Where the liberals once uttered the word “equality,” progressives have since replaced it with another word, “equity.” As with so many words that seem destined to mean whatever Humpty Dumpty feels it should, the word “equity” has largely escaped definition to be used as a catch-all for whatever outcomes are in need of rationalization.
But columnist Nancy Kaffer at the Detroit Free Press has offered a definition of the word “equity” in her quest to explain why Detroit should be “more fair.”
What does equity mean?
If you own a home, you’re familiar with this term as a measure of the value you hold in your property; in other words, the worth of the property after the debt you hold against that property is deducted.
Analogies are often a good means of explaining an amorphous concept, and certainly the concept of equity in a home, the different between the home’s market value and the outstanding debt, is a fine, concrete, easily comprehensible concept. So is that what they’re talking about?
Applied to social justice or economic inclusion, it’s more or less the same thing.
Equity takes into account the structural challenges individuals may be required to overcome to participate in the workplace.
Well, that went down the rabbit hole quickly. So it’s “more or less the same thing,” except it’s not remotely the same thing. That’s the funny thing about analogies; they only work when they’re slightly analogous. But maybe there’s more that will illuminate the definition.
Anika Goss, executive director of Detroit Future City, says those working to create economic equity in the city “are really trying to create an environment in which everyone, no matter where you stand on the socioeconomic ladder or continuum, has the opportunity to achieve wealth and prosperity in the same place.
So America should be the land of opportunity? That’s great, but not particularly helpful in defining the word “equity.” Is there a connection here that’s missing?
“If you live in Detroit and have a bachelor’s degree and you want to be a teacher, you should be able to live in Detroit and be a teacher and make the same amount as a teacher with a bachelor’s degree in Southfield or West Bloomfield,” she said, “but right now there’s about a $20,000 pay difference. The inequities, the barriers create too many limitations for Detroiters to be able to thrive, living in Detroit, and that [is] problematic.”
So “equity” means all teachers should be paid the same salary? Putting aside that teaching may not be the occupation of choice if one’s goal is to “achieve wealth and prosperity,” it’s also not a particularly good example for a host of other reasons, not the least of which is that teachers are paid what their union negotiates for them. If Detroit teachers are paid less than Southfield teachers, is their lack of “equity” due to their having a lousy union?
On the other hand, compensation theory provides that an employer will pay as much as is necessary to obtain a sufficient number of qualified personnel to fill their need. If the pay is too low, then they will not have a sufficient number of teachers. If it’s too high, they’re squandering the public fisc. After all, public employees aren’t paid from the vast profits gained off selling public school seats.
But that’s just teachers, an example perhaps, even if a poor example, but not a definition. Is the point that Detroit teachers aren’t paid enough to live in Detroit, to pay rent or buy a home due to high costs? Are they constrained to use every penny of their salary just to survive, leaving nothing for their morning latte or evening food delivery?
Perhaps the means of measuring “equity” will provide some substance to the jargon.
“Jobs, definitely, at multiple levels, jobs with varying qualification levels, jobs without high school, jobs with diplomas, with degrees … educational attainment, commuter access to jobs, how people actually get around — that’s also an indicator of economic health, if people are not isolated. The amount of public and private investment, and things that are more obvious, like vacancy rates,” Goss said.
What about jobs? Detroit is enjoying exceptional job growth, although that may be a product of its exceptional job loss after the last recession. But this still doesn’t actually mean anything.
Between government, business and philanthropy, lots of money is spent on economic development.But if you’re not measuring outcomes against an equity yardstick everyone agrees on, it’s hard to tell if Detroiters are making progress.
The new center, Goss says, will develop a 2020 baseline delineating Detroit’s economic health and existing inequities that will make it possible to measure progress.
“The fixes we are collectively spending money on — Are they helping us or hurting us?” Goss asked. “When a new skyscraper comes in downtown, is that helping? Are we advancing? …
If you’re the people building the skyscraper, or who need space within the skyscraper, or will get paid to work in the skyscraper, or earn a living serving the skyscraper or the nice folks inside the skyscraper, then it’s helping. If you’re a teacher, then maybe it won’t help all that much beyond providing an additional source of tax revenue to pay your salary. This doesn’t seem like hard stuff, but it also doesn’t have much to do with “equity.”
