[lbo-talk] Comment on F-9/11 and racism

John Thornton jthorn65 at mchsi.com
Wed Jun 30 14:20:29 PDT 2004



>Employer discrimination hurts everyone: if employers discriminate against
>better-qualified minorities, we presumably suffer losses in
>productivity/efficiency as a result.

This assumes that people do not learn how to perform their jobs as well if they are under qualified. This is true in a few instances but not many so I think any inefficiencies resulting from this are negligible. It isn't as if white janitors are hired to be doctors over qualified blacks. Sloppy example but hey, it's been a long day.


> The gains to individual whites in the job market due to discrimination
> (which I bet in most cases are pretty
>small) are easily swamped the by the collective losses of creating
>underclasses.
>
>-- Luke

The gains are not small at all so you are incorrect in this assumption. The collective loss of creating an underclass hits everyone unequally. It hits communities of people of color disproportionately hard. It hits white people too but it is less than clear that it is a net negative for whites in general.

John Thornton



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