Securing Fairness and Wellbeing in a Land of Plenty 2005- ‘Fairness and Wellbeing’

An Employers' Perspective Turlough O'Sullivan

‘Fairness and Wellbeing’…. At least I think we can all agree that

nobody is actually against either of these objectives. As we live our

personal lives, most of us have some immediate sense of what is good

for those around us and what is not. When trying to address the same

concepts to society at large, it is not quite so straightforward. In order

to make some sense of whole collections of peoples, we use wider

concepts and models to structure our thoughts.

Over the course of my adult life, the models that we use have changed.

Two decades ago, it was still fashionable to think in terms of two

competing ideologies. On one hand was the state socialism that

promised equity but which diminished that part of the human spirit that

craves for individual expression. On the other side was a belief in

unfettered market forces, a sort of war of all against all that promised

individual freedom but failed to capture that part of all of us that is

essentially social.