A theme is emerging here, and readily observable if you choose to open your eyes and ears. The problem with these efforts to determine whether progress is being made by “measuring outcomes against an equity yardstick” is that you are spewing strings of meaningless words that will never be able to serve any useful purpose because they have no definition.
As for the favorite word of the woke moment, “equity,” its definition seems as elusive as ever. Yet, it still serves as a placeholder for whatever outcome we like, as opposed to the old lib favorite, “equality,” which means you get treated as well, and as poorly, as anybody else, and what you make of it after that is up to you.
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It’s the definitive lie you have to believe before taking on the self-aggrandizing lie that one “stands for equity”
There’s a simple, common sense, solution.
Simply adjust prices based on individual incomes. An apple may cost a dollar for someone earning $15 an hour, but if you earn $150 per hour, it would cost ten dollars.
People could get raises based on merit or whatever else warrants a raise. But yet we’d still have total and perfect equity, provided the necessary government oversights are put into place.
That is, nothing, of, the sort. Please keep the dopey stuff inside your head where it can do no harm.
The meeting in the banquet room just ended. Get back to work collecting the dishes.
I assume anyone who uses the phrase “common sense” is just trolling me.
A Modest Proposal indeed.
Ironic that anyone would try to define “equity” by reference to the value of a home in Detroit. Don’t be sending me any of that, please.
Underwater equity. It could happen.
“A theme is emerging here, and readily observable if you choose to open your eyes and ears. The problem with these efforts to determine whether progress is being made by “measuring outcomes against an equity yardstick” is that you are spewing strings of meaningless words that will never be able to serve any useful purpose because they have no definition.”
The purpose is clear. It’s a systems approach.
“Between government, business and philanthropy, lots of money is spent on economic development.”
If one can define the metrics on their own terms, they essentially control the gold.
I assume the “equity yardstick” means that all good things are divvied up at least in proportion to demographics, if not better. If so, just say that.
My assumption is the metrics will be weighted heavily toward inclusion and intersectionality. The demographic approach would be considered quaint and one-dimensional.
So all the money goes to the one-legged lesbian transgender Aleut of color?
Unless they are a Druid one-legged lesbian transgender Aleut of color.
Sounds like Nancy wants a seat on, if not the chair of, the politburo standing committee to annually create a new five year plan for Detroit.
Forget it Scott, it’s Equity-town.
It hard even for them to remember what their nonsense means. In one school board meeting (designed to take teacher time from the successful students), one the woke board members said “I’m confused. What do exactly we mean by equity?” Several people in the audience laughed and the woke looked aghast. The board member quickly recovered and went on with her agenda of screwing the high achieving students.
One of the intransigent problems with trying to understand what the woke are talking about is their acceptance of these words as representing meaningful concepts. To ask what they mean is tantamount to announcing your complete lack of wokeoisity, but even if you do, they can’t explain other than to provide a string of jargonized crapulence. It’s very hard to have a serious discussion when the words have no meaning.
Let me see, I seem to have heard something similar before. Oh Yeah:
“To each according to their ability, to each according to their need.”
Giving some philosophical charity to the wokesters, “equity” appears to mean application of the theory of an “original position” behind John Rawls’ “veil of ignorance”: why should we tolerate any inequalities if, from the original position, we know is there a chance we could be born into or otherwise end up in a lower or lowest position?
Yeah, that clears things up.
Definitions? Simple! Just let me know which one you like best.
1) Equity is like porn: you know it when you see it–provided, of course, that you’re one of the people who has read enough of the literature to understand how to “recognize” it. If you can’t see it, you haven’t read enough literature. Go read some bell hooks and take orders from those who can see it.
2) Equity is like handicapping people (in the “horse race” sense, not the “breaking kneecaps with a mallet” sense.) All that you have to do is to look at a group of people and figure out–usually without asking–all of their skills and talents and characteristics. Then you merely determine where they “would have been” in life’s great race if they had lived different lives, distinguishing of course between what is “earned” or “unearned.” Then you adjust everyone’s status to make everything nicely balanced, which is just as easy as the first tasks.
3) Some people like to focus only on treating everyone the same way, and let the chips fall where they may. Some people like to focus only on treating everyone differently, so they come out more equal. But if you practice equity, you can do both at the same time.
4) Equity is whatever the Equity Leaders say it is, you racist shit.
How’d I do?
You may have done better than anyone else, actually.