insurance then it won't raise premiums by much, but if every healthy person does not buy insurance than premiums will sky-rocket and the health insurance industry will go broke. Finally, we can extend individual harms to examine their effects on the community. Remember, in the polis all actions have ripple effects. Here again, we must strike a delicate balance.
Stone firmly believes that we cannot restrict our understanding of harm and liberty to the individual. Corporate actors including businesses, churches, non-profits, and government agencies can harm people and be harmed. Further, because they generally have a much larger reach than an individual, the harms they cause can have a greater impact on the community as a whole.
Once again, Stone ends her chapter with a discussion of trade-offs. This time we have two: liberty and security, and liberty and equity. Starting with liberty and security, Stone presents the traditional or conservative understanding of the relationship between the two: security creates dependence, self-sufficiency is necessary for liberty, and government paternalism reduces freedom. She then presents her understanding: individuals cannot make free choices unless they have basic security, no one is ever truly self-sufficient, and policy can make determinations about who is competent to care for him or herself and who is not. The liberty and equality trade-off is presented similarly. The traditional or conservative understanding is that redistribution for the sake of equality reduces the liberty of the well-off, either you have complete liberty or none at all, and coercion by public policy reduces liberty. She believes that equalizing power, wealth and knowledge leads to positive liberty, liberty is measured in degrees, and society's control of some problems can expand human freedom. I am guessing that if you have not agreed with Stone's argument in the previous chapters, you will not agree this time. Either way, I hope you have taken the time to understand both arguments.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Equity and Cake - Stone Ch. 2
As someone who studies redistributive public policy, this is probably my favorite chapter in Stone's book. The cake analogy Stone presents on pp. 39-41 is an ingenious way to present different and often competing visions of equity. Depending on one's perspective, each of these forms of equity could in turn be argued as completely inequitable. Stone discusses eight ways that we can define equity:
Membership-based Forms of Equity
1) Equal slices but unequal invitations - In the book, Stone gives equal size slices to all of her students, but what about those students who missed class that day? What about the students who tried to enroll in the class but could not get off the wait-list? What about the students who had to work full-time and couldn't fit her class into their schedule? They all missed out on cake. In the realm of public policy, social insurance programs like Medicare, which are available to all citizens and some documented immigrants but not non-residents and certain immigrants, fall under this category. It is likely that most Americans think that Medicare is fairly distributed, but the elderly legal resident who has worked in the US for nine years (just one year short of qualifying for Medicare) who finds herself hospitalized would likely find the system unfair and arbitrary.
2) Unequal slices for unequal ranks but equal slices for equal ranks - In Stone's example, she gives big slices with extra frosting to full professors, assistant professors get slivers, and undergraduates get crumbs. This is a basic rank- or merit-based system of equity. You can think of either military or union pay-scales as examples of this type of equity. The career civil-servant likely thinks that the rank-based system is fair, while the new employee who feels she has contributed great ideas to the organization would likely disagree. Some would argue that market-based pay-scales fall under this category, but others argue that arbitrary factors and discrimination are more important in market-based pay structures than merit.
3) Unequal slices but equal blocs - In the chapter, Stone uses a somewhat silly example, in which, male students claim that women have traditionally had greater access to chocolate cake so men as a group should have an equal share of the cake. While this is a somewhat silly example for chocolate cake, it is often the argument made for quota based affirmative action. Although quota systems for college admission have been ruled unconstitutional, we can think of quota systems as a form of group-based equity. Americans tend to be very uncomfortable with this form of equity.
Item-based forms of Equity
4) Unequal slices but equal meals - In Stone's example, the distribution of the cake is tied to a previous luncheon event where not everyone was given equal amounts of food. Some of the students got extra shrimp cocktail and better cuts of roast beef. In the policy realm, this form of equity goes beyond the current good being provided and looks at the full experience of individuals. An example of this form of equity in the policy arena is the GI Bill. It ties in-kind and financial rewards to past military service. Although Stone argues that this viewpoint is characteristic of redistributive policy, we rarely think of these policies as reparations for unequal circumstances, in our current political context (The first edition of this book was written in 1988). Instead, the culture of poverty thesis has seemingly won out as the dominant explanation for poverty in the United States. We'll discuss these different perspectives in-depth when we talk about income maintenance policies.
