Newsweek‘s Anna Quindlen claims in her latest column that Republican presidential candidate John McCain is playing the “Caucasian card” in criticizing Democrat Barack Obama.
Several of Quindlen’s assertions made me wince. Due to space considerations, I’ll limit my comments to one passage:
The fallacy at the heart of most discussions of affirmative action is twofold: that it replaced a true meritocracy, and that it means promoting the second-rate. The meritocracy theory requires us to believe that for decades no women and no people of color were as qualified as white men, who essentially had every field locked up. Belief in the ascendancy of the second-rate requires us to demean the qualifications of countless writers, jurists, doctors, academics and other professionals who gained entry and then performed superlatively.
Here Quindlen misses the point. I cannot refute her argument that some people believe affirmative action “replaced a true meritocracy.” I’ve never met anyone who’s expressed that belief, either explicitly or implicitly. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Meanwhile, affirmative action critics often present a more clearheaded assessment. That assessment emphasizes the negative influence of government-sanctioned, -endorsed, or -tolerated racial discrimination in the days before affirmative action. Their solution? Stop the government from discriminating based on race.
Unfortunately, the enforcement mechanism for affirmative action ? quotas ? uses the power of government to mandate a different form of discrimination based on race.
Neither the old system, marred as it was by government intervention, nor the current system, marred as it is by government intervention, works. Do you think the problem could be government intervention?
Quindlen also attacks the “belief in the ascendancy of the second-rate.” What she chooses not to address is the fact that a racial quota presupposes the ascendancy of the second-rate.
With no quotas, an employer chooses a less-qualified candidate at his own risk. He’s free to hire his buddy’s son or his neighbor’s daughter or his golfing partner’s nephew. But those connected job applicants better be productive, or the business can’t continue to succeed. If the employer bypasses well-qualified minorities through racial discrimination, those minority applicants will use their productivity to boost other businesses.
Business owners left to their own devices have an incentive to hire the best candidates, regardless of race. Those who choose to limit their job applicant pool through race discrimination will end up hurting their own bottom line. The market will make them pay.
If you think I’m playing the “Caucasian card,” don’t take my word for it. Read the many columns on race discrimination from Thomas Sowell.
