“IF YOU’RE SO SMART, WHY AREN’T YOU RICH?” THIS CHALLENGE shows only that there are exceptions to every rule. Other things equal, smarter people are richer than the rest of us, and this bit of folk wisdom is well-known to most people.
Statistical analyses have shown, too, that height is correlated with pay. As a matter of fact, every extra inch added to a businessman’s stature translates into roughly $1,000 of extra income. Pity the poor but short executive officer.
Now comes a University of Manitoba study which shows that people also discriminate in favor of good looks (as if this facet of human nature were not already fully documented). According to a survey conducted by the psychology department, respondents are more likely to consider an unattractive person guilty of a crime.
The study first asked 40 students to rate head-and-shoulders photographs in terms of attractiveness. Then, they were asked to determine which were most likely to have committed murder or armed robbery. The resulting correlation between guilt and ugliness was statistically significant.
It will come as no surprise whatsoever that tall, smart, and handsome people earn more than their short, stupid, and homely counterparts. Few will deny that they are more successful, for that matter, in all other aspects of life as well. Indeed, merely to state this is to belabor the obvious.
Is there a need, then, for affirmative action for these groups? According to one vision of social propriety, there certainly is. Individuals are short through no fault of their own. No matter how hard they try, some people will always be wiser than others. And, the best efforts of the cosmetic and fitness industries notwithstanding, the ugly stepsister can never attain the beauty of Cinderella.
If it is no one’s fault that he or she is short, dull, and plain, and if such people almost always get the short end of the stick due to the discriminatory behavior of others, then the case for government interference with such results is all but made. Given that quotas and other systems of preferential treatment are justified for groups on the basis of race, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, and handicap status, there would seem to be no reason not to make such programs available to these other victims of discrimination.
But there is a competing philosophical perspective that can guide public policy prescriptions in such matters. In this view, the role of the state is at most to protect persons and property. Its responsibility is to set up rules so that all can compete, but not to attempt to ensure equal outcomes. If a tall but ugly and blind lesbian Protestant with bad breath earns more than a short deaf divorced but smart Catholic homosexual, or if an atheistic bald male Jew confined to a wheelchair is promoted to a job coveted by a beautiful but fat Jewish female with no sense of humor, it should be no business of the state.
People, in other words, should have the right to voluntarily associate with others on whatever terms they find mutually agreeable. They should be allowed to indulge their prejudices, no matter how unsavory they appear to the rest of us. The right of free association is simply incompatible with a program that forces employers, or anyone else, to hire workers based on ethnicity, gender, or any other criterion.
Even if such a policy were possible to administer fairly, which it is not, even if it did some good, which it does not, it is always open to the charge of hypocrisy, for there is no difference in principle between the characteristics which are presently protected (race, gender, nationality) and those that are not (height, weight, intelligence, beauty). And further, the characteristics we have so far considered are only the tip of the iceberg of those upon which people discriminate. In addition, to mention only a few more, there is hair color, the side of the head upon which people part their hair, fastidiousness, neatness, strength of handshake, biliousness, loudness, shyness, considerateness, reliability, left or right handedness—the list goes on and on.
A government intent upon eliminating all forms of discrimination, if it perseveres in this madness, will turn us into a society fit only for the Brave New World.
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Fraser Forum (March 1989): 22–23.