Individualism
So, the free-market economy extols the values of individualism? It refuses to lock people into groups. Dr. Jean-Louis Caccomo, writing for The Yorktown Patriot, talks about the failures of so-called social justice, which seeks to equalize injustices by favoring one group of people over another. "In fact, those who reason in terms of class, caste, and ethnicity are those who incite class, gender, and race warfare. They do not admit and can not even conceive of the autonomy of the individual and turn the State into the instrument of the power of some social groups. To borrow from Marxist logic, the State becomes an instrument for the dictatorship of the proletariat." When decrying "social injustice" and placing individualism on a pedestal, it is very important that we use the M-word, which is, of course, very charged with meaning (Marxist?! That means Communist!).
This author is very good at employing extreme examples and making them sound as though they are the norm. Railing against unions, he says:
One other outcome is a kind of "social terrorism" that consists of the extension of "union rights" in such a manner that they conflict with the respect of fundamental individual rights: freedom of movement, freedom of thought, private property. French citizens are frequently held hostage in such situations as the Bov é case, when truck drivers blockade roads or when workers threaten to pollute the environment with dangerous chemical substances so as to influence negotiations in their firms.
Let's be reasonable. The French are further to the left than the United States. They have enacted laws there that would never be enacted in the United States. (Currently, French law limits working hours for everyone to thirty per week. The U.S. has already dealt with this; in the early part of the 20th century, the Supreme Court struck down a law limiting working hours for bakers, emphasizing that the state has no business limiting how much a laborer can sell his labor.)
It would be nice to think that, in this example, workers and owners have an equal amount of power, but that's not the case. Owners have the power of the purse. When faced with doing what an owner says and keeping his job, or not doing that and leaving his job, a worker will most often do the former. Unions are vital in protecting the interests of workers, giving them some leverage against owners. Remember when unions used to be illegal? Or strikes were broken by hired goons? If you don't, read The Disinherited by Jack Conroy or The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck for more details. (Dr. Caccomo would no doubt dismiss both of these people as "socialists," which they were; nevertheless, they were there, on the farms and in the factories, watching as owners abused their power over workers to make some extra bucks.)
Certainly individualism is a great ideal. It would be wonderful if we could look at anyone solely on the basis of that person's merit as an individual person. But we can't. There ten million negative stereotypes floating through the minds of every person in this country that no one is regarded as "an individual." Dr. Caccomo would do well to not merely look at how the state views the individual, but how other people view individuals. Invariably, if the individual can be classified as the member of some stigmatized group, that person is not seen on his own with individual merit, but as another member of a particular group (e.g. "those blacks are all the same, those women are all the same").
Comments
I agree with you on the subject of unions; workers should have every right to collectivize in order to negotiate with employers. To ban this sort of behavior is inherently undemocratic, I would say.
But that's an economic interest group, a voluntary association banding together for a stated goal. I think Caccamo's point, as I understand it at least, holds perfectly true for ethnic, religious, gender or cultural groups.
Caccamo seems to be bemoaning the extension of workers' rights and basic civil rights -- which were meant to provide economic opportunity -- into the brave new world of employers' and civil obligations, which infringe on economic independence.
Here are two important ideas I glean from my skim-read of Caccamo's essay: first, nobody should be above the law; like a devoted follower of the code civile, he would like all lawbreaking to be treated equally without regard to intent (i.e. smashing a window in the name of social justice is still smashing a window).
Second, there ought not to be special favors for identity groups, because this aids people only inasmuch as they happened to be born into such a group, not on the merit of their personal worth.
Here's where we get to your objection: but society discriminates against groups, so should government not then act as a correcting agent -- at a group level?
The libertarian in me says "absolutely not -- let society correct its own ills without government interference." The logic here is that you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar; that a fellow like Martin Luther King, who set out to change the hearts of White America, is more effective in the long run than 100 "affirmative action" programs. Going back to Reconstruction, programs like this have exerted a high cost: by "favoring" the minority, they anger the majority.
It's my belief that affirmative action-type progarms -- programs that give favors to certain cultural, religious, gender, race or ethnic groups, i.e. groups you are born into -- should be phased out.
By all means, encourage business development in our urban centers, and among African-American businessmen. But instead of giving tax breaks to blacks, find an economic or geographic rationale: form "economic target areas" or give tax breaks to first-time entrepreneurs.
When government perpetuates programs that favor one race, creed or gender above another, no matter how well-intentioned, government places its "O.K." stamp on the racist (or sexist, etc.) claim that such groups are somehow different from the "majority" group.
A truly color-blind society would not do this. And while we don't live in such a society right now, I don't see why government should be holding us back from it. --MB
Posted by: Mike | April 18, 2004 12:50 PM