It is interesting to re-read Milton Friedman's Capitalism too Freedom some 50 years afterwards its master publication. There are ma...
It is interesting to re-read Milton Friedman's Capitalism too Freedom some 50 years afterwards its master publication. There are many aspects of the mass that are probable to choose handgrip of a contemporary reader's attention, but mine was drawn to Friedman's analysis of racial discrimination. In general, Friedman believes that capitalism is fundamentally expert for promoting categorical equality.
It is a striking historical fact that the evolution of capitalism has been accompanied past times a major reduction inwards the extent to which item religious, racial, or social groups convey operated nether especial handicaps inwards honour of their economical activities; have, equally the proverb goes, been discriminated against. (108)More specifically, Friedman argues that racial discrimination inwards utilisation (and housing equally well, it would seem) is essentially impossible inside a marketplace economy.
We convey already seen how a gratis marketplace separates economical efficiency from irrelevant characteristics. As noted inwards chapter i, the purchaser of breadstuff does non know whether it was made from wheat grown past times a white human being or a Negro, past times a Christian or a Jew. In consequence, the producer of wheat is inwards a seat to role resources equally effectively equally he can, regardless of what the attitudes of the community may hold upwards toward the color, the religion, or other characteristics of the people he hires. (109)So self involvement on the business office of employers volition receive them to brand hiring decisions that are category-blind: the most productive too to the lowest degree costly worker volition hold upwards hired. H5N1 rational work concern or firm has powerful incentives non to discriminate.
In fact, Friedman expresses skepticism nearly whether the concept of "discrimination" fifty-fifty makes feel inside a marketplace economy.
The human being who exercises discrimination pays a cost for doing so. He is, equally it were, "buying" what he regards equally a "product." It is difficult to encounter that discrimination tin flame convey whatever important other than a "taste" of others that ane does non share. We do non regard it equally "discrimination" -- or at to the lowest degree non inwards the same invidious feel -- if an private is willing to pay a higher cost to heed to ane vocalizer than to another, although nosotros do if he is willing to pay a higher cost to convey services rendered to him past times a individual of ane color than past times a individual of another. The divergence betwixt the ii cases is that inwards the ane illustration nosotros part the taste, too inwards the other nosotros do not. (110)It is difficult to foursquare these observations amongst the stiff segregation too discrimination that were taking house at the same fourth dimension inwards the Jim Crow South. For that matter, the facts of racial discrimination inwards housing too utilisation that convey characterized American gild since emancipation were perfectly visible inwards Friedman's ain urban inwardness of Chicago inwards 1962. So all Friedman needed to do was to expect around him on Chicago's South Side.
Friedman draws a logical conclusion from his laid of assumptions nearly markets too discrimination: fair utilisation practices legislation is wrong. "Such legislation clearly involves interference amongst the liberty of individuals to larn into into voluntary contracts amongst ane another…. Thus it is straight an interference amongst liberty of the sort that nosotros would object to inwards most other contexts" (111).
So taking steps through legislation to cut the harmful effects of racial discrimination inwards hiring (and presumably inwards housing) is an illegitimate role of the forcefulness of government, according to Friedman. In fact, he compares efforts to do therefore to the Hitler Nuremberg laws (111).
These are stunning conclusions, instantly that nosotros convey lived through the Civil Rights crusade too convey seen the coercive practices that provided the architecture of the American racial system. What it suggests is that Friedman saw the social reality around him through the glasses of an idealized shape of pure marketplace society, inwards which transactions occur betwixt purely rational individuals too atomic number 82 collectively to beneficent outcomes. But that was non the reality of the United States, too then or now.
We don't ask to assume that this item economist was racist; ane doesn't know. In fact, Friedman asserts the opposite:
I believe strongly that the color of a man's peel or the faith of his parents is, past times itself, no ground to process him differently; that a human being should hold upwards judged past times what he is too what he does too non past times these external characteristics. I deplore what seem to me the prejudice too narrowness of outlook of those whose tastes differ from mine inwards this honour too I recall the less of them for it. But inwards a gild based on gratis discussion, the appropriate recourse is for me to attempt to persuade them that their tastes are bad too that they should alter their views too their behavior, non to role coercive ability to enforce my tastes too my attitudes on others. (111)(Is anti-racism but a "taste"?)
In fact, Friedman's views throughout this chapter illustrate a dissimilar deficiency. His analysis of racial discrimination is a striking illustration of the ways inwards which adherence to a theory tin flame blind a individual to the patent social realities around him or her. And ane time nosotros encounter the realities of how racial discrimination too coercion worked inwards America, it is incumbent upon us equally a gild to lay aside our stylized theories too laid on the problem.
Here are a few before posts on the Jim Crow organisation (link, link).
COMMENTS