Societal Fairness, out of Self-Interest, not Lofty Ideal

One moment, my characteristic blue backpack was beneath my feet at its usual position, and then next second it disappears into the thin air, never to be seen again. The gigantic poster in front of the busy pub warning customers about thieves lurking within the busy Friday night crowd just became a reality, this time, for me. Drunken, and surrounded by drunken friends in London suddenly did not feel so well for the normally happy crowd, as they suddenly became fearful of who is the next victim...

Frankly, despite all the justifiable anger the victim is entitled to, the fault is completely the victim's. Drunkenness (and friends' drunkenness) is by no means a valid excuse to let down one's guard and decrease the usual level of vigilance, so needed here in Europe, toward to otherwise innocent-looking strangers. But while greater vigilance by everyone may indeed lead to actual decrease in successful thefts, perhaps the possibility, the potential, and the number of theft attempts will not go down.

To exterminate the root cause of the problem would require a much deeper look into why the motivations for pub thefts, so risky for the thieves themselves being exposed to the watching crowds, for so little financial benefits of whatever the bags content (at most some notebooks and a laptop, which in my case had a worth of around 200 USD). With such an unprofitable way to steal, why would people still attempt it, so often as to warrant a massively self-fulfilling poster in front of the pub?

Coincidentally and ironically enough, the group of friends who just "witnessed" a skillful backpack theft occur "in front of their eyes" somehow began a conversation about the necessity of social fairness immediately after. The argument began under the context of one person arguing for the lack of credible logic and rationale behind ideals of "equal opportunities" for all people around the world, and some social inequality should justifiably be entrenched and accepted as matter-of-fact.

As we contemplated the hypothetical situation of a child prodigy being born in the isolated rural community of central Africa and express deep regret in the world that cannot let him/her develop the extraordinary gift, I could not help but think about the theft in such a context. Imagining the thief going through my backpack in a dark corner of the street, I wonder what could he have thought when he came upon the pages and pages of academic notes from a distinguished, renowned school like the LSE.

The answer, in my mind, is somehow a picture of deep contempt, a hatred of a society that did not provide him with the calm, nurturing environment for him to dispel negative social pressures of crime and excel academically. And unlike the child prodigy in central Africa, the thief here in London, a city of readily available information and exposure to all social virtues and vices, conditions and testaments, would only see his discontent balloon over time just from firsthand observations.

Thus, given the wide availability of information on different social inequalities that realistically do exist in the world, the only way for us as a society to reduce the conflicts, crimes, and victimization of the innocent is to give every single person equal amount of opportunities and possibilities, from the day of their birth, to reach the very top, in wealth, social status, and power, if they strive hard enough and grasp those chances.

If we do not, then the wealthy will continue to become targets of attacks, from petty thefts to more violent and life-threatening instabilities of organized crime and even political revolution. Those who display wealth will be a source of public assaults, both verbally and physically, and those without opportunities will contribute to detrimental social pressures and stress. The existence of fairness for all is not just an ideal of humanists, but genuinely in the interest of the haves if they want to keep themselves safe from violent tendencies of the have-nots.