The Affirmative Action Complex; M. Bard

Nevertheless, the government has decided that it is necessary to use this means of discrim ination to redress past discrimination, and this procedure has been ratified by the judiciary. The impact of affirmative action, its supporters say, is that it has provided minorities and women with opportunities they otherwise would have been denied. This is the beneficial side of the policy, but there is also a negative side which is being ignored. The focus of the debate on this issue has been on whether affirmative action is justified given the past discrimination and current biases in our society. There has been little or no atten tion, however, to the psychological conse quences of this palliative. Those consequences, in fact, may be quite grave and involve the ero sion of the values of individualism and personal responsibility. The explicit message of affirmative action is that everyone should have an equal opportunity Dr. Bard is a policy analyst in Washington, D.C.

to health, education, and employment, but the implicit message is more sinister. That message is that all evils which befall an individual are the fault of society rather than the individual. Affirmative action has ratified the proposition that the historical and cultural prejudices of our society are the cause of problems encountered by individuals. This is something quite dif ferent, however, from the premise that affirma tive action is needed because of the impact of these prejudices on certain groups.

48 THE FREEMAN. FEBRUARY 1988 This affirmative action complex is probably most prevalent on the nation's campuses where these programs have been most liberally ap plied. Thus, for example, students who are not qualified to be in the university in the first place quickly find themselves unable to do the re quired work and, rather than take personal re sponsibility for their difficulties, blame society for failing to prepare them adequately. They say that the education they received in high school was not good enough or that they are not getting sufficient tutoring on the campus. Those things may indeed be true, at least partially, but few students seem willing to ac cept, even as a possibility, that it may be their own inability or failure to study that is respon sible. It is even more disturbing to find students who are qualified who believe that the burden of responsibility for their problems should be laid on someone other than themselves.

There is a saying that no one owes you a living, but affirmative action has created the perception that someone owes disadvantaged members of our society not only a living but a virtually problem-free existence. The only thing society should owe them, however, is an Education vs. Egalitarian Politics equal opportunity to become educated or em ployed. If the beneficiaries of that opportunity fail to make the most of it, then it is no more society's fault than if a white male fails to take advantage of his opportunity. The problem could be solved by eliminating affirmative action. However, that is not going to happen so long as policy-makers believe that affirmative action programs are necessary to redress inequalities in our society. That being the case, it is important that we begin to recog nize that the consequences of these programs are not benign and that affirmative action legiti mates societal responsibility for personal failure.

At some point, and it may be nearer than some people think, the government will have to say that it cannot do any more for people. When that point is reached, the disadvantaged members of our society will have to stand on their own feet. In the meantime, we would be well advised to begin to condition the current beneficiaries of preferential treatment to the fact that they must accept responsibility for their lives. 0 IDEAS ON LIBERTY I f we give way before the force which now menaces higher education and our society as a whole, we are not only opening the door to second-rate standards and a new and more vicious and permanent form of injustice. We are also passing control of tomorrow's leaders and tomorrow's dominant ideas from the privacy and independence of the aca demic community to the realm of egalitarian politics. If Affirmative Ac tion gains the final say in curriculum, faculty, and admissions throughout higher education, effective control of society will have passed to the social engineers and the politicians, and America will have lost one of her greatest resources in the struggle to remain an open and effective society.

-GEORGE C. ROCHE III The Balancing Act 49 Defending the Market by Tibor R. Machan O ne of the greatest benefits many Western political systems bestow upon their citizens is a substantially free market economy. In this system individuals are not legally prevented from seeking their eco nomic advantage in the company of others who may be counted on to do the same thing. While there is no purely free economic system any where, surely the main difference between Western liberal democracy and other political systems is the presence of the economic oppor tunity afforded by a relatively free market. There are those who dispute this. However, even these critics usually do not deny the pres ence of greater economic opportunity in the West. Rather, they frown on the value of this opportunity. Critics from Left and Right have alleged the corrupting influence of a political system that does not hinder the pursuit of com mercial prosperity.