The Absurdity Of Quota-Based Discrimination

 

After just reading an article about Coca-Cola possibly not coming down hard enough on a shameful 'Be less white' element of a training session (assuming this is factual), I was reminded of a headline last year that the BBC is going to spend £100 million of taxpayers' money on increasing diversity on TV. On Facebook at the time, I made a comment that BAME individuals make up nearly 23% of screen contributions, but only 14% of the UK population - and that it's a shame the BBC thinks this is a good use of taxpayers' money, given that BAME people are already more than well represented relative to their ratio of the total population. Amazingly, I was told that that kind of sentiment plays into the hands of the 'white lives matter' brigade. Alas, this is the nature of the beast these days - even a valid statistical observation of a television network's demographic is easily met with accusations that you're not really on the side of BAME folk after all.

I'm going to reiterate two points I regularly make, and then invite you to join me at an intriguing place you might not have considered before. First the reiteration:

Point one
Artificial disadvantage lowers overall quality. I don't care about the skin colour of people making television programmes - I care about equal opportunity to express talent, and I care about quality. And there is no question that quotas lower the quality - in fact, they can't fail to lower it overall, because people are being selected for reasons other than their ability. Talent and competence are two of the best forms of discrimination. Besides, people are much friendlier to discrimination than they let on. Humans tend to discriminate against others based on ethnicity whenever they choose a life partner, because they habitually choose someone who is ethnically similar to them. And when we do choose a life partner, we are literally discriminating against every other person on the planet.

Moreover, it doesn't occur to many people that artificial disadvantage probably isn't actually that much of a good thing for those benefitting from it at the surface level. Ultimately, in the long run, it can't be good for a person to know they have been selected for reasons outside of the criteria for which they have always desired to be selected. Trying to artificially create diversity for diversity's sake almost always leads to sub-optimal outcomes, especially if consumer demand is not driving the thing being consumed.

Point two
We should pretty much always start with the basis that as long as it imposes no unfair cost on anyone else, then everyone should be able to discriminate against everyone else, and everyone else should be able to discriminate against us. And anyone who disagrees with that ought to come up with a pretty good exception to the rule. Moreover, despite what they say, nearly everyone behaves as though they believe in this principle. This is where both the right and left need to take notice. Many on the left need to understand better that most unequal outcomes are not the result of unfair skews in the system; and many on the right need to understand better that equality of opportunity will be easier to attain, and bear more societal fruit, if there are fewer instances of capitalising on unmerited advantage.

I support fair discrimination, but that doesn't make me anti-anybody, because I support your right to fairly discriminate against anyone you want. To make the point even clearer, I'm a writer, but I support your right not to socialise with writers, hire writers or dine with writers - but that obviously doesn't make me anti-writers.

We don't choose our tastes or feelings, and so our actions are good if they satisfy our tastes or feelings and do no unfair harm to anyone else. Under that condition, if Bob doesn't want to date African women, and Sue doesn't want to hire white men, then it is perfectly rational for them to do so. Of course, I'm wholly opposed to harmful or unfair discrimination, not just because it is ethically wrong but because it imposes other externalities on society too. When racist Roy opens a pub and puts up a sign outside saying 'No Muslims' he's announcing that if a Muslim tries to come in for a drink he's going to call the police and ask the taxpayer to subsidise his bigotry (you could also add that the Muslim is making a demand on the taxpayer by trying to enter a pub to which he's disallowed entry, but I think that would be a step too far). Consequently, an optimum society is one in which the law makes no imposition on who Roy can serve, but also where Roy becomes a better person and makes every customer welcome.

Now for the really intriguing point
Suppose I open a theatre and insist on hiring everyone on merit, irrespective of skin colour or ethnicity. If a cast of mine has majority white or majority black representation, then so be it, I’ve hired on merit (to the best of my ability). It sounds like some people are trying to say that I’ve imposed costs on would-be actors by not hiring them based on skin colour or ethnicity. But it's not obvious what costs you think I am actually imposing on them. Besides, if I'm imposing a cost on would-be actors by not hiring them based on merit, are you imposing a cost on them by not opening a theatre? If you're not imposing a cost on would-be actors by failing to open your own theatre, how am I imposing a cost on them by opening a theatre and not hiring them? Under both scenarios they are not getting hired, but at least I'm doing 'something' for would-be actors by opening a theatre.

If not hiring would-be actors constitutes a societal cost, then both of us are equally guilty. If it doesn't impose a cost on society then your objection makes no sense. If there is only one theatre in a town, and that theatre owner is discriminating against people he doesn't hire, then everyone is refusing to hire actors for a performance they want to act in, but only the theatre owner is affording some people the opportunity to act in the theatre.

