Sir_Excellence

The best way to start defining the term “equity” is to identify what it is not. Equity is not equality. Equality has a very precise meaning—if something is equal to something else, it is equivalent in some concrete, measurable way. For example, an apple can be equal in size to another apple. It cannot be “kind of” equal. Equitable, on the other hand, means fair. You should be able to identify, right away, the first problem with equity as a policy goal! That problem is how we define what is “fair.”

Fair is relative rather than precise. Consider the following example to understand this concept further.

For purposes of definition, let us first look at what efficiency is not. It is not simply the least expensive or the fastest, though these might be components in determining what is the most efficient. However, as discussed earlier for equity, efficiency is also relative.

For example, it might be very efficient for the highway department to have many people arrive to get their drivers’ licenses renewed at 8 a.m. when the doors open. This will ensure that the workers are busy and rarely idle. On the other hand, the person who arrived last will have to wait the longest. Therefore, though the process followed by the highway department might be efficient for the workers, it is not very efficient for the person last in a long line. In addition, this process is not efficient for the people who had to drive the farthest to get to the necessarily large central location or the workers driving the longest to arrive at work on time. The key question here, as was the case with equity, is, "efficient for whom and based on what criteria?"

Using the example of a carpool, let us explore this policy goal further. Efficiency for carpooling is determined by the criteria we apply. In other words, carpooling maybe efficient for different target audiences depending on how we define efficiency.

Just as with equity and efficiency, security and liberty are also relative goals. While we often tend to think of security only in terms of physical safety, such as being secure in our borders or secure in our homes, it is a broader concept than that. It might also mean financial security or job security. Or it might mean secure in our sense of self. What other types of security can you think of? In other words, whether or not a particular policy provides security depends on how we define security.

Liberty is an even more ethereal concept. The phrase “individual liberty” is often tossed around as if it were clearly defined in everyone’s mind in exactly the same way. What do we mean when we think about liberty? Do we mean the freedom to do whatever we want, whenever we want? Alternatively, do we mean liberty in the sense of being free from government involvement in the personal decisions we make in our bedrooms? What about religious liberty? Does that mean we can do anything we want as long as it falls under the umbrella of faith?

In some cases, though not all, the goals of security and liberty can be competing or conflicting. For example, according to many civil libertarians and civil liberty organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the USA Patriot Act, in its effort to protect the country from future terrorist attacks, treads on some individual liberties.

Again, as with equity and efficiency, the key questions in defining security and liberty are, "Whose security?" "Whose liberty?" and "Based on what criteria and using what definitions?"