With liberals these days, it seems like everything they don’t like is discrimination. Everything from voter ID laws to charter schools are discrimination in their book. They even try to use the discrimination smear to take down the traditional conservative position of free market economics. This doesn’t happen by accident. Liberals want women, minorities, and other people groups to feel as though they are the helpless victims of some terrible outside force. They want people to believe that the only ones that can save them are their benevolent overlords in Washington, D.C. “Don’t even bother trying to get ahead,” they say. “You’ll never make it because the world is against you.” Let’s cut out the political doublespeak and talk in practical terms about why a free market creates the most non-discriminatory economic system possible.
Feminists complain a lot about the so-called “gender pay gap,” but it’s nothing more than a discredited farce. Sure, when you take the wages of all men and the wages of all women together, women make less than men do. However, that’s only because women are statistically more likely to want to work part-time or stay home to raise their children. They have that choice because they live in the freedom of the free market.
If you think employers are in on some secret cabal to pay women and minorities less than white men, you’ve got to think that through again. What possible incentive could employers have for doing that? If I were an employer and I knew I could pay women 25% less than men, the first thing I would do is fill my office with women so I could pocket the rest of that money. Yet, employers continue to hire white men just like they continue to hire women and minorities according to their ability to add economic value to the business.
That’s the power of the free market. Only government-controlled economies pick winners and losers. The free market lets winners and losers pick themselves. The best thing for all Americans is to live under an economic system that lets hard work and ingenuity win the day.
