NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm not really sure what I think about affirmative action. I know two things, however: 1) I'm glad I live in a country where it isn't really much of an issue, and 2) people on both sides in countries where it is speak a lot of shit. That's not to say there aren't perfectly good arguments both for and against, and I've seen people here make them - but for every one of them, there seems to be five deluded fools. Nonetheless, I thought I'd have a stab at articulating one line of argument that I found interesting.

I've seen rational capitalism used as an argument against affirmative action. Assuming a firm acts rationally - and assuming that rationality is Friedman's line of "the only social responsibility being to deliver a profit" etc etc - ultimately it is always in their interests to hire, promote, etc., based on merit rather on ethnicity, gender, and so forth. If they deliberately discriminate, they lose out a person who would, we assume, perform a better job. And firms which either do discriminate, or which do not act rationally, will in a relative free market always lose out, and either fail or reform. So hiring policies will always tend away from discrimination - admittedly, however long that process may take.

But, that isn't necessarily it, is it? Because [limiting, for now, ourselves solely to consideration of hiring] the rationality of hiring isn't solely dependent on a skills assessment. Other factors will be taken into account [especially, it appears to me, in the sort of job sectors targetted by AA supporters]: how well the employee will fit in with the current staff, for example. In that sort of situation, disproportionately unrepresented groups will almost always be less favoured. To put it crudely: is the possibility that hiring a woman in an office of men will be disruptive worth the risk, compared to hiring a slightly less-qualified man who'll fit right in? Because, furthermore, that's not even necessarily a social consideration: if the employer felt the woman would really tank productivity office-wide, it would actually be a rational calculation.

So I don't think an employer taking other factors into account is necessarily irrational [still taking all social and non-calculative assessments as irrational]. In the example of a small town legal firm, which would lose business if it hired a black lawyer over a less-qualified white one, discriminatory hiring policies could be justified as rational - and then, the argument would run, so could 'counter-discrimination': affirmative action.

We would tend to assume that non-merit-based discrimination is always harmful to a business. But is it? And if it's not, then at least in those situations, can the rationality of capitalism be used to:
a) explain why certain groups be under-represented?
b) justify affirmative action or related programs?

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Note: I am not arguing either way on this: I'm just putting thoughts up in the air. And I'm aware there are other arguments involved - those aren't arguments I'm dismissing, they're just not necessarily pertinent to this argument.

I'm not so sure that Capitalism would suffer from affirmative action. In theory, affirmative action forces business to compose it's workforce to represent the ethnic makeup of the community that it is in. If this business serves this same community, then it would be beneficial to this business to be able to relate to that community at all levels.

I think the problem that some people have with affirmative action, is that 'a more qualified person' will lose out to a 'less qualified' one. Really, one should think that you are hiring qualified people in general. (Although I completely disagree with the idea of lowering expectations of hirees... all applicants should meet the same basic requirements. And I generally think this should only apply to government work and government businesses.)

At any rate, affirmative action isn't a function of the market system so much as it is a needs from a governmental perspective to address social issues and inequalities in the workplace. In my view, although I'm a steadfast free-market capitalist, democracy and the need to have a healthy functioning society that's fair and representative trumps market economics.

I'm not so sure that Capitalism would suffer from affirmative action. In theory, affirmative action forces business to compose it's workforce to represent the ethnic makeup of the community that it is in. If this business serves this same community, then it would be beneficial to this business to be able to relate to that community at all levels.
Except that assumes the custom of that business is proportionately represented by the make-up of the community, which isn't necessarily so. For example, a business delivering medium-high range goods and services may not draw any custom from the poor immigrant community, but they may make up a significant proportion of a particular ethnic sector of the community. So you might be compelled to hire in people whose community would not do business there.

I think you have a point, but I also think it is somewhat tangential to the main rationale for affirmative action, namely that you cannot expect there to be qualified minority candidates in an economic and social clime that makes it difficult if not impossible for those minorities to gain access to the "ladders" of economic and social betterment like college. To use LBJ's old analogy, you cannot expect a person to run a race fairly if for the first half of the race he has been tethered to a ball-and-chain and his opponent hasn't. Affirmative Action's purpose, therefore, is to do as much as possible to reset the game so that both people are running as fairly as possible and win on the basis of merit and not on the basis of who was advantaged by society to start out with.

I think you have a point, but I also think it is somewhat tangential to the main rationale for affirmative action, namely that you cannot expect there to be qualified minority candidates in an economic and social clime that makes it difficult if not impossible for those minorities to gain access to the "ladders" of economic and social betterment like college. To use LBJ's old analogy, you cannot expect a person to run a race fairly if for the first half of the race he has been tethered to a ball-and-chain and his opponent hasn't. Affirmative Action's purpose, therefore, is to do as much as possible to reset the game so that both people are running as fairly as possible and win on the basis of merit and not on the basis of who was advantaged by society to start out with.
Ah, absolutely. That's the main justification for Affirmative Action, as I see it. I'm not making a judgment on whether that's a fair line to take in this post. But one of the main counter-arguments that I've seen is that ethnic and other forms of discrimination run counter to free market ideology: that the rationality of capitalism will ultimately help, rather than hinder, solution of the problem. I was trying to make a spin on that, and say that that might not always be a valid assumption.

