Amerika

From The Cage by Bonnie Kistler:

And if they laid off any of their diversity hires, at leasat three other clients would yank their business for failure to meet their requisite quotas. You, my dear, Joel confided, his hands spread helplessly, are a victim of affirmative action. I never knew if that was the real reason or if Joel was simply a racist. Maybe both. (76)

On the internet, the idea that affirmative action and disparate impact displaced White people seems to be contentious. In real life, it is not; organizations realize that to promote people for political reasons is to displace others and, like in the passage above, to fire them when times get tough.

Very few people can understand that every business has its carrying capacity. If it did not, businesses would add more employees for their own convenience. However, the number of employees is mostly dictated by the need to compete in worldwide markets, which means that the number of employees is relatively fixed.

When policies like affirmative action come about, they create politically-protected groups who cannot be fired from their jobs. This adds a cost like regulations or taxes do which does not return on investment. In other words, it is seen as a cost of doing business, and it is passed on directly to consumers.

If all affirmative action hiring and racial, ethnic, religious, and gender quotas went away tomorrow, prices would go down. This would in turn cut into government revenue from taxes and force it to downsize itself. One can see why government feels it “needs” more diversity.

Tags: affirmative action, disparate impact, diversity, zero-sum economics