The fallacy of fairness

We live in a world that appears to assume that there is some objective way of assessing fairness. In reality, fairness is always only in the eye of the beholder.

So it’s surprising and refreshing to find the CEO of a very successful multinational company - one whose appeal has always to bring outstanding value for money to consumers everywhere - come out so openly in contradiction.

Mikael Ohlsson, boss of IKEA, said recently: “What decides how much a lamp should cost? Only imagination sets the limits.”

At the end of the day (as our footballers put it), it’s always the market that decides.

Le Fair Play

Shortly after the bombing of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985 – I was there and heard the blast – I was having lunch in Sydney with my then boss, regional director Jean-François Lacour.

“What’s the French for fair play?” I asked provocatively.

The French government of the day had decided that interference in their atomic testing programme had gone far enough and had sent secret service agents to deal with Rainbow Warrior.

Their action appalled New Zealanders. And I myself was outraged and thought it a clear breach of the unwritten rules of fairness.

Lacour thought for a moment. “Le Fair Play,” he responded.

Of course, the concept of fairness does not rank high in the value system of the French, whereas for Australians and New Zealanders it comes right at the top of the pile.

Now, some twenty six years later, I’m much less clear as to how to understand the notion, nor how to know it when you’ve got it.

Will Hutton has recently published a book entitled Them and Us: Politics, Greed and Inequality – Why we need a Fair Society. If you decide to read it, do let me know if he gets anywhere useful in defining fairness.

Is it the same as “win-win”? Or something else entirely?