[unishark]

It would be better to say the market sets wages to maximize efficiency. With wages being price signals people are supposed to respond to in choosing and changing jobs.

The "fairness" view assumes everyone is born into their jobs somehow and stuck there. If people could choose any job they wanted, fairness is irrelevant because everyone has an equal choice. This is obviously an ideal, but then the opposite extreme is unrealistic too.

[aabeshou]

the models of market fairness work perfectly in a world where people could simply choose not to work, and where everyone has the ability to work to qualify for any job.

however in the real world people are forced to work by a need to survive, which puts disempowered people in a position to be exploited. and there is unequal access to education, to the leisure time to participate in education, and to the material security required to have a brain that is able to focus on education, so not everyone will be able to even make an attempt to qualify for every job. not to mention the fact that there is unequal access to the networking and connections, and to the non-merit-based "qualifications" that bring certain people to power (e.g. race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. all the isms).

so exploitation and injustice abounds in an unregulated system which tends to entrench and concentrate power within the hands of those who already have it

[unishark]

I've never heard of "models of market fairness", it sounds silly. I called the extreme where fairness was irrelevant an ideal. I take it you agree with that point. Though I don't see that much of what you are saying is particularly crushing to the ideal. In "the real world" one also doesn't need to switch jobs every day like a day trader changing stocks.

I also take it you concede that pursuing fairness leads to reduced efficiency? You can't very well serve two optimals.

[aabeshou]

> I also take it you concede that pursuing fairness leads to reduced efficiency?

Efficiency of what? Yes, it reduces the efficiency by which overall wealth is created (whatever that means). And yes, it enhances the effiency by which a society provides for the needs of all.