new thread
I used to work at the Denver airport and I saw a youogn man with long hair. From what I heard, he was told to cut his hair but couldn't because of his religion (or heritage.) I think that is wrong. If I wanted to get a job and I see a man with long hair, and they make me cut it and not him, I think that is wrong. To me, it is a form of discrimination on my gender. BUt I also think that is a form of fraud. To me, also fraud is a felony (plain and simple.) But they think cutting your hair is not fraud. I think not and it should be. It is known as moral fraud. We should be what we want to be, not some kind of robot for other people. Do you think I could sue due to discrim-ination because of hair. Some people think it is a joke, others feel different. I think this, if I'm turned down because of my hair length and I see a man with the same job and has long hair, I think they should have an equal opportunity and not be against the other just because, What can I do in case of legal issues? Jesus wasn't ridiculed or persecuted for his long hair. Why should we? If people are supposed to be religious, why are they 2 faced about it?
Refer to the post "Bad news for all of us guys". It has an article about a man who sued for discrimination and lost on the grounds that the employer can pretty much set their own dress rules and discriminate who they want, when they want on the basis of looks. It's not fair, but when is this hippocritical society ever fair????
How is it not fair??? while i may or may not agree with it, it is absolutely fair!
Indeed. In making such statements, be ready to prove them.
Hi there,
We already have a similar sort of discussion going a little further down, but I'll add a little here, since the one below is focused mainly on rights, while this should have more of a utilitarian approach.
People like Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard have adequately explained how a free market gets rid of discrimination, simply put, discrimination of any sort is unprofitable. If one business actively turns down competent employees because of something like longhair (let's assume here that hair in no way inhibits the jobs), then they are reducing their own effective pool of labour, driving costs up. Thus, other business owners (that do not have to cater to customers' prejudices, such as a call line) in direct competition with the aforementioned business, can lower their costs by employing longhaired men.
This system does not currently work, or at least works only partially, so we must ask ourselves, why? The reason is simple: regulation. Government regulation and taxation has created an enormous pool of unemployed individuals, and this distortion of the free market does not allow discrimination to be weeded out because the supply of labour is so huge. This system would work only if labour was scarce.
Minimum wage laws create unemployment and destroy wealth. The business essentially has three options. It can either fire those that are under the minimum wage, it can increase their wage at the expense of profits, or if they're a marginal producer (prices just exceed costs) they will go bankrupt by retaining all of their employees. If they cut into their profits, they will reduce their own re-investment potential, and also scare away new entrants into the market. You do not want to open a shop when you see other shop owners earning tiny profits. You would only compete if it was worth the money. If they go bankrupt, lots of people will become unemployed, and production will fall.
Let's say my work at MacDonalds is worth $6 per hour, but someone else with only one arm, can only work half as productively. To the employer, that worker is only worth paying $3 per hour. Here come minimum wage laws, and the governments says that paying under $5 is illegal, and thus the poor cripple finds themselves unemployed. The same can be applied to any other difference in productivity. In the end, those that are the most vulnerable finds themselves without a job. The pool of available labour grows. Thus, the government takes from those that are working, and gives to those that are not. This does not create any wealth, merely redistributes it. Factor in the overhead of an enormous bureaucracy, and we actually have wealth destruction.
The ripple effects of minimum wage laws, and other labour regulation are far more wide-reaching however. For example, the MacDonalds that had two employees, now only has one, as it cannot afford the handicapped one. Production falls. The value of money is based on its scarcity relative to what it can purchase. Ceteris paribus, a reduction in production across the economy, relative to a constant supply of money, will create price inflation (less stuff you can buy with dollars, the dollars aren't worth as much, thus prices go up). Of course, the supply of money is never kept constant. It grows around 10-15% per year (you can thank Wilson for that), and so we have even more serious inflation (together with the entire boom-bust cycle, but that's another story).
So, a simple minimum wage law has: Increased unemployment, increased tax burden on productive people, reduced competition, reduced the amount produced in the economy, and created price inflation, thus devaluing the money that people already have. It has also created an enormous government bureaucracy which is not only inefficient and unnecessary, but also demonstrably immoral.
Taxation acts in a similar manner. By raising the costs for businesses, it also creates unemployment.
As always with governments, some intervention (regulation + taxation) must inevitably bring about more intervention. Rather than reduce (getting rid of is asking for too much) their meddling, governments have made up (by popular demand of course) something called positive discrimination. I have read countless articles that cite incompetent women being promoted in universities as professors, while men with great CVs aren't, just because the women to man ratio in management jobs was not 50/50. Is this not unjust?
Together with this, is the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws on private property. The government, claiming the right to set a universal moral standard (they set the laws and enforce them), and taking our money, must not discriminate. But this does not apply to businesses. You see, when a shop owner decides to discriminate on their property, as long as the property was justly acquired (they worked for it) they should be allowed to do so. The government on the other hand, operating purely on stolen wealth, must respect equally those from which it steals, at least when it calls itself a democracy.
Anyway, in conclusion, if you want to end discrimination without resorting to unethical coercion and restrictions of private property, I recommend you start looking into just how this whole mess was brought about in the first place. I haven't read it, but heard it was good: try reading "Economics in one lesson".