5) Unequal slices but equal value to recipients - In the cake analogy, Stone cuts her cake so that those who don't like chocolate cake or who are allergic to cake get small or no pieces and those who love chocolate cake get bigger pieces. This definition of equity is tailored to meet the individual needs of recipients. Assuming funding large enough to sufficiently cover individual needs, market-based programs like school vouchers could fall under this definition of equity. Programs serving individuals with disabilities like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Vocational Rehabilitation must be tailored to the needs of the individual and they could fall under this definition, as well. This form of equity is characteristic of a welfare economics perspective. Those who love cake will be willing to trade more potato chips for cake and those who hate cake will be very willing to trade their cake for potato chips. If they get together these two groups will trade their cake for potato chips making everyone better off.
Membership-based Forms of Equity
1) Equal slices but unequal invitations - In the book, Stone gives equal size slices to all of her students, but what about those students who missed class that day? What about the students who tried to enroll in the class but could not get off the wait-list? What about the students who had to work full-time and couldn't fit her class into their schedule? They all missed out on cake. In the realm of public policy, social insurance programs like Medicare, which are available to all citizens and some documented immigrants but not non-residents and certain immigrants, fall under this category. It is likely that most Americans think that Medicare is fairly distributed, but the elderly legal resident who has worked in the US for nine years (just one year short of qualifying for Medicare) who finds herself hospitalized would likely find the system unfair and arbitrary.
2) Unequal slices for unequal ranks but equal slices for equal ranks - In Stone's example, she gives big slices with extra frosting to full professors, assistant professors get slivers, and undergraduates get crumbs. This is a basic rank- or merit-based system of equity. You can think of either military or union pay-scales as examples of this type of equity. The career civil-servant likely thinks that the rank-based system is fair, while the new employee who feels she has contributed great ideas to the organization would likely disagree. Some would argue that market-based pay-scales fall under this category, but others argue that arbitrary factors and discrimination are more important in market-based pay structures than merit.
3) Unequal slices but equal blocs - In the chapter, Stone uses a somewhat silly example, in which, male students claim that women have traditionally had greater access to chocolate cake so men as a group should have an equal share of the cake. While this is a somewhat silly example for chocolate cake, it is often the argument made for quota based affirmative action. Although quota systems for college admission have been ruled unconstitutional, we can think of quota systems as a form of group-based equity. Americans tend to be very uncomfortable with this form of equity.
Item-based forms of Equity
4) Unequal slices but equal meals - In Stone's example, the distribution of the cake is tied to a previous luncheon event where not everyone was given equal amounts of food. Some of the students got extra shrimp cocktail and better cuts of roast beef. In the policy realm, this form of equity goes beyond the current good being provided and looks at the full experience of individuals. An example of this form of equity in the policy arena is the GI Bill. It ties in-kind and financial rewards to past military service. Although Stone argues that this viewpoint is characteristic of redistributive policy, we rarely think of these policies as reparations for unequal circumstances, in our current political context (The first edition of this book was written in 1988). Instead, the culture of poverty thesis has seemingly won out as the dominant explanation for poverty in the United States. We'll discuss these different perspectives in-depth when we talk about income maintenance policies.
5) Unequal slices but equal value to recipients - In the cake analogy, Stone cuts her cake so that those who don't like chocolate cake or who are allergic to cake get small or no pieces and those who love chocolate cake get bigger pieces. This definition of equity is tailored to meet the individual needs of recipients. Assuming funding large enough to sufficiently cover individual needs, market-based programs like school vouchers could fall under this definition of equity. Programs serving individuals with disabilities like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Vocational Rehabilitation must be tailored to the needs of the individual and they could fall under this definition, as well. This form of equity is characteristic of a welfare economics perspective. Those who love cake will be willing to trade more potato chips for cake and those who hate cake will be very willing to trade their cake for potato chips. If they get together these two groups will trade their cake for potato chips making everyone better off.
