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There was discrimination for very very long periods of times. For example, Jews weren’t allowed to hold many professions for a very long time in Europe. Black p

There was discrimination for very very long periods of times. For example, Jews weren’t allowed to hold many professions for a very long time in Europe. Black people in America were slaves and continue to feel the effects of discrimination today. It still exists in other cultures today. The idea that capitalism solves discrimination magically does not appear to be borne out in any evidence I can find. Economic efficiency takes advantage of societal changes and removal of discrimination. Not the other way around.

inglor_cz 1y ago
"The idea that capitalism solves discrimination magically does not appear to be borne out in any evidence I can find." We should distinguish between formal legal disabilities ("Jews are prohibited from X by law") from informal discrimination that is the target of modern anti-discrimination law ("Sean Murphy does not want to employ any goddamn Englishmen"). Emancipation has a reasonably good, though not perfect, record. Anti-discrimination is a much newer idea which is much less proven in practice, though for plenty of people, it sounds convincing on paper. If you look at the European Jews specifically, upon formal emancipation, they were able to establish themselves very quickly, both in business and the academia. In fact much of the subsequent 20th century anti-Semitism was borne out of jealousy of their success. You won't find many aftereffects of the long-lived Chinese Exclusion Act or Japanese Internment Camps on the current well-being of Asian Americans either. As for women, they are now outnumbering men in higher education by a considerable margin and, in the young cohorts, outearn them. By the logic of affirmative actions, there should be one for men probably... It is true that not every group in the world was able to catch up once their shackles were released, but plenty of them actually were, and there was nothing magical about it. Notably, the one exceptional group that mostly didn't catch up - American blacks - seems to be struggling even with all sorts of formal crutches constructed with the intent to help them. For example, the diversity programs at Harvard et al. seem to be mostly exploited by recent immigrants from Africa instead of generational American blacks.
- vlovich123 1y ago
  And the “untouchable” cast in India? No laws against them but still discriminated against socially and economically and this discrimination even has even been transported to the US despite India and the US being nominally free markets. It’s the paradox of tolerance - if you allow informal intolerance to fester it can metastasize into institutional and structural intolerance. But it’s quaint to suggest that economic market forces somehow themselves remove discrimination.

inglor_cz 1y ago

"The idea that capitalism solves discrimination magically does not appear to be borne out in any evidence I can find." We should distinguish between formal legal disabilities ("Jews are prohibited from X by law") from informal discrimination that is the target of modern anti-discrimination law ("Sean Murphy does not want to employ any goddamn Englishmen"). Emancipation has a reasonably good, though not perfect, record. Anti-discrimination is a much newer idea which is much less proven in practice, though for plenty of people, it sounds convincing on paper. If you look at the European Jews specifically, upon formal emancipation, they were able to establish themselves very quickly, both in business and the academia. In fact much of the subsequent 20th century anti-Semitism was borne out of jealousy of their success. You won't find many aftereffects of the long-lived Chinese Exclusion Act or Japanese Internment Camps on the current well-being of Asian Americans either. As for women, they are now outnumbering men in higher education by a considerable margin and, in the young cohorts, outearn them. By the logic of affirmative actions, there should be one for men probably... It is true that not every group in the world was able to catch up once their shackles were released, but plenty of them actually were, and there was nothing magical about it. Notably, the one exceptional group that mostly didn't catch up - American blacks - seems to be struggling even with all sorts of formal crutches constructed with the intent to help them. For example, the diversity programs at Harvard et al. seem to be mostly exploited by recent immigrants from Africa instead of generational American blacks.

vlovich123 1y ago
And the “untouchable” cast in India? No laws against them but still discriminated against socially and economically and this discrimination even has even been transported to the US despite India and the US being nominally free markets. It’s the paradox of tolerance - if you allow informal intolerance to fester it can metastasize into institutional and structural intolerance. But it’s quaint to suggest that economic market forces somehow themselves remove discrimination.