Thursday, May 6, 2010

What is fair?

Let's say you live on a world where there are two separate societies. Both societies consist of the same species but in one society, let's call it Ellitopia, they have a high quality of life. They have an established set of rules that allow all their citizens the potential to prosper and treat everyone equally, they have an abundance of natural resources and they recognize the value of an education, As a result, their society has amassed a great amount of wealth. In the other society, let's call it Palinbeckistan, things aren't as good. The have scarce natural resources, they have not yet discovered the value of an education, they have corrupt leaders who exploit their positions of power and oppress the majority of their population.

Now the people in Ellitopia realize how good they've got and and want to protect it. They don't want the Palinbeckistinians coming over and causing problems so they set up rules to keep the Palinbeckistanians out. The Palinbeckistinians, of course, look on the Ellitopians with longing and wish life could be better for them. They think the solution is not to fix their society but to become part of the other society.

Now here's my question. Are the Ellitopians within their rights to say, we don't want any Palinbeckistinians in our society? How did they get this right? Is it the random advantage of being born an Ellitopian that gives you access to the good life and gives Palinbekistinians the misfortune of living a life of misery? Is that really fair? I'm just curious.......