Process-based forms of Equity
6) Unequal slices but equal starting resources - In Stone's analogy, everyone gets a fork and they have at it. This is the definition of equity that Americans tend to be most comfortable with. It is a process based form of equity that allows for unequal outcomes. The logic behind the Harlem Children's Zone is to ensure that the children of Harlem have the same resources as children from wealthier neighborhoods from birth to age 18. If inequality persists despite the provision of equal resources, we attribute that to personal preference.
7) Unequal slices but equal statistical chances - In Stone's analogy, she only had enough batter to make a cupcake so she puts everyone's name in a hat and gives the cupcake to the winner. This is the classic lottery system. In the policy arena, charter schools in low-income areas are mandated to use lotteries rather than merit based admissions to receive public funding. Every child who applies has an equal statistical chance of admittance to the school.
8) Unequal slices but equal votes - In Stone's analogy, she yet again has only a cupcake and the students vote to determine who among them will be the Cupcake Eater. This is the logic of democracy. In the policy realm, each of us who are citizens get an equal vote in referendums, ballot initiatives, and elections. We may not end up with the outcomes we prefer, but because the process is seen as fair, we accept the outcome as equitable.
It is important to note that all of these forms of equity can lead to very unequal outcomes, and that one person's equity is another's unfairness. Even the first example, which is the closest to equality leaves people who are not members without. We should also note that each form of equity has three elements: the item being distributed, the process of distribution, and the recipients of the item. Each of these different definitions focuses on one of these elements.
I think that we sometimes forget that equity is an important goal and value in American society. A certain vision of equity underlies the foundation of our society, as the Declaration of Independence states "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Of course, we can look back at the world of the founding fathers and see that these differing definitions of equity came into play back then, as well. Most notably, membership in the group of recipients was restricted to white, land-owning males. As we gear up for the 2012 elections, I believe that you will hear a lot of competing understandings of equity. I think it will be useful to think about which form of equity you believe is most appropriate for a particular context, and how different items, different definitions of recipients, and different processes lead to different forms of equity. We've heard a lot about tax reform so far in this primary cycle. Can you think of examples of how differing forms of equity lead to different recommendations for a fair tax system?
6) Unequal slices but equal starting resources - In Stone's analogy, everyone gets a fork and they have at it. This is the definition of equity that Americans tend to be most comfortable with. It is a process based form of equity that allows for unequal outcomes. The logic behind the Harlem Children's Zone is to ensure that the children of Harlem have the same resources as children from wealthier neighborhoods from birth to age 18. If inequality persists despite the provision of equal resources, we attribute that to personal preference.
7) Unequal slices but equal statistical chances - In Stone's analogy, she only had enough batter to make a cupcake so she puts everyone's name in a hat and gives the cupcake to the winner. This is the classic lottery system. In the policy arena, charter schools in low-income areas are mandated to use lotteries rather than merit based admissions to receive public funding. Every child who applies has an equal statistical chance of admittance to the school.
8) Unequal slices but equal votes - In Stone's analogy, she yet again has only a cupcake and the students vote to determine who among them will be the Cupcake Eater. This is the logic of democracy. In the policy realm, each of us who are citizens get an equal vote in referendums, ballot initiatives, and elections. We may not end up with the outcomes we prefer, but because the process is seen as fair, we accept the outcome as equitable.
It is important to note that all of these forms of equity can lead to very unequal outcomes, and that one person's equity is another's unfairness. Even the first example, which is the closest to equality leaves people who are not members without. We should also note that each form of equity has three elements: the item being distributed, the process of distribution, and the recipients of the item. Each of these different definitions focuses on one of these elements.
I think that we sometimes forget that equity is an important goal and value in American society. A certain vision of equity underlies the foundation of our society, as the Declaration of Independence states "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Of course, we can look back at the world of the founding fathers and see that these differing definitions of equity came into play back then, as well. Most notably, membership in the group of recipients was restricted to white, land-owning males. As we gear up for the 2012 elections, I believe that you will hear a lot of competing understandings of equity. I think it will be useful to think about which form of equity you believe is most appropriate for a particular context, and how different items, different definitions of recipients, and different processes lead to different forms of equity. We've heard a lot about tax reform so far in this primary cycle. Can you think of examples of how differing forms of equity lead to different recommendations for a fair tax system?
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