This is a simplistic view. E.g. how does this argument account for the data we have that someone with black sounding name will get less opportunity than someone with a white sounding name and an identical resume? In this case the lower chances to get ahead have nothing to do with economic circumstance.
> E.g. how does this argument account for the data we have that someone with black sounding name will get less opportunity than someone with a white sounding name and an identical resume?
You're referring to a decades-old study that failed to replicate:
It still has to do with economic circumstance, but here, according to Sowell it's about the cost of employing empirical discrimination (judging each specific case through complete knowledge of the individual) instead of a proxy for empirical discrimination (like likelihoods based on a non-arbitrary characteristic such as income or neighborhood).
The solutions that follow from that conclusion are to find ways to make empiricism less costly, or to change the stereotype (such as people from a poor neighborhood are likely to be a bad risk for a loan).
Systemic racism tends to apply so much economic drag to the system that any form of capitalism won't allow it to stand. Apartheid in South Africa was systemic racism, and businesses were violating those laws long before they were abolished just out of profit-motive. It became obvious and common-sense for the system to be ended. Thomas Sowell, in that same work, points out that Type II discrimination (discrimination based on arbitrary characteristics like race, ethnicity, belief... etc.) always ends up being economically unfeasible.
You raise an interesting point but I think that's an overly broad claim. Groups with strong internal adhesion and sufficiently high trust can remain xenophobic indefinitely.
It's also wrong on some level to refer to these things as arbitrary characteristics. They might be seemingly unrelated, but in a broader social context they are often far from arbitrary. Particularly when it comes to belief systems they can have direct and tangible impacts.
GPs comment is a perfect example of GPs comment. The burden of proof is on the person trying to make a point. They gave no arguments or evidence in their favor. I lay out a point that shows they have no ground to stand on.
It is unfortunately impossible to prove the negative. I did give examples of what I would like to see in a discussion. There's unfortunately no realistic way for me to "provide evidence" that I only rarely see it.
What you're describing is an American domestic policy issue.
There's no dispute that America has become incredibly more rich and powerful over the past 40 years. The fact that that money is increasingly funneled to fewer and fewer people (as a percent of the population) is something that can be changed locally, without changing our foreign policy stance.
It's not a surprise that the "devastation" of the middle class coincides with the continued reduction of tax rates on the entities collecting all that money. The America that MAGA seems to think was great was one of higher taxes and more social programs.
can you explain how an increase in tax rate would help the middle class gain more wealth? it already makes sense that decreasing tax rate, and therefore increasing income, but decreasing income to increase wealth doesn’t make sense to me.
No, they’re coupled issues — eg, open markets forces domestic labor to compete unfairly.
The manner in which those people accrued wealth is deeply related to the issue, by subverting the working and middle classes domestically.
I understand that many of the petite bourgeoisie believe that destruction of those classes via internationalism is a means to usher in communist policy — but that’s opposed wholesale by the American working and middle classes.
> No, they’re coupled issues — eg, open markets forces domestic labor to compete unfairly.
You're still describing economic policies though, not diplomatic ones, and while they're not entirely disconnected, trying to fix international economic issues by burning down alliances is likely to result in a lot of negative second order effects while not even addressing the main economic concerns.
If we're ascribing bad faith motivations to particular viewpoints here though, I'll point out that conflating concerns about trade policies with the idea that America should entirely abandon any interest in the rest of the world is enormously helpful to countries that would like to pursue far more aggressive imperial ambitions currently being blocked by American power. Having rightfully angry people in America's rust belt become convinced that the only way to revitalize the industries that used to power their cities is to let Russia reform the Soviet Union has got to feel like the political victory of the century to Moscow.
On the contrary this is exactly what they said they'd do if elected. This is exactly what was voted for. Don't pretend like Americans didn't have agency in the destruction of their own country.
If all the competitors have the same quality and price then you're always going to be using some subjective criteria to decide between them. Why is choosing a minority supplier worse than any other criteria in this case?
