The Quality of People and Products; J. Athens

Affirmative action also appears to have been generally ineffective for blacks in the job mar ket. Economist Thomas Sowell shows that in certain places, including some prominent com panies and public utilities, there have been gains. But overall, the economic position of mi norities has changed little since "goals and timetables" (quotas) became mandatory in 1971. 31 As originally conceived, affirmative action may have been a constructive policy, but it has been counterproductive in practice. I hope by the time I am in college that students, teachers, and others will be selected on the basis of abil ity-not according to quotas based on race or sex. If so, we will have finally achieved true civil rights for everyone. o The Quality of People and Products by Jonathan Athens G o to any restaurant, hotel, or business place that deals directly with the pub lic, and the person behind the desk in the lobby is usually a clean-cut young man or an attractive, well-dressed woman. This is a com mon, unwritten practice employed by most businesses as a way of "putting their best" for ward. Look at almost any advertisement and you'll find the same kind of people selling any thing from toothpaste to cigarettes. It is a means of making a product more attractive to the con sumer.

Of course, the consumer has the ultimate choice as to which brand of toothpaste to use or whether to buy cigarettes. When it comes to patronizing a hotel or restaurant the con sumer has the same right. However, the right of the business office (or hotel or restaurant) to choose the kind of person they want to promote their product or service is slowly being taken away. As an advertising consultant for a local news paper syndicate, I deal with a variety of busi nesses with the goal of helping them attract cus tomers as well as prospective employees. One day a print shop owner called and asked to place Mr. Athens is a/reelance writer in Columbus, Ohio. a classified ad for employment. The print shop owner told me he wanted a young lady to work the front desk of his office. She should be adept at dealing with the public and capable of jug gling the paperwork that had piled Up. "Can I do that?" he asked, sounding some what unsure.

"Certainly," I told him. "It's your business, your money, your advertisement. You can do what you please." The print shop owner called back to place the final copy of the employment ad only to discover that I was wrong. My su pervisor explained in detail how and why. It wasn't the newspaper's policy, she said, nor hers. Rather it was the state's policy. To adver tise for an attractive young lady or man with a pleasant personality is discrimination on the ba sis of age, sex, and appearance. Reluctantly, I informed the print shop owner and worked with him to rewrite the ad so that it did not give an indication of anything other than the job title, the pay, the location of the shop, and the hours of business. The print shop owner began his business years ago without government grants or assis tance, and neither did he have contracts with the government. Still, he had to play by the gov ernment's rules of hiring and firing. After key32 THE FREEMAN. JANUARY 1989 ing the advertisement into the computer system, I sat back and thought of how many people were going to apply for the job and how many the owner was going to have to tum down before finding the right applicant. I then thought of the number of people who were going to read the ad not knowing what the employer was specifi cally looking for, and waste their time and ef fort along with his money just to be told "no."

The Right to Hire Two forms of civil rights legislation affect the business owner's right to hire. Equal Op portunity guarantees that a person be considered for a job without regard to race, age, or sex. Affirmative Action, on the other hand, com mands that a person be hired with regard to such criteria. How contradictory the two anti-discrimi nation laws are! And the results are pernicious. If someone is hired on any basis other than in dividual merit, the employer will generally have employees who perform substandard work. Time, money, and energy are spent try ing to correct and/or overcome substandard work-time that could be devoted to improving product quality. The bottom line is that a cor poration is only as good as its product, and the product is only as good as its makers. A popular misconception is that a "product" is merely a material item with physical dimen sions. But services are products, too. The prod uct a waitress makes is food service. The prod uct a salesman makes is selling. The product a mechanic produces is automotive maintenance.

The product a doctor provides is health care. If any of these positions were to be filled strictly by Affirmative Action, what kind of service would the consumer get? The consumer can al ways go to another restaurant for better food service, another doctor for a second opinion, and another salesman for a different kind of product. But what if the options are limited? What if there are no choices? The consumer ultimately loses his freedom of choice. It is a freedom no person and no busi ness can afford to be without. D Achieving Genuine Equality D espite our problems, one of the central facts of American history has been the achievement of a high degree of individual equality for most citizens. Perhaps the nation somehow sensed that human beings achieve their fulfillment in what they become. Certainly we are most fully ourselves as we aspire to further development, and enjoy the freedom to pursue it. It is in connection with our aspiration that we seek equality for each person. Surely race or sex is an inadequate basis for such equality. We do not aspire to be black, white, or yellow, male or female.

These categories are facts of existence, but the achievement which we seek in life must lie elsewhere, and it is elsewhere that the definition of true equality must also be located. What we all want, and what some members of society presently lack, is acceptance as an individual by others. It is that acceptance which consti tutes genuine equality. Each of us wants to be a person in his own right. Such acceptance can hardly be produced by governmental compulsion. Compulsion smothers any creative response to a problem. -GEORGE C. ROCHE III, The Balancing Act IDEAS ON LIBERTY 33 Two Senses of BUOlan FreedoOl by Tibor R. Machan W hen we consider whether a capital ist, libertarian society is free, whether it secures human beings their maximum individual freedom or liberty, serious controversies arise. Some agree that, of course, in capitalism, where one's private prop erty rights are respected, we enjoy the greatest freedom. Despite the fact that such a system does not offer the utmost security in life, nor equality of wealth or even of opportunity, many maintain that capitalism certainly does secure for people the maximum freedom.