From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 94 11:12:31 PDT
To: doug@OpenMind.com (Doug Cutrell)
Subject: Re: AIDS testing and privacy
In-Reply-To: <aa94f3fb15021003da6c@[198.211.130.8]>
Message-ID: <199409081812.LAA16740@netcom7.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Doug Cutrell writes:

> Tim May writes on the subject of racist hiring practices:
> 
> >(It's also part of Libertarianism 101 that such a company would not
> >likely do well in this day and age. Before you cite America's racist
> >past, read up on who it was that enforced segregation. Hint: not the
> >corporations. Ditto for South Africa (the "other" RSA), where the
> >Apartheid Laws came into being because companies were looking to hire
> >blacks and coloreds to fill job position, and the whites didn't like
> >that much.)
> 
> I'm not sure I buy this argument... who is it that "enforces"
> discrimination based on sexual orientation, today?  If sexual orientation
> is a matter of status, rather than choice, then this form of discrimination
> is analogous to racism.  Would you suggest that employers that refuse to

Personally, I don't tell other people who they can hire to babysit
their kids, who they can hire to paint their house, who they can hire
as fitness instructors, who they can hire as design engineers, etc.
Neither who they _can_ hire, nor who they _must_ hire.

So from this premise the answers are pretty clear. 

> hire homosexuals are simply bowing to the pressures of society at large?
> Unlike Apartheid, there are no laws that *enforce* discrimination based on
> sexual orientation (at least in the USA).
> 
> In a fundamental situation of conflict between two entities, I agree that
> "anything goes", in the spirit of voluntary interactions between two
> entities.  In the case of a conflict between a small number of large,
> powerful entities (corporate employers) and a vast number of small,
> powerless entities (the employment pool), I don't see how you can argue
> that this vast horde should not team up and utilize whatever means to
> achieve an advantage over the few in power.

I don't buy the "small, powerless entity" vs. "large, powerful entity"
argument. When I, for example, deal with Safeway or Apple, the dollars
in my pocket are as important to _them_ as what they provide is as
important to _me_. We are, in an important sense, entering the
transaction with essentially equal powers.

(It is true that I have very little influence over their choice of
Snapple flavors, or over their design choices for new Macs, but so
what? The don't have much influence over me, either.)

The belief that when a business reaches a certain size it suddenly
becomes a "large, powerful entity" that warrants control by "the
people" is wrong-headed. Many nations have tried that route.

(Off on a tangent: In the example I cited, South African corporations
were actively hiring blacks and colored in the 1940s--it was
_government_ that stepped in an implemented the Apartheid Laws. When
governments set corporate policies, expect things like this. You can
translate the examples to whatever policies on hiring gays, women,
etc., are fashionable. In countries today, the official policies
are not conducive to hiring women, for example, regardless of their
merit or of the companies' desire.)

> Today and in the future, "power" may reside increasingly in economic
> positioning.  Thus, the power of the many individuals vs. the power of the
> few corporate entities may derive largely from their collective voice in
> the social conventions of society at large, which ultimately derives power
> from the tax base of the society at large.  As long as these social
> conventions (and the tax base that empowers them) is in place, I see
> nothing wrong with the "voluntary interaction between individuals" which
> consists of banding together to pass, and enforce, laws in favor of the
> goals of these individuals.  This is the basis of democracy.
                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Democracy in its current populist form, indeed. That's why strong
crypto is needed to undermine this herd notion of democracy.

"On the Net no one knows you're a dog."


--Tim May


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