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Talk:Libertarian censorship (view source)
Revision as of 05:04, November 18, 2008
, 05:04, November 18, 2008→Tim Wise On Racism & The Libertarian Deceit: new section
::All of the libertarians I know agree with the Norquist idea of shrinking the federal government down to the point where it can be drown in a bathtub. They want to create a world in which a parent can choose to send their child to a school that starts the day with a prayer. Or doesn't for that matter. They support the right of parents to homeschool their children and teach them what they feel children should learn. I'm not sure how else to state that. If you can find libertarian organizations that actually support restrictions on the prayers that students say, please tell me. [[User:ArnoldFriend|ArnoldFriend]] 23:37, 17 November 2008 (EST)
::All of the libertarians I know agree with the Norquist idea of shrinking the federal government down to the point where it can be drown in a bathtub. They want to create a world in which a parent can choose to send their child to a school that starts the day with a prayer. Or doesn't for that matter. They support the right of parents to homeschool their children and teach them what they feel children should learn. I'm not sure how else to state that. If you can find libertarian organizations that actually support restrictions on the prayers that students say, please tell me. [[User:ArnoldFriend|ArnoldFriend]] 23:37, 17 November 2008 (EST)
== Tim Wise On Racism & The Libertarian Deceit ==
In my thirty-four years on this Earth, there are at least a few things I’ve learned. First, that it makes almost no sense whatsoever for a child to argue with his or her parents about bedtime. Secondly, that it makes almost as little sense to argue with a cop about a speeding ticket. ''And finally, that it makes even less sense to argue with a libertarian about anything.''
This hearty band of market-worshipers so prominent on the Internet proffers a worldview that is not only ahistoric (after all, there has never been a free market, nor could there be one given the tendency of the powerful to seek and receive protection for their power), but is also irrelevant to the world in which we live. To believe that pure, unrestrained capitalism is a good idea requires first that one can actually imagine such a thing existing at all. But since such a scenario would require an end to subsidizing industries, an end to inflated management and executive salaries that are unrelated to performance, an end to limited liability protections and a likely return to strict torts for corporate misconduct, and an end to foreign military interventions to prop up private interests, we can safely say that such a utopian future is not in the cards. Simply put: capitalists can’t afford capitalism.
That said, it is still necessary to understand why this particular libertarian logic is flawed on any number of issues. This is true not because it is particularly helpful in winning arguments with its adherents, but rather to fully understand the realities of power and privilege and the ways in which the current economic system perpetuates massive inequalities. It is also helpful as a preemptive antidote for those who may be vulnerable to the simplistic, almost-sounds-like-it-makes-sense worldview of free market fanatics.
Examining the libertarian position on racism and racial discrimination is particularly fascinating, and makes clear the degree to which those who cleave to this ideology are living in a world completely divorced from reality.
According to libertarians, racial discrimination in the workforce cannot occur to any real extent in a market economy, because it is fundamentally irrational and would cost employers money. Even though the current U.S. economy is not a pure free market, most libertarians likewise claim that racism in the labor market is rare today, and for this same reason: namely, that to discriminate against a more qualified worker of color just because of his or her race would result in that employer losing money, relative to their non-racist competitors who would presumably snatch up the passed over employees and reap the benefits of doing so. To the extent that there are large racial differences in income, wealth, or occupational status, libertarians assume this must be the result of people of color being objectively less qualified. Passing a person of color over for a certain job or promotion is therefore not evidence of racism, but merely a rational calculation of merit.
Yet this argument assumes that racial discrimination only manifests in direct acts of overt bias (i.e., the racist employer who refuses to hire blacks). But much of the inequality in the labor market stems from factors other than overt bias. For example, 85-90% of all jobs are never advertised, according to the National Center for Career Strategies, but rather are filled through informal networks of associates, friends, family and assorted connections.
As such, there is no free and open competition for most positions; employers aren’t even in a position to size up all the possible people they could hire, and then make an overtly biased decision on the basis of race. Rather, most hires are made without a broad, open competition, and since blacks and other people of color are disproportionately excluded from the best informal networks for jobs (the result of past and ongoing unequal opportunity in housing and education), many qualified people of color will never have a shot to be hired (or directly rejected for that matter), since the employers in question won’t even know about them.
Similarly, since the employer can’t know about the possible employees who didn’t apply (because they were out of the word-of-mouth network), they can’t possibly realize, after the fact, that perhaps they lost out by not doing more to diversify their hiring. They wouldn’t be able to see that there were equally or more qualified people of color they might have hired, because they would have no awareness of such persons in the potential pool. Nor would their competitors be much better in this regard, since they too are likely to hire within networks and other informal mechanisms.
In other words, the market in most cases is an insular one that fails to provide adequate information to employers that they would need to make true merit decisions, or to recognize the mistakes that come from maintaining discriminatory networks for jobs and opportunities.
Read more here: [http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featwise_196.shtml]
== Tim Wise On Racism & The Libertarian Deceit ==
== Tim Wise On Racism & The Libertarian Deceit ==