Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site burl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!geoff
From: geoff@burl.UUCP (geoff)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: A Note on Discrimination and Society
Message-ID: <776@burl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Jul-85 13:43:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: burl.776
Posted: Fri Jul 19 13:43:50 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 05:51:34 EDT
References: <6268@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Reply-To: geoff@burl.UUCP (geoff)
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 42
Summary: 

In article <6268@ucla-cs.ARPA> mccolm@ucla-cs.UUCP writes:
>
>The great appeal of this is that it has absolutely no ethical detractions,
>and it would provide an undreamed-of boost to the national standard of living.
>There are two problems:  first, it would cost a lot of money, and second, it
>would remove the second to last cheap source of labor in this country, the
>uneducated poor.  Thus, such a change would act as a tax on the middle-class,
>by raising prices in general, to pay the poor minorities better wages.
>
>There can still be no complaint against the idea, because this new "tax"
>would in fact be removing the implied subsidy that the poor minorities,
>who work for lower wages, pay the rest of the nation, in the form of
>artificially low prices.
>--fini--
>
>Eric McColm

In the main I agree wholeheartedly with your article.  I disagree with your
second con argument.  Yes, it would remove a source of cheap labor, but
that is because the people involved are now doing something else that is
worth more (if a person costs a business more than they provide to it,
they certainly won't be around very long!).  Hence they are more productive
than they were before, which should put a downward pressure on prices.
Also, if there were fewer people available to do manual labor, the cost
of it would go up, and it would become economically feasible to replace
labor with machinery, which should be cheaper in the long run anyway (just
a high initial cost).

This to me seems the only reasonable (ie, fair by my lights and workable)
way to attack discrimination.  Make the people involved so good at what
they do they cannot be discriminated against (for economic reasons).  If
there is an objection that this would be expensive, think of the opportunity
costs of having these people not work, not to mention the direct costs of
welfare and government management (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) of
these programs.  There is an old quote (from somewhere...) that if you give
a man a fish he will eat for a day.  Teach him how to fish and he will eat
for a lifetime.  Life is not so simple, of course, but the staggering costs
we pay now cannot long be maintained without crippling the economy.  And
that will hurt EVERYBODY.  Treat the causes, not the effects.  There will
always be bigots.  But if they don't affect you, do you really care?

	geoff sherwood