I wrote: > "Anyway, if done right (e.g., without rigid quotas) AA can not only break > down inefficiencies within capitalist management systems (e.g., by preventing > the "old (white) boys' network" from dominating decision-making, promoting > their cronies, etc.) . . ."
David Shemano: > Do you have any evidence, from anywhere in the world, that a race-based > affirmative action or quota program increased the efficiency of the > organization and/or had positive economic effects? I don't mean for the > beneficiary, but for the organization. I realize that since the Supreme > Court decided that state sponsored race-based programs cannot be based upon > remedying historical injustice, but instead must be based upon the purported > compelling benefits of "diversity," people feel compelled to say there are > benefits, but does anyone actually believe it? < Hmm... I guess you're not one of those adherents of the "Austrian" school of economics who rejects empirical evidence. The benefits of diversity make sense to me. For example, in Chicago (where I come from originally), we had a system of ethnically-based (racist) "Jim Crow" segregation. This system has been broken down a bit; race-based segregation seems to be further gone in California (though racism is hardly dead). In the latter, integration has encouraged much better communication between ethnic groups. By most standards, improving communication raises the efficiency of decision-making, while avoiding conflict to some degree. Of course, nowadays we have increasing amounts of segregation by _wealth_ instead, with a small number of very rich folks hiding their McMansions (and actual mansions) behind hedgerows and security guards (or even moats, as in Westlake Village at the border of LA and Ventura counties). (That's capitalism for you!) Since the long history of racism made it much more difficult for Black people to accumulate financial wealth (and to gain a decent education) -- so that they can't pass exalted status down to their kids (the process that Mittens benefited so mightily from) -- we often see class segregation reinforcing and helping to preserve preexisting race-based segregation. Another example: in the bad old days, kids with disabilities were warehoused in special classrooms and segregated away from the "typical" kids.This encouraged further shunning of the disabled by the typical. Mainstreaming has helped here. Again, of course, private schools are able to "skim the cream," excluding disabled kinds and avoiding these benefits. (They don't care about those benefits, of course, except to engage in tokenism for PR or guilt-assuaging purposes.) I don't have time to present other examples. -- Jim Devine / If you're going to support the lesser of two evils, at the very least you should know the nature of that evil. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
