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The market is the best antidote to discrimination. It rewards talent and penalizes prejudice.
From Cafe Hayek.
"In today’s Wall Street Journal,
Heather Mac Donald explains why it’s absurd to conclude that gender
discrimination is genuinely practiced in competitive industries. (Gated)
For the record, I believe that every private employer has the moral
right, and should have the legal right, to hire and fire whomever it
wants for whatever reasons might strike its fancy, as long as doing so
does not violate a contractual agreement between the employer and
employee. But as an economic matter, any employer in a competitive
industry who acts on prejudices that have no economic merit is an
employer who effectively not only rids its own wallet of $20 bills but
does so in a way that leaves these valuable assets available to be
picked up and used productively – and against it – by its competitors. And $20 bills do not long lay unclaimed.
Here are some slices from Heather’s fine article:
Ms. Pao’s suit is a perfect example of the feminist
vendetta against Silicon Valley companies. That vendetta is based on the
following conceit: Businesses refuse to hire or promote top-notch
employees who would increase their profits, simply because those
employees are female. Reality check: Any employer who rejects talent out
of irrational prejudice will be punished in the marketplace when
competitors snap up that talent. For the feminist line of attack on
Silicon Valley to be valid, every tech firm would need to be conspiring
in an industrywide economic suicide pact.
Kleiner Perkins had devoted considerable time and resources to
developing Ms. Pao’s potential. The idea that the firm was
simultaneously thwarting her because of her gender and forfeiting its
own investment in her is absurd.
….
The market is the best antidote to discrimination. It rewards talent
and penalizes prejudice. Silicon Valley, an unprecedented cornucopia of
life-transforming innovation, is a shining example of entrepreneurial
market forces. Kleiner Perkins might have won this recent skirmish, but
Silicon Valley remains in the cross hairs of feminist crusaders and
their media allies. Expect companies to load up on bean-counting
diversity officers and sexual-harassment training."
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