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Why Should We Care about Group Inequality?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

Glenn C. Loury
Glenn C. Loury
Affiliation:
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
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Extract

This essay is about the ethical propriety and practical efficacy of a range of policy undertakings which, in the last twenty years, has come to be referred to as “affirmative action.” These policies have been contentious and problematic, and a variety of arguments have been advanced in their support. Here I try to close a gap, as I see it, in this “literature of justification” which has grown up around the practice of preferential treatment. My principal argument along these lines is offered in the next section. I then consider how some forms of argument in support of preferential treatment, distinctly different from that offered here, not only fail to justify the practice but, even worse, work to undermine the basis for cooperation among different ethnic groups in the American democracy. Finally, I observe that as a practical matter the use of group preference can, under circumstances detailed in the sequel, produce results far different from the egalitarian objectives which most often motivate their adoption.

It may seem fatuous in the extreme to raise as a serious matter, in the contemporary United States, the question “Why should we care about group inequality?” Is not the historical and moral imperative of such concern self-evident? Must not those who value the pursuit of justice be intensely concerned about economic disparities among groups of persons? The most obvious answer to the title question would seem, then, to be: “We should care because such inequality is the external manifestation of the oppression of individuals on the basis of their group identity.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , Autumn 1987 , pp. 249 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1987

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References

1 See, e.g., Sowell, Thomas, The Economics and Politics of Race: An International Perspective (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1983).Google Scholar Sowell chronicles numerous instances around the world in which group differences in economic status do not correspond to the presence or absence of oppression. Often, as with the Chinese in Southeast Asian countries, or Indians in East Africa, or Jews in Western Europe, those subject to oppression have done better economically than those in the role of oppressor.

2 King, Martin Luther Jr., “I Have A Dream,” speech reprinted in Broderick, F. and Meier, A., Negro Protest Thought in the Twentieth Century (Bobbs-Merrill: Indianapolis, 1965).Google Scholar

3 Hubert Humphrey's speech to the Senate during the floor debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is often cited in this regard.

4 E.g., see Sen, Amartya, Collective Choice and Social Welfare (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1979), p. 68.Google Scholar The anonymity axiom requires a social decision maker to be indifferent as between two distributions of economic advantage which differ only in terms of who gets what reward, but which have the same overall pattern of reward.

5 See, for discussion of this transformation, Bennett, William and Eastland, Terry, Counting by Race (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1976)Google Scholar; and, with particular focus on the area of school desegregation, Wolters, Raymond, The Burden of Brown (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1984).Google Scholar

6 I think here, for example, of Ronald Dworkin's essay “Defunis v. Sweat,” in which he attempts, with uncharacteristic inelegance, to distinguish between Defunis, on the one hand, and Sweat v. Painter on the other. Dworkin, R., Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1977)Google Scholar, Ch. 9. For a critical analysis of Dworkin's argument, see Walzer, Michael, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1981)Google Scholar, Ch. 5.

7 The following argument draws on my previous work. See Essays in the Theory of Income Distribution, PhD. Thesis, Dept. of Economics, M.I.T., 1976, Ch. 1; “A Dynamic Theory of Racial Income Differences,” Wallace, P. A. and Lamond, A., eds., Women, Minorities and Employment Discrimination (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1977)Google Scholar; “Is Equal Opportunity Enough?” Am. Earn. Rev. Proc., 5 May 1981, pp. 122–126; and “Beyond Civil Rights,” The New Republic, October 5, 1985.

8 Rae, Douglas, Equalities (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1981).Google Scholar

9 James Fishkin has recently discussed the philosophical implications of what he calls “background inequalities” for a liberal theory of status disparities. His notion of the “trilemma of equal opportunity” – an unresolvable tension between the ideals of equal opportunity, reward according to desert, and the autonomy of the family – is closely related to the argument offered below. See Fishkin, , Justice, Equal Opportunity, and the Family (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1983).Google Scholar

10 In keeping with my earlier discussion, it would be possible to treat such differences in tastes that have economic consequences (e.g., occupational preferences, entrepreneurial inclinations) as a part of what is conveyed through parents' social capital.

11 See Loury, “A Dynamic Theory of Racial Income Differences”; for a rigorous mathematical treatment of this question, see Loury, Essays in the Theory of Income Distribution.

