Should women get paid the same amount as men do for the same work?

6/5/2012 5:40:28 PM

Nope. [/thread]

6/5/2012 5:46:01 PM

They should get paid less than men, but more than blacks and gays.

6/5/2012 5:46:18 PM

So if women were paid more than men, then ^ and ^^ would not have a problem. Income disparity is ok with you guys.

6/5/2012 6:40:45 PM

you forgot a key element of the equation: who is doing a better job?

6/5/2012 6:43:45 PM

^ Same performance.

6/5/2012 6:45:32 PM

They should get paid whatever they can manage to get someone to pay them. If it is more than a man can get doing the same job, their benefit. If not, their loss. It is none of our business what contracts women freely negotiate with those they choose to associate.

6/5/2012 7:07:46 PM

"get paid" is passive voice and allows mouth-breathers to shift the responsibility to the person "managing to make whatever it is they can make others pay them."

The question is: Should employers be able to discriminate pay wages and benefits solely on the basis of gender? Clearly the answer is no.

6/5/2012 7:49:40 PM

No, they shouldn't. However, the 70 cents on dollar statistic that gets thrown around so frequently is a bunch of crap. Rather than basing it off of average income for men vs. average income for men it should compare for same jobs not for total income earned, especially considering they types of jobs that are female dominated professions v. the type of jobs that are male dominated professions. Oh, and then throw in things like maternity leave, unpaid leave, amount of time off requested, willingness to relocate, average number of hours worked per week, etc. and you can see why there would be a significant disparity if you refuse to examine anything past average income.

While it's not 1:1 on wages, it's a hell of a lot closer when it's actually measured that way.

[Edited on June 5, 2012 at 8:38 PM. Reason : asdfs]

6/5/2012 8:25:51 PM

I'm a democrat and I know they're bringing this up to pander to women voters, but I genuinely doubt that there is that much discrimination going on. I'd be willing to bet there's something else going on, especially at the level of 70c/$1 ratio I keep hearing.

6/5/2012 8:26:06 PM

ZOMG, if the market called for fair wages, we'd have them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111

But seriously, there are definitely things at play that people aren't considering. Women don't simply make less just because they're women.

How about we talk about the growing number of women out earning their significant others and not sharing that money in the relationship like men have (historically).

[Edited on June 5, 2012 at 8:30 PM. Reason : ]

6/5/2012 8:28:04 PM

I love how you ask this in the soapbox -- a place dominated by men and hasn't seen a woman in years.

Much like the real lives of the all those who post above and below this post.

6/5/2012 9:29:28 PM

While there are few women here, there is no shortage of white knights jumping at the chance to defend poor, fragile, helpless women that have been kept down by the white male power structure.

6/5/2012 9:42:44 PM

I'm really looking forward to str8foolish/mcdanger pointing out how we're all misogynists for not agreeing with the $.70:$1.00 "statistic."

6/5/2012 9:50:51 PM

they get paid less to offset the inevitable sexual harassment lawsuits and paid baby-leave.

6/5/2012 9:57:05 PM

Quote :

"While it's not 1:1 on wages, it's a hell of a lot closer when it's actually measured that way. "

link?

6/5/2012 10:05:06 PM

have any of you ever actually worked with women before?

if so, you know why they get paid less.

[Edited on June 5, 2012 at 10:11 PM. Reason : and because of this, nobody gives a shit.]

6/5/2012 10:10:48 PM

^^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80%93female_income_disparity_in_the_United_States

I know it's wikipedia, but some of the rough data is there.

From what I've seen the more you break it down, and the closer you get to actual job to job and hour to hour comparisons the less severe the disparity is, generally speaking.

[Edited on June 5, 2012 at 10:26 PM. Reason : sdf]

6/5/2012 10:19:47 PM

^^ lmao

6/5/2012 10:41:15 PM

^^Your link to Wikipedia doesn't actually support what you're saying. That page is all over the place.

Could you elaborate about this "rough data"?

[Edited on June 5, 2012 at 11:57 PM. Reason : ?]

6/5/2012 11:55:19 PM

In what way does it not? Total income is actually closer to 77 cents on the dollar, but when you start to factor in things like education, hours worked, etc. you see more of that gap eliminated, again, not all, but significant portions.

Quote :

"Economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn took a set of human capital variables such as education, labor market experience, and race into account and additionally controlled for occupation, industry, and unionism. While the gender wage gap was considerably smaller when all variables were taken into account, a substantial portion of the pay gap (12%) remained unexplained.[28]"

So again, it's not like I'm claiming that there isn't a pay disparity at all, but the claim that it's 70 cents on the dollar is simply not ture. Furthermore, the more granular you get and the more closely you get to an apples to apples comparison the less the severe the disparity, how is that not supported by what is in that wikipedia entry?

Also, an interesting tidbit

Quote :

"The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that married women earn 75.5% as much as married men while women who have never married earn 94.2% of their unmarried male counterparts' earnings."

More research, this time from Warren Farrell (who, love him or hate him has done a ton of research on this subject), indicates:

Quote :

"his analysis of census bureau data that never-married women without children earn 13% more than their male counterparts; or that the gender pay gap is largely about married men with children who earn more due to their assuming more workplace obligations, led to Farrell receiving criticism by some feminists"

6/6/2012 12:13:09 AM

Quote :

"I'm a democrat and I know they're bringing this up to pander to women voters, but I genuinely doubt that there is that much discrimination going on."

