vip@philabs.UUCP (V. I. P.) (06/03/85)
Just a suggestion, to solve all the problems with the idea of Affirmative Action. This is intended to be presented mainly rhetorically... Recently, a special Congressional Committee decided that all Japanese interned during the second world war should be compensated monetarily for their internment. I would suggest a similar solution to the Affirmative action debate. Simply, figure out the dollar amount owed the survivors/decendants of forced labor (slavery), and make payment. Let's call it compensation for wages deferred. That along with the Civil Rights Amendment making it illegal to discriminate in the future (actually, from '64 on) will even the score. The affect? Complete elimination of the Affirmative Action debate. No more wimpering from the liberals about inequities, no more bitching and moaning from privileged classes about reverse discrimination (which I don't really believe can exist). Blacks will then take that money and invest it or do whatever else they wish with it and in 20 years, or however long, if there are still poor blacks we can say that they had their opportunity, etc. to do whatever they wanted. Now if course this is an expensive solution, compensating one person for the wages withheld from perhaps several generations of his anscestors, but it is a final solution to the Affirmative Action problem. Brian Day
mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) (06/04/85)
>/* vip@philabs.UUCP (V. I. P.) / 11:22 am Jun 3, 1985 */ >Simply, figure out the dollar amount owed the >survivors/decendants of forced labor (slavery), and make >payment. Let's call it compensation for wages deferred. That sounds great, as long as you extract payment from those who did the forcing, or their estates, or from those to whom their wealth was transferred. Don't forget about discounting for future value! >. . . no more bitching and moaning from >privileged classes about reverse discrimination (which I >don't really believe can exist). Are you arguing that the phrase "reverse discrimination" is inappropriate for describing that which it is used to describe in common usage (or, for that matter, for describing anything), or are you saying that it is not possible for an employer to hire a less qualified member of a minority group instead of a more qualified member of a majority group (whatever that is) because he/she is a member of a minority group? > Brian Day Mike Sykora
chrisa@azure.UUCP (Chris Andersen) (06/07/85)
> [...] > Simply, figure out the dollar amount owed the > survivors/decendants of forced labor (slavery), and make > payment. Let's call it compensation for wages deferred. > That along with the Civil Rights Amendment making it illegal > to discriminate in the future (actually, from '64 on) will > even the score. The affect? Complete elimination of the > Affirmative Action debate. No more wimpering from the > liberals about inequities, no more bitching and moaning from > privileged classes about reverse discrimination (which I > don't really believe can exist). > > Brian Day oh boy, I can just see the disputes arising if this were enacted. There are vitually no good records on just *how much* work any particular slave did therefore there is no way to calculate just compensation. Chris Andersen
cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (06/12/85)
> Simply, figure out the dollar amount owed the > survivors/decendants of forced labor (slavery), and make > payment. Let's call it compensation for wages deferred. > That along with the Civil Rights Amendment making it illegal > to discriminate in the future (actually, from '64 on) will > even the score. The affect? Complete elimination of the > Affirmative Action debate. No more wimpering from the > liberals about inequities, no more bitching and moaning from > privileged classes about reverse discrimination (which I > don't really believe can exist). > > > Brian Day What a fascinating solution. There are a few problems, though. What is the value of the slave's labor? Should we deduct the room & board? If we did, there might not be much left. You may recall Adam Smith's remarks in _The_ _Wealth_ _Of_ _Nations_: Whatever labor the slave provides above and beyond his subsistence must be beaten out of him. Adam Smith was observing that slave labor was an economically inefficient system. More recently, Thomas Sowell's book _Markets_ _And_ _Minorities_ pointed out that the areas of the South that were the most involved with slavery were the poorest under slavery, and remain very poor today. He asserts that the tremendous costs associated with preserving slavery (which required substantial governmental assistance) impoverished the society as a whole. Slavery, for the most part, satisfied a need for dominance much more than economic need, and only because the governments of the South (and after 1850, the North) redistributed wealth to preserve slavery did it last as long as it did. (Want a more detailed and very readable analysis? Read Sowell's book.) Should those of us whose families contributed lives and suffering to end slavery be required to compensate blacks? Should we try to determine which whites today are descended from slaveowners? How will we apportion compensation to blacks who are part-white? Sowell's book also contains another interesting point on the issue of compensation. If compensation is intended to address the discrepancy between white and black wealth today, why not make the compensation based on the difference between black African wealth and the wealth of black Americans? Except that then blacks would have to compensate whites. Silly? Of course. So is this whole idea of compensating D at C's expense for crimes committed by A against B.