Discrimination - A Symptom of Our Time

I have always been against discrimination.  By this, I mean that I am against a legal requirement to favour one group of people over another in your economic life.  I don't mean that I am against the right to do business with or associate with who you so desire.

To use an example, whatever I think of a hotel owner who refuses to admit homosexual customers (and I know I am risking a lynching here!), I will always defend the right of a business owner to do business with whosoever he/she chooses.  This is the principle of voluntary, enforceable contract.  Your business may not want to do business with people who, like me, wear spectacles but, much as I dislike it, I support your right to contract with whosoever you choose.  In a free market, I'll simply use another vendor who will serve me. 

   
The government/state uses discrimination in its efforts to interfere in the lives of ordinary people.  In the US, Obama is currently crusading to raise the pay of women who, he claims, earn 23c per hour less than their male counterparts.  Apart from the fact the argument does not stand up to examination, this article explains rather well why this type of interference in the market actually harms women's employment prospects.

In the UK, there is a raft of legislation that prevents employers practicing discrimination when recruiting new staff.  However, there are plans in the UK to offer ex-service personnel that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan free tuition fees to study for a degree and a £9,000 bursary to train as a teacher (all at tax payers expense, of course).  This is so-called "positive discrimination", illegal for you and I to practice but perfectly okay for the government.

But on a more lighthearted note...