12 See, e.g., Schelling, Thomas, Micromotives and Macrobehaviors (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978)Google Scholar, Ch. 4, for an analysis of how even a very mild individual preference for association with one's own kind can lead, in the aggregate, to a highly segregated outcome. For instance, Schelling notes that if everyone would merely prefer to live in a neighborhood in which their group is in the majority, then only complete separation will satisfy the preferences of all members of both groups.

13 This, in essence, is what sociologist William Julius Wilson has been arguing with respect to the inner-city poor. He notes that the primary problems facing poor blacks derive from their economic plight, and afflict poor whites as well. Moreover, he argues that political support for dramatic efforts to reverse these problems will be more readily had if those efforts are couched in racially universal terms. See, generally, his The Declining Significance of Race (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1978), and more specifically his recent article “Race-Specific Policies and the Truly Disadvantaged,” Yale Law and Policy Review, vol. II, no. 2 (Spring 1984), pp. 272–290.

14 The Supreme Courts decision in the Detroit cross-district busing case, Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974), limiting the use of metropolitan busing to solve the “white flight” problem, gives a classic illustration of this point.

15 I have made this argument in somewhat more detail in my essay “Behind the Black-Jewish Split,” Commentary, January 1986.

16 Recently, lawsuits have been brought by mid-level minority employees working in large bureaucracies, at IBM and the U.S. State Department, for example, alleging that they are not treated the same by supervisors and co-workers. Yet, if they were hired under different criteria than the co-workers, they in fact, on the average, are not the same! Differential treatment, though regrettable, should come therefore as no surprise.

17 Moskos, Charles, “Success Story: Blacks in the Army,” The Atlantic Monthly, May 1986, p. 64.Google Scholar

18 Indeed, in order to defend such programs in the private sector, it becomes necessary for advocates to argue that almost no blacks could reach the positions in question without special favors. When there is internal disagreement among black intellectuals, for example, about the merits of affirmative action, critics of the policy are attacked as being disingenuous, since (it is said) they clearly owe their own prominence to the very policy they criticize. (See, e.g., Cornel West, “Unmasking the Black Conservatives,” The Christian Century, July 16–23, p. 645.) The specific circumstances of the individual do not matter in this, for it is presumed that all blacks are indebted to civil rights activity for their achievements. The consequence is a kind of “socialization” of the individual's success. The individual's effort to claim achievement for himself (and thus to secure the autonomy and legitimacy needed to deviate from group consensus) is perceived as a kind of betrayal. From the reasonable observation that all blacks are indebted to those who fought and beat Jim Crow, these intellectuals draw the conclusion that the group's most accomplished persons, by celebrating their personal achievements as being due to their ability and not to racial preferences, have betrayed their fellows!

19 The following account is drawn by my unpublished paper “Equal Opportunity: Reality, Achievable Goal, or Elusive Dream?” for the symposium on equal opportunity in corporate management organized by the Equitable Life Assurance Society of America, in cooperation with the Institute for Leadership in Corporate Management, Morehouse College, New York City, December 1985.

20 Frank Raines, black partner in Lazard Freres, reported in an interview that there are only three black partners in Wall Street investment firms, two of whom handle public finance issues (local, black governments being primary among their clients).

21 Psychological “incentives” exist for people to use this excuse even when it is not true. This gives them a good rationale for their own failure. As one colleague cleverly observed, “Affirmative Action is a boon to mediocre whites – by giving them reason to think better of themselves than they otherwise could.”

22 Consider the position of a female commander of troops in a combat situation. This person will be ineffective if, when issuing critical orders under duress, she is unable to inspire the obedience and confidence of her troops. Her troops' belief in her capacities is thus an objective determinant of her capacities. It would seem particularly unwise, in the face of widespread male suspicion of the performance capabilities of female commanders, to promote a woman into such a position who did not exhibit absolutely unimpeachable qualifications. That is, until the ability of women to function under combat conditions had been amply demonstrated, it would seem to be unwise to employ preferential criteria for the selection of women to such positions. To do so encourages precisely those beliefs which could undermine the effectiveness of the new commander.

23 Moreover, if you push too fast, good people may fail and be marked for life by that failure. Consider the case of the graduate student who would have done just fine at State U., but who ends up at the bottom of his class at Harvard.