Q. Equality is everybody gets a shirt. Equity is everybody gets a shirt that fits.
A. Equity would mean that everybody is too busy receiving a shirt that fits to actually make and pay for any shirts.
So nobody gets a shirt.
And what happens when somebody doesn't want a shirt? Should they be forced to receive one, or should everybody else have their shirts taken away? If every single person doesn't have a shirt that fits, then it isn't equity.
Equity is tyranny.
Q. Yes, but surely it would be nonsensical to give everybody the same size shirt, which will fit some but not others.
A. Correct, that wouldn't make any sense at all—that would be an inefficient equity.
The correct question to ask is why are we* giving everybody free shirts in the first place? If people are able bodied, they can work to pay for their shirt themselves. If they are not, then they'd better be charming enough to have friends or family that can help them. Equality in this instance would be that everybody is allowed to have a shirt—that there exist no law preventing anybody who wishes to have a shirt from acquiring one.
*And who is this benevolent "we" anyway? Why do "we" have all the shirts? If that is our position, we should do well to keep them to ourselves, because if we start giving them out to all and sundry, flashing our riches to a society of people with collectively nothing, they will become jealous and murder us in our sleep. Don't think that they won't.
Both equality and equity should always be measured by the path of least intrusion. True equality and true equity is in the satisfying knowledge that each and every one of us deserves nothing more than to wither and die in a dank pit, hungry and alone. Anything after that is a bonus.
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