| There are two kinds of fairness. Let's call them A and B. Type A is when all the players in a basketball game are the same height. Type B is when all the players in a basketball game play by the same agreed-upon rules (i.e. don't cheat). Trying to eliminate Type A fairness from the world is not in anyone's self-interest, except (maybe) the people who are extremely low in the hierarchy of wealth/earning power. (But I think they would be better served by climbing the hierarchy than trying to make the world type-A fair.) This is quite a claim that I won't try to justify here; just think about it. Type B fairness is in the interest of almost everybody. If you think you can cheat successfully, you may be against Type B fairness. But that's foolish. Creating a rigged system in one game opens up the doors for others to rig the systems in the games where I don't have an advantage (or cannot sustain the cheating advantage). For instance, Republicans in power now are undermining property rights, and that will hurt them more than it helped when they are out of power. Even if there are a few people who can get away with this (e.g. if you are an elderly Republican who is about to die maybe you don't care), the rest of us should reign these people in, as we are the majority. If we want, we can call these two types egalitarian-fairness and rule-fairness. Going back to oil trading: it may or may not be Type B fair. It probably is fair, though, because there aren't many rules in trading. The regulators try to create some rules, but few of those (if any) are actually recognized as real rules by the players; rather, they are obstacles. If you can get around them, you're just a better player of the game. (I'm not a professional trader, but that's my assumption about most of what goes on in trading; a professional trader may be less cynical about it.) If you break a real type-B rule, you are cheating if it's a game and committing fraud if it's business. However we judge that, it's in the interest of the majority to punish that, to dis-incentivize rule-breaking. |