[Boromir88]

So can you say that it's up to you what you earn - like what you can merit - and still retain the idea that we are talking about justice or fairness?~Nogrod

There are other standards of merit besides wealth, or family birth. Those are two of the more noticeable ones, but I would also argue beauty, intelligence, humor, fame, public service are other standards (and probably more I haven't mentioned). Wealth is probably the easiest way to have 'merit', but depending upon how a society (and each individual) weighs each of those standards would ultimately decide one's merit.

Bilbo being wealthy certainly didn't bring him respect amongst his fellow hobbits. He was queer and a mad man. But when I read his tale and his sacrifices, I think he deserves to receive a nice retirement package. With merit comes the tremendous pressure of responsibility. As one hand giveth, the other hand taketh away. The Sackville-Baggins may begrudingly think Frodo got lucky being Bilbo's heir, but I doubt Frodo would think himself lucky, with the extreme burden he is given. Would you accept Bilbo's inheritance if you were aware of the responsibility (and pains) that lie ahead?

Some people value the simple life, the Gaffer's life, Sam's life; take Frodo's own words:

"All the same," said Frodo, "even if Bilbo could not kill Gollum, I wish he had not kept the Ring. I wish he had never found it, and that I had not got it! Why did you let me keep it? Why didn't you make me throw it away, or, or destroy it?"~The Shadow of the Past

Or maybe taking Tolkien's idea of the complimentary balance between the "high and noble" and the "simple and vulgar":

A moral of the whole is the obvious one that without the high and noble, the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless.~Letter 131

We need our Bill Gates' of the world just as much as we need our garbagemen. We need our Frodos' and our Sams'. Same can actually be said about "evil," a Dark Lord needs his servants, and the servants need a Dark Lord.

Edit: For some reason I think I accidentally hit "enter" and posted before I wanted to.

So, let's have a little discussion on justice and fairness. I'm glad you brought it up Nogrod, for that has been a central philisophical question since the beginning of philosophers. What is justice? What is fairness? And our un-ending search for the Truth.

I won't get into justice, simply because I really wouldn't know where to begin, but it would be great to see some ideas about justice. Anyway, I find fairness interesting.

Richard Lavoie runs a wonderful program about the learning disabled student. One of his topics is about fairness, and I absolutely love the way he puts it. There seems to be the common understanding that "fair" means everyone gets treated the same. Lavoie points out that's not the case (and since it is specifically an education workshop), he believes that fairness is giving each student what they need in order to succeed. When asking teachers if they would give an LD child an outline of notes to help them focus, he said the teacher's response most likely was "That wouldn't be fair to the other students." He quickly would come back arguing it's not about the others, if you were having a heart attack should I refuse to give you CPR, because I couldn't possibly do it for everyone in this room, thus it wouldn't be fair to them?" Of course not, his stance then is, if you're having a heart attack, you need CPR and therefor it's only fair that you receive it.

The question is then would you agree with that definition? And perhaps to apply it to the Lord of the Rings. Frodo gets an oppurtunity, he is faced with a choice. Is it fair that his cousins, because they were not chosen by Bilbo, don't get that oppurtunity? I don't know, it would depend upon your definition of what is fair. However, I would agree with Rick Lavoie's point, it would only be fair to Frodo if he received some kind of "treasure" for his sacrifices. And at the end of things, how much consolation was all that wealth to Frodo?