On Dec. 18, Ford Motor Company agreed to pay $10.5 million to
settle two suits based on gender, race and age discrimination.
The automaker was accused of unfair bias in giving older, white
male employees lower grades, raises and rates of promotion than
young women and minorities.
Two weeks ago, Smith College coach Jim Babyak was awarded
$1.65 million for being fired in 1997 so that the college could
hire a woman instead.
The "men's movement" considers these payouts to be victories
... but they are not. They reassert two of the most destructive
assumptions underlying "diversity" programs such as affirmative
action: First, that government has a right to determine the
employment practices of private companies; second, that a
marketplace in which people trade without restriction is
inherently unfair and hinders diversity.
I think the opposite is true. Consider the following account.
In 1733, the French philosopher Voltaire published Letters
Concerning the English Nation. He hoped to explain how the
extreme religious diversity of England — where Protestant,
Catholic, Jew, and Muslim interacted with good will — existed so
harmoniously when religious differences in France had caused war.
Voltaire denied the argument that the law had created social
harmony in the midst of religious diversity. After all, the
Anglican Church enjoyed many legal privileges and its favored
status would naturally create resentment, not good will.
Certainly that is what occurred in poverty- and violence-ridden
France. Yet England brimmed with an air of cooperation and
prosperity.
What other factor accounted for the difference?
England was then known as a "nation of shopkeepers." In
Letter Six, Voltaire wrote of the London Stock Exchange in which
"the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian deal with one another
as if they were of the same religion, and reserve the name of
infidel for those who go bankrupt." After "leaving these
peaceable and free assemblies, some go to the synagogue, others
in search of a drink." In the end, Voltaire declared, "all are
satisfied."
Commerce, the free market, established an arena within which
diverse people eagerly traded with each other to mutual benefit
and, then, peacefully walked away from each other when the
benefit had ended.
This was the secret of English harmony and prosperity: the
ability of all to associate economically as legal equals and the
freedom to not associate — the freedom to walk away.
Today, the government dictates the terms on which labor can
be traded in the workplace — the terms of employment — and
denies to people the right to not associate on the grounds that
non-association constitutes discrimination. Government violates
the two prerequisites for social harmony.
In some cases, non-association may well reflect an irrational
bias such as racism or sexism. An employer's natural impulse is
to hire the best available employee and, thus, make more money.
In some cases, this inclination may take second place to his
dislike of Hispanics or women. If so, what should be done?
In 1957, Gary Becker's pivotal book The Economics of
Discrimination provided persuasive evidence that employers who
used "unfair bias" generated less income. The implications of
Becker's work have been expanded by many analysts, including the
black economist Thomas Sowell. He argues passionately that
government's intervention "on behalf" of blacks has bitterly
impoverished them. One of the most elegant aspects of the free
market is that it tends to "correct" unwise economic policies.
These corrections can be hurried along by public censure,
peer pressure, strikes, boycotts, and the myriad of other
non-violent strategies used by the '60s civil rights movement.
The most powerful tool is education because changing a person's
mind cures discrimination without creating a backlash. People
properly resent a law that tells them who they must associate
with and on what terms.
This is precisely what should not be done in the case of
unfair bias. There shouldn't be a law.
As a woman, I hope that other people view me as a human being
they would like to employ. But if I wish to claim the right to
turn down a job for any reason I see fit, then I have to respect
the corresponding right of an employer not to hire me for any
reason he sees fit. We both appeal to the same principle: we
bargain with what is ours and respect each other's right to say
"no."
If the men's movement believes that the recent Ford and Smith
College payoffs constitute progress, they are mistaken. The
courts are perpetuating the same pattern that caused conflict in
the first place: that is, the "right" of government to determine
the terms on which private parties associate. It was wrong when
it benefited women. It is wrong when it benefits men.
Government should get out of the diversity business.
Employers should determine their own employment practices and be
left to pay the high economic cost of discrimination.
Personally, I hope employers who discriminate on the basis of
anything but merit go bankrupt. I am willing to picket and write
articles to hurry that process along. But I am not willing to
use the law to pry open their doors of business. Destroying the
right of non-association sets too dangerous a precedent. It
means I may someday have to invite those employers into my own
home or business. And I value highly the right not to associate
with bigots.
