Is the latest Kennedy a Lockean, or a socialist?

Last week I argued that Joseph Kennedy III’s invocation of “fairness” as the “simple idea” on which America is based “divides America into the unproductive people who have the right and entitlement to “fairness,” i.e., material equality with those who are better off than themselves, and the productive people who have no rights but only the obligation to make the unproductive people materially equal to themselves.” A reader argues that I have unfairly misinterpeted Kennedy’s words, because he was not saying that one group must treat another group fairly, but that all of us must treat each other fairly, in a mutual relationship. I reply.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 19, 2012 10:27 PM | Send