A society occupied by virtuous people, whose behavior is self-governed by the moral principles taught by the major religions, needs few laws from their governments.
If we are free—if we live in a free society—we can and will discriminate in our choices as we see fit. We will choose what is best for us and what we like most. We will choose our friends and clubs. In our economic dealings, if our choices are not based on the objective merits of a product or an employee (if we are an employer), we will suffer the consequences (pay more for an inferior good or service or less productive employee). Thus, our self-interest will drive us toward the right kind of discrimination/choices in the market. “Are Venture Capitalists Racists?”
Morally, making choices that treat others unfairly, dishonestly, or rudely, diminishes the harmony and quality of social life. The lack of such moral standards will diminish us in the eyes of others and ultimately in our own eyes. If every member of our society adopted and lived by such moral standards, we would be the freest, happiest, and most flourishing society possible.
In such a society, the government would only need to protect us from the few criminals (foreign and domestic) who attempted to violate our persons and our property, set the standards that allow markets to function efficiently, enforce our property and other rights, and adjudicate contract disputes. With regard to government employment and activities, the law should forbid discrimination on basis not relevant to the government’s purposes, e.g., when hiring workers, the government should not be allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, or national origin.
In the laudable objective of overcoming a history of slavery and morally inappropriate discrimination our laws have gone further. The 1964 Civil Rights Act extended the antidiscrimination provisions appropriate for the government to private sector businesses serving the public. Businesses renting rooms (hotels) or selling goods (grocery stores or restaurants) were forbidden to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation or national origin. See the wonderful movie “Green Book” if you haven’t already.
Rather quickly the courts were asked to sort out the law’s application when it violated other individual rights such as adhering to one’s religious beliefs. Should a Satan worshiper cook, who does not believe in marriage, have to bake a wedding cake for someone’s wedding? I don’t mean to suggest that such questions can be or will be easily resolved, though in a free society in which the vast majority of residents adhered to good moral values, no one would need to be forced to provide any service they didn’t want to, and no one would be deprived of their wedding cake either.
A further step was taken toward allowing a greater exercise of individual judgement about race when the Supreme Court effectively overruled Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), and validated some “affirmative action in college admissions provided that race had a limited role in decisions.” Otherwise giving “race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions processes violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” of the US Constitution. Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard – Wikipedia
In my view, a college that bends admission criteria in order to increase the diversity of its student body is acting wisely and in the interest of the learning experience of its students. My view of a college having to satisfy a government given racial or some other quota is the opposite. “Affirmative action, based on the logic that disparities equal discrimination, entrenched the idea of equal results over equal treatment…. Later, in the mid-1980s, harassment law enshrined the idea that free speech must be suppressed to eliminate subjectively defined ‘hostile environments’ for protected groups….
“The steady devolution of lawmaking authority from Congress to administrators produces a paradoxical situation whereby organizations must violate the text of the law (non-discrimination) to satisfy activist interpretations of law. Colorblindness is now illegal.” “Two Roads to Woke” “Affirmative Action”
Thus, two centuries of debate over how best to trade off and balance conflicting individual rights in order to maximize our overall freedom that helped produce the greatest human flourishing the world has ever experienced, is at risk of being shouted down and silenced. “Human Progress” Shutting down that debate and related questions in order to spare one group or another the discomfort of hearing something they don’t want to hear would mean the end of the liberal/neoliberal world we have built.
To take but one example, I strongly disagree with much of the underlying premises of Critical Race Theory. But books explaining its views belong in the library and high school history class discussions. I will only convince my friends of its errors with my arguments, not by burning its books. We only conduct our lives on the basis of what we really believe. “Virginia Samuels library LGBTQ books”
So, what is to be done to preserve our classically liberal principles and personal freedom? The innovation and dynamism our freedom has enabled, which has so dramatically lifted our standards of living, has also forced adjustments on some that have not always been easy. Trade theory has always talked about the need to compensate the (few) losers. But the safety nets we have built have generally been inadequate and rarely received the attention they need. “Replacing Social Security with a Universal Basic Income” The other thing we must do is to use our freedom to speak to explain the powerful benefits of our neoliberal principles. Teach, teach, teach. “Deirdre McCloskey – Why Liberalism Works–How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer More Equal Prosperous World for All”
Sabastian Edwards has written a wonderful book about the rise and potential fall of neoliberalism in Chile, which makes these points. Much misinformation surrounds the activities of the Chilean economists trained at the University of Chicago—the Chicago Boys–who transformed Chiles economy from the repressive import substitution, state dominated model prevalent in South America at the time to a neoliberal free market model of Milton Friedman and the Chicago school, during and following the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet following his 1973 overthrow of democratically elected President Salvador Allende. Edwards’ account is extraordinarily detailed and balanced. His advice at the end for saving neoliberalism, classical liberalism, freedom or whatever you want to call it deserves our most serious attention. “Chile-Project Chicago-The Downfall of Neoliberalism”
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