Topics Justice

Question Do affirmative action programs make sense in a free market society? Affirmative action programs seek to create equality of opportunity. Free markets seek to reward the best ideas/practices (and hence create inequality). Are the two ever reconcilable then (where one creates equality, the other undoes it)?

Accepted:
March 24, 2007

Comments

The conflict you see would really exist if the only way to reward the best ideas/practices were through superior opportunities (either for the person or for her offspring). This might happen in a society in which opportunities are for sale. In such a society, the more affluent people can buy a superior education for their children, one to which the children of poorer citizens have no access. And the children of the affluent can then qualify for jobs that children of the poor have no chance of obtaining.

Our society is of this kind, and so are -- to a lesser extent -- most other societies. But societies don't have to be organized in this way. A society might financially reward the best contributions but then block conversion of these financial rewards into educational opportunities. The quality of the public schools of such a society would not vary with the affluence of the area it serves (as is the case when public schools are funded through local property taxes). And any private schools would be open to all children on the basis of merit, with tuitions for children from poor families paid (wholly or in part) from public funds. In this way, all children would have equal opportunities in education and, subsequently, in the job market. And working adults would still be specially rewarded for their superior contributions. These rewards, however, would be such that successful adults cannot give a substantial headstart to their children.