November 05, 2005
So much for social justice
France, known for its massive welfare state, and frequently hailed by American lefties as a model of justice and progressive economic policies is being torn apart by racial discrimination the likes of which are... well... French.
The schadelfreude is almost too much. We've heard so much for so long about how it's France, not America, that stands for social justice, equality, and a better way of life. Only to find that not only is unemployment amongst their immigrant underclasses way into the double digits, but that immigrants are routinely denied jobs on the basis of race. This kind of thing does happen in the US, but it's not particularly widespread, and the punishments are severe should they ever be made public. The initially righteous civil rights movement in this country may have morphed into something entirely different in the last twenty years, but there has certainly been a measure of progress. We may have blighted urban neighborhoods, but I'm not aware of vast swaths of near-Third World poverty coupled with crippling unemployment.
But to the extent that we do have these same problems, the solutions are the same here as they are for France: enact business-promoting legislation that boosts growth and business owners will hire the people they need. There isn't any better way of making someone feel like they're part of society than giving them a job. And while affirmative action does lead to injustice of its own sort, it's generally the kind that leads to unfair economic burdens, not race riots. Lesser of two evils indeed.