The argument is that over time rational capitalism will negate the need, or if you will the percieved need, for affirmative action in the long term on a broad spectrum basis. There will always be specific instances of bias in hiring procedures, but as a widespread majorly ocurring phenomenon it should virtually disappear. Which it will, even without AA within the next 2-3 generations.(In the US, barring a sudden wave of fundamentalist religion.) Although you will never see the gender gap fully close both because of pregnancy and the fact that by and large, men are much more cutthroat and focused over the long term than women. There are, of course, exceptions.

Except that assumes the custom of that business is proportionately represented by the make-up of the community, which isn't necessarily so. For example, a business delivering medium-high range goods and services may not draw any custom from the poor immigrant community, but they may make up a significant proportion of a particular ethnic sector of the community. So you might be compelled to hire in people whose community would not do business there.

I know. We're talking about very vague generalizations. If it were a service industry, like a telecommunications company, odds are that the company deals with people across the board. And the idea behind affirmative action is to end the idea of a 'poor immigrant community'. Not hiring someone from an ethnic minority because 'they might not fit in' will perpetually create a class of people who can never advance. I don't propose that one should select unqualified people, by say, reducing the requirements for one group over another, but if a member of an ethnic minority meets those requirements, the needs of society to provide means of advancement for all people trumps any ideological need for unfettered capitalism.

The end result, hopefully, is that several generations from now, that the ethnic lines are blurred, because the glass ceiling doesn't exist anymore.

I think France is a perfect example. (Sorry, I don't mean to offend any French here...). From what I understand, they refused to try any form of affirmative action, and they ended up with an explosive situation where a minority group clearly lacks the opportunities available to the majority, due to an unofficial barrier that's preventing them from getting ahead. (I know this is a simplistic view of the situation, but I don't think it can be completely ignored.) This, generally speaking, can't be good, economically or socially, for any nation regardless of the economic system that it uses.

I think you have a point, but I also think it is somewhat tangential to the main rationale for affirmative action, namely that you cannot expect there to be qualified minority candidates in an economic and social clime that makes it difficult if not impossible for those minorities to gain access to the "ladders" of economic and social betterment like college. To use LBJ's old analogy, you cannot expect a person to run a race fairly if for the first half of the race he has been tethered to a ball-and-chain and his opponent hasn't. Affirmative Action's purpose, therefore, is to do as much as possible to reset the game so that both people are running as fairly as possible and win on the basis of merit and not on the basis of who was advantaged by society to start out with.
Ah, good old LBJ, the man who gave us the current incarnations of the utterly decrepit and failing systems of SocSec and Medicare in an attempt to get people to vote for the Democrats. As he also was responsible for a big part of the push for gun control I find the man to be utterly worthless.

I'm not especially interested in discussing Johnson at this point, and I know his administration was a deeply flawed one, but Social Security and Medicare are far from the worst examples of US government policies.

--snip--
Yes, certainly, this is all very vaguely generalised, but I don't think that necessarily rules out discussion. Your example of France was interesting. I don't know too much about this area in French history/law, but it does seem apparent that whatever has been adopted hasn't worked. I suppose I hadn't really considered what you're arguing, which is long-term stability, but at the same time, I'm not sure how many corporations would make that consideration either. Long-term strategy, and the considerations of the welfare of general society, don't often fit together that comfortably, to my mind,

I'll give this one bump.

My company sells to builders and other people who may have slight biases to put it mildly. If I have two job applications, one from a member of an ethnic minority, it makes sense for my business for me to reject the one from a minority.

So, it's sometimes neccessary to legislate to force the issue. People who say that racism is a minority view are both deluded and being overly-simplistic. Prejudice exsists, and rational decisions such as the situation above exsist. AA is the way to combat that.

My company sells to builders and other people who may have slight biases to put it mildly. If I have two job applications, one from a member of an ethnic minority, it makes sense for my business for me to reject the one from a minority.

So, it's sometimes neccessary to legislate to force the issue.

Perhaps, but legislating against discrimination is entirely different from legislating affirmative action.

Perhaps, but legislating against discrimination is entirely different from legislating affirmative action.

Isn't that kind of naive?

My company sells to builders and other people who may have slight biases to put it mildly. If I have two job applications, one from a member of an ethnic minority, it makes sense for my business for me to reject the one from a minority.

So, it's sometimes neccessary to legislate to force the issue. People who say that racism is a minority view are both deluded and being overly-simplistic. Prejudice exsists, and rational decisions such as the situation above exsist. AA is the way to combat that.
I would probably agree, except I would modify that last sentence to "AA is a way to combat that". I think there are others, principally freedom of information and education.

cheerfully withdrawn

Affirmative action has a lot of problems, and should be discontinued. While I doubt that any but a few are opposed to the goal of ending discrimination, this particular approach is greatly flawed.

