From: johnson@offroad.chem.wisc.edu (Arthur Johnson)
Subject: Re: Pessimism
Organization: Physical Sciences Lab, UW-Madison
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 01:08:32 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.232824.15935@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp  
(Michael Friedman) writes:
> In article <1992Sep29.134830.2396@cas.org> cwm54@cas.org writes:
> 

     [...lots of stuff deleted...]
   
> Well, in general, you can't afford to be racist unless you have a lot
> of excess capacity arround.

     This is only true if the economic system is absolutely laissez-faire,  
i.e. all economic frictional coefficients are equal to zero. In reality,  
our economic system is subject to a great deal of economic friction,  
resulting in a huge dissipation of economic energy as waste economic  
"heat". Excess capacity will be utilized _provided_ that everyone holds  
profit maximization and maximum economic efficiency to be the primary  
purposes of economic activity. The truth is, many people don't. If an  
employer is willing to take less profit in exchange for "peace of mind"  
(say, by hiring a less qualified white worker for reasons of ethnic or  
religious solidarity), or if an employer is willing to settle for only  
enough profit to pay him/herself a nice salary and cover expenses, excess  
capacity will begin to accumulate, and will _not_ be utilized, because  
maximum efficiency and profit are less important to that employer than  
other things. In an absolute laissez-faire economy, that employer would be  
driven out of business, of course. But American capitalism is not  
laissez-faire. Not even close. So racist employers, like Energizer  
batteries, go on and on and on.... 

     [...more stuff deleted...]
     
> >      I no longer believe capitalism is an impartial,color-blind  
"religion"
> >    that rewards people solely on their ability. 
> 
> Well of course not.  
> 
> 1.  It isn't a religion.

     True.
 
> 2.  It doesn't reward anybody.

     Of course it does. It rewards people based on ability _and_ other  
things. The further the economy deviates from the frictionless ideal, the  
greater the "other things" loom in importance.
 
> 3.  Luck, shmoozing, having rich parents, and marrying the boss's
> daughter are all just as important as having ability.

     Or belonging to a particular ethnic or religious group?
 
     [...more stuff deleted...]
 
> So then what do you [Carlyle] think the cause is?  After all, I gurantee  
to you
> that the economics itself can't even tell what color your skin is,
> never mind discrimminate based on it.

     The economic system can't discriminate based on skin color _only_ if  
the economic system is laissez-faire. But who ever said that American  
capitalism is laissez-faire?
 
     [...more stuff deleted...]
 
> Well, if color is the only reason [non-promotion of blacks] then why  
aren't blacks all building
> their own companies?  The answer is that some are (TLC Beatrice, for
> example) but most aren't.

     Actually, a lot of black people are. There was an NYT article a  
couple of days ago that discussed the explosive increase in black business  
formation over the past twenty years as being one important factor in the  
growth of the black upper-middle and upper classes. One major reason why  
this is happening is that many black people feel they aren't getting a  
fair shake from white employers. 
 
     [...more stuff deleted...]
 
> Again, not in growing companies [promotion based on non-ability].

     Again, only if maximum efficiency and profit maximization are the  
goals of the organization. But most growing businesses are willing to  
settle for a less than optimal growth rate, in exchange for other things.  
There was this interesting 60 Minutes piece a couple of years back about  
NYC temporary agencies, all of which had set up this elaborate code system  
with many major NYC employers that would screen out black office workers,  
even if they were more qualified than competing white office workers. This  
was verified by sending pairs of black and white women to these temp  
agencies. A serious attempt (and successful, IMO :-)) was made to have  
each woman in the pair be equally attractive physically, but the pairs  
were rigged so that, in every case, the black woman was _significantly_  
more qualified than the white woman (both in terms of objective skills and  
subjective interviewing ability). Both the temp agencies and their clients  
consistently chose the white woman for employment, despite her significant  
and demonstrative inferiority wrt competency for the jobs applied for.  
Sure looks like a certain economic frictional coefficient is at work here.
Some of the more interesting codes used were the following: NA = No  
Accents; SA = Standard American (white, but can have dark hair and brown  
eyes); AA = All American (white, must have natural blond hair and blue  
eyes).

     [...more stuff deleted...]
     
> >     The standard arguement. Can you spell TOKEN? 
> 
> Sure, except I know these people.  They aren't tokens.  They have
> reputations within their companies as people who do good work and who
> you come to if you want advice on a problem.  Tokens get shunted into
> HR and other non-critical areas.  

     I'll refrain from commenting about Oracle. It IS generally true that  
companies that have no respect for black people tend to concentrate them  
in places like "human resources", "affirmative-action office", and "United  
Way campaign office", however.
 
     [...stuff deleted...]

Arthur Johnson
johnson@offroad.chem.wisc.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american