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Path: utzoo!utcsstat!ian
From: ian@utcsstat.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: affirmative action: parallels
Message-ID: <645@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-Jun-83 12:01:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.645
Posted: Fri Jun  3 12:01:43 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Jun-83 13:03:57 EDT
References: <357@sbcs.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 13

Saumya Debray's comments on affirmative action have a more general
application then was perhaps intended. Any time governments go around
trying coercively to solve social or economic problems, the results
are injustice, resentment, and (usually) an increase in the original
problem. Since this *is* net.flame, one doesn't have to justify
such generalities, but for another example look at the ways in which
minimum wage laws discriminate *against* young people, who often lack
work experience. Because of this lack of experience, they cannot be hired
economically if they have to be paid a wage that is artificially raised
by force (of law). Result: large unemployment of students.  And so
the spiral of government action worsening social problems continues to grow.

Ian Darwin, Toronto.