Forcing any entity to hire based on a candidate’s race is inherently bad. Discrimination caused by a subtle cultural bias is far less damaging than an enforced institutionalized discrimination. Lets come out and say it; AA is enforced discrimination.

While some argue that I am being racist, sexist or otherwiseist a bigot because I am a white male, displaying your own prejudice that white males are racist and sexist bigots is not a valid argument.

Chatting with a black female coworker (the only black in the small office of 7 people) she told me how much it disturbs her that she doesn’t know if she was hired because the manager thought she was a capable person (which she was) or because she was black.

Perhaps it is because I am living in Maryland and not the flyovers, but I doubt that there is a significant degree of racism to justify a legal enfranchisement of racist laws. These programs do more to hurt rather than help minorities. It brings into question whether someone was the best candidate, or was hired because of their race. Not to mention there are plenty of examples of poorly qualified candidates who get positions because of affirmative action regulations (of which I point out government research facilities in particular, there is a strong bias towards white males in those but that is natural in the pool of candidates rather than current discrimination – after all, how many qualified black female biochemists with many years of experience that are willing to work for the peanuts the government pays do you think are available?).

Whenever I have been put in charge of hiring someone, I have a strong bias. This is not due to racism; this is due to the particular candidates that come before me. I don’t care what color your skin is, if you are wearing jeans 10 sizes too big for you so that they hang down around your knees and display your boxers nearly in their entirety, use atrocious grammar, come in smelling like you’ve not taken a bath in a month, chewing on a straw, and railing about how not hiring you on the spot means I am a white devil trying to keep the black man down, I do not want you representing my company. That is not racism, and I should not be legally required to hire that individual because most of my employees are white or asian women. Call me sexist or racist, but a black male dressed like that for the job interview, and with that kind of attitude, is going to hurt my company while an attractive woman is far more likely to benefit my company trying to sell sex lube at a adult trade show or high end soaps and lotions to upscale boutiques. If an attractive and charming black man were to apply, I would hire him in a second. Who I hire should be my decision, and should not be subject to government controls.

To get back to your idea of whether rational capitalism can be used to defend affirmative action;

The proponents of the idea that affirmative action is detrimental to capitalism, state that it is because it interferes with a business' right to make it's own hiring choices through meritocratic preferences. But the inherent purpose of Capitalism, is for one thing: to create capital for the owner(s) of the business.

One would have to prove that Affirmative Action interferes with a business' ability to create capital. However, that would depend on the nature of the methodology of Affirmative Action. For instance, if government offered hiring incentives to meet ethnic quotas, such as subsidising wages, then AA would actually enhance a business' ability to create capital.

Really, the idea that capitalism might suffer, is somewhat weak.

Who I hire should be my decision, and should not be subject to government controls.

You're saying you should be allowed to discriminate?

Well, supporters of capitalism who are against anti-discrimination laws state that discrimination ultimately hurts businesses, as the business will lose out on the productive capability of the discriminated-against group. So, to take this a bit further, if someone doesn't realize that an individual of a discriminated-against group will ultimately be more productive for the business, then affirmative action will be justified in the sense that it caused more productive individuals to be hired.

Assuming a firm acts rationally - and assuming that rationality is Friedman's line of "the only social responsibility being to deliver a profit" Seems to me that Friedman has redefined the word "rational"

Chatting with a black female coworker (the only black in the small office of 7 people) she told me how much it disturbs her that she doesn’t know if she was hired because the manager thought she was a capable person (which she was) or because she was black. I'm willing to bet that she'd be even more disturbed by not being hired because she was black.

Well, supporters of capitalism who are against anti-discrimination laws state that discrimination ultimately hurts businesses, as the business will lose out on the productive capability of the discriminated-against group. So, to take this a bit further, if someone doesn't realize that an individual of a discriminated-against group will ultimately be more productive for the business, then affirmative action will be justified in the sense that it caused more productive individuals to be hired.
That's another line, yes. I suppose I was taking a slightly unrealistic 'ideal type', in which we were talking about people with the same or only slightly lower qualification levels being discriminated against. Certainly, though, it's the same basic point: affirmative action isn't necessarily bad for business.

No matter the form of economic system is used, I personally feel that affirmative action is wrong and should be abolished. It no longer gives everyone an "equal" chance. It favors people of "minority" ethnic groups and in reality undermines "all me are created equal" just as much as slavery by giving minority groups a better chance than majority groups.

No matter the form of economic system is used, I personally feel that affirmative action is wrong and should be abolished. It no longer gives everyone an "equal" chance. It favors people of "minority" ethnic groups and in reality undermines "all me are created equal" just as much as slavery by giving minority groups a better chance than majority groups.

Majority groups already have the advantage, AA simply seeks to go someway towards redressing the balance.