What revenue sharing tiff tells us about justice, equity

Often, the moral and political arguments in our national court of public opinion revolve around our frustration at corruption, largesse at taxpayers’ expense, abuse of power, gross inequality, and human suffering.

Occasionally, when leaders step up to their responsibilities, we find cause for celebration.

Of late, Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja has embodied this dichotomy perfectly.  When he was subjected to police harassment for curfew violations recently, we wondered why we should empathise.

Don’t citizens experience police brutality every day? But when he made a redeeming and eloquent articulation on equitable allocation of national resources, some cheered his ostensible fairness and justice.

In Theory of Justice, influential political and moral philosopher John Rawls explored the ideal makings of a just society.

Defining justice as fairness, and bothered by inequalities in America, he wondered what rational, impartial people in a liberal democracy could agree are just social, economic and political outcomes.

 Aware of a major human shortcoming, that fairness and impartiality are largely an ideal, he opined that in a democracy, the most just and fair ideas would only prevail if people were blind to their power, privilege and unfair advantages.

Distributive justice

Rawls’ ensuing Veil of Ignorance thought experiment is, arguably, one of the most seminal philosophies on distributive justice.

The premise was simple: If you came into the world not knowing who you would be, or what your lot in life would be, what kind of society would you design?

Behind the veil of ignorance, he blinded people to circumstances like gender, religion, orientation, race, income, intellect, disabilities, values and morals. However, they would know social and scientific facts like the value of freedom, health, education, and access to opportunities.

In this Original Position, Rawls argued that not knowing their fate, even the most selfish people would negotiate outcomes that advance their position without disadvantaging others.

These principles of justice are linearly organised into the Liberty Principle, the Fair Equality of Opportunity and the Difference Principle.

Negotiating fairness

They are foundational in negotiating fairness around freedom, basic rights, equality, social basis of self-respect and income and wealth. The Difference Principle is why we are divided on Senator Sakaja’s argument for equitable resource allocation.

The challenge for leadership is to live up to the standard of responsible, rational, aware and consistent negotiators of justice and fairness for the best and worst off in society. 

That might sound impossible but, at our most virtuous, all it takes to agree on justice and fairness is to take up the veil of ignorance challenge, and imagine what we, in our original position, stripped of everything, would be willing to accept were the shoe on the other foot.

Ms Kaaria is a climate change and sustainability leadership expert. [email protected].