Accepting the Process, Rejecting the Outcome – A Fairness Paradox in Judging Wealth Distributions

Abstract

Abstract How wealth accumulates following investments is a fundamental process in our society, as is people’s understanding and acceptance of such processes. We show a fairness paradox, where people view an underlying wealth accumulation process as fair, but the outcome from it as completely unfair. This suggests that people misjudge how wealth accumulation works, and that they may be lured into accepting unfair outcomes based on premises they view as fair, but do not understand the consequences of.