Also – you’d presumably think it’s ok for an actor to refuse a role in a play because he wanted to discriminate against the theatre, but why then do you think it’s not ok for the theatre to refuse a role for someone on the same grounds? You may think it’s obvious why the two situations are different, but with a little thought you’ll soon find that you can’t easily justify the difference.

As I often say, we've got no chance of making important changes to the world unless we get our own heads sorted out first. In fact, if you are given 25 years to sort your head out and change the world, you should probably spend about 24 of those years sorting your head out, and the final year trying to make large-scale positive changes in the world. It's not easy to come up with a system in your head whereby you have a reliable framework for knowing what you should believe on any number of issues. For example, take discrimination, and think when your intuition says it's ok and when it's not. It's presumably ok for a heterosexual male to discriminate against other people by only marrying one woman. It's ok for a car salesman to discriminate against the guy who can't afford to buy his BMW in favour of a customer who can. And presumably if you're casting for a play, or hiring workers for your firm, it's up to you who you recruit. Some people don't actually think such freedoms should exist, but let's ignore them - no reasoning is likely to get through to them.

I personally think people should be pretty much free to do what they want if they are not imposing any tangible harm on others, so I don't really have many (any?) situations where I think we shouldn't be free to discriminate. If you find you do, what you have to do is take a case where you do think the discrimination is unjustified and compare it to the cases where you don't, and see what you think are the key differences. Are they different in any way that's relevant? If not, they are probably not instances of unfair discrimination.

For example, actors are allowed to discriminate against directors. I'm sure no one disagrees with the proposition that actors should be free to take any role they want. If Robert de Niro had two films to choose between, and he chose to work with Martin Scorsese over Steven Spielberg, no one thinks that's wrong. I'm sure no one has a plausible objection to the idea that actors can chose which directors they work for. And if that's true, it seems plausible ethically to say that Scorcese can choose to cast Robert De Niro over Tom Hanks if he wishes. Actors are different to directors, but are they different in any significant way that undermines the ethical proposition that each can discriminate against the other if they wish? I see no reason why they are. From this we can probably infer that in any competitive industry where competence and talent and skills are primary, it's ok to discriminate fairly.

Some argue that people who have a lot more bargaining power than others are better candidates for having tougher discrimination laws imposed upon them. So tenants deserve more power than landlords, and employees deserve more power than employees, that kind of thing. But I've never been convinced by that line of argument. In a rental arrangement landlords have more at stake than tenants, and employers have more at stake than employees. Employees and tenants need only find another job or apartment, whereas employers might lose their whole business if it becomes insolvent and landlord's their entire property if they default on their mortgage payments. Or consider that Joe the plumber strikes it lucky and ends up dating Michelle Pfeiffer. Joe can't bear to live without her, but Michelle Pfeiffer has many other viable options. Michelle Pfeiffer has significantly more bargaining power than Joe, but few would suggest that she should be forced to stay with him. The argument for justified coercion because of more bargaining power is a highly dubious argument.

In asking the BBC to over-represent, we would be asking them to judge people not on talent or merit, but on skin colour or ethnicity. I remember watching The Apprentice last season where there were at least 7 BAME candidates at the start of The Apprentice as part of the total 16 candidates, which is a 43% BAME representation in a population where 14% of the UK population is BAME. Clearly the BBC is overly-politicised, and loves virtue signalling, but all this showed is that statistically if many of those BAMEs were in there for a diversity box ticking exercise (and statistically it looks like at least 5 of them must have been), then some people are being unfairly discriminated against on the basis of traits that have nothing to do with merit. Now alright, you may say that The Apprentice isn't that important to you in the grand scheme of things, but if you endorse unfairly discriminating against people (in this case non-BAME people) then sooner or later you’ll end up with scenarios that you really do dislike.

Consider this. Suppose you’ve written your best ever novel, and you’ve poured your heart and soul into it, and you’re so pleased with it, but your agent tells you that they are not going to go with it, they are going to go with what you (and her) consider to be an inferior novel because the publisher needs one or two more BAME authors on their books. Tell me truthfully that you could just swallow that with alacrity! The reality is, you’d be outraged from the pit of your stomach, however you reacted outwardly. 

Intuitively I think a good rule of thumb is roughly this; if in a Rawslian-type 'veil of ignorance' scenario we are unwilling to apply a law equally to everyone, then we shouldn't be willing to apply that law to anyone. I'd be surprised if anyone can think of an exception to that. Similarly, granting freedoms to a subset of the population group that you’re not willing to grant to the entire population strikes me as a bad thing. That's why I think individuals should be free to discriminate fairly however they want, but the government should be compelled to treat everyone the same before the law.

Consequently, as everybody agrees we should be free to date who we like or go to any shop we like, it seems reasonable that no one should be forced to hire, serve, or rent a room to someone they don't like. If we always support policies or systems that increase overall utility, then it's virtually certain that any random person selected from the population will be better off than they would be under a system that decreases overall utility.