It frequently stays hidden, because employees are currently often retaliated against for discussing pay; if it could be discussed openly, the resulting sunlight would disinfect many a workplace of bigoted pay disparities.
(In particular, Ledbetter et. al. would have been able to seek justice even without the act bearing her name.)

[Edited on June 6, 2012 at 12:28 AM. Reason : Also I do believe it's an effort to pander to women and that the raw pay gap is misleading.

6/6/2012 12:28:19 AM

Quote :

"They should get paid whatever they can manage to get someone to pay them. If it is more than a man can get doing the same job, their benefit. If not, their loss. It is none of our business what contracts women freely negotiate with those they choose to associate."

Saying that we shouldn't be concerned about pay disparity in employment contracts, as a nation...

It's like writing a contract that lowballs someone based on who they are, then going on about how they should have negotiated a better contract, so their loss. It's complete double-talk.

Do you think we should care if we were a socialist nation? Well we're about a 40% socialist nation, so yes, it does matter as a democratic issue.

6/6/2012 9:10:34 AM

^ While I agree to an extent, it's not like employers don't low ball men as well. The difference being that men will actually negotiate for higher pay rather than taking what's offered.

[Edited on June 6, 2012 at 10:32 AM. Reason : ]

6/6/2012 10:31:51 AM

Quote :

"The difference being that men will actually negotiate for higher pay rather than taking what's offered."

Is that all it is? Not that men are more successful at negotiating higher pay? Women do it themselves because they're weak and powerless to negotiate?

6/6/2012 10:57:58 AM

women only get paid 76 cents on the dollar if you don't correct for occupation and education level. Once you correct for one I think it's 88 cents, and correcting for both you get 92 percent.

That's not even correcting for organizational position. If you work overtime and get promoted then it's not a fair comparison to someone in the same industry with the same degrees. I'm not implying that men are more likely to do this. However, it is true that average age of first marriage for men is about 2 years earlier than women, meaning that they have 2 extra years spent without relationship time commitments, and that time probably goes to career investment which is probably reflective of both education and in-company investment.

In other words, there is a good case to say that the combination of negotiating power and sexist preference in determining pay accounts for AT MOST a 8% difference in pay.

I'm not saying that's not a problem. It is. But we have bigger problems.

The 76 cents on the dollar doesn't even correct for workforce participation:

men: 71.2 %
women: 58.6 %

Let's faithfully do the correction:

men earn 100 cents, multiply by relative time worked
100*0.712 = 71.2

women earn 76 cents, multiply by relative time worked
76*0.586 = 44.536

normalize to get:
44.5/71.2 = 62.6 cents on the dollar

So let's get this straight. Women miss out on the following earnings:
- 37.5 cents because of all factors combined, mainly career selection and family decisions
- 8 cents AT MOST because of negotiating ability combined with other factors

And again, people at retirement age grew up in a world where sex discrimination was real. The above numbers are all bull because they count 50 year old women who were educated in a bigoted world.

In other words, everyone has framed the issue completely wrong.

6/6/2012 11:24:29 AM

Quote :

"mainly career selection and family decisions "

My problem is with dismissing these things like they don't count as issues. Just because it's "normal" for women to be nurses and men to be engineers doesn't make it right. Just because it's normal for women to get maternity leave and miss out on the opportunities to advance while men don't even get the option doesn't make it right.

You say people are framing this wrong. I say the deck is stacked from the get go against women, in addition to the 8% accounted for by plain old discrimination.

6/6/2012 11:51:44 AM

Quote :

"women only get paid 76 cents on the dollar if you don't correct for occupation and education level. Once you correct for one I think it's 88 cents, and correcting for both you get 92 percent."

So it's pretty damn close. Now, take into account that girls are more often raised to fulfill a gender role that amounts to "look pretty", while boys are ultimately judged on their achievements and ability to fill the position of alpha male, and you can see why things turn out this way.

There's a complex answer to why things are the way they are, but it mostly comes down to parenting and culture. Girls are pampered, while boys are more likely to be told to suck it up. These attitudes have profound effects on society.

Men are also more physically imposing. Should it make a difference? No. Does it make a difference? Absolutely. People simply take the 6' 5", 230 lb alpha male more seriously than the 5' 1", 110 lb soft-spoken female, even with equal qualifications. Even if we should overcome our primitive instincts, sometimes we don't or can't.

Of course, women now have higher college enrollment rates than men, so the tide is already turning in terms of education.

Quote :

"You say people are framing this wrong. I say the deck is stacked from the get go against women, in addition to the 8% accounted for by plain old discrimination."

Can't explain discrepancy --> Assumes discrimination. Strong knowledge of statistics.

[Edited on June 6, 2012 at 12:17 PM. Reason : ]

6/6/2012 12:15:50 PM

Quote :

"Can't explain discrepancy --> Assumes discrimination. Strong knowledge of statistics."

Sees discrepancy --> uses language that allows for no discrepancy --> Strong knowledge of absolutely nothing

6/6/2012 12:48:43 PM

What's strange is that history shows a sort of continuum since the past of the pay gap slowly decreasing.



So I'm just wondering...when did it stop being discrimination and start being these myriad other theories?

Or was it always this way, and the pay gaps were never about discrimination at all? Did women in 1970 just take 80 days a year vacation or what?


[Edited on June 6, 2012 at 12:57 PM. Reason : .]

6/6/2012 12:56:21 PM

Quote :

"Of course, women now have higher college enrollment rates than men, so the tide is already turning in terms of education."

The gaps, both racial and along gender, are just as present when you control for education level.



[Edited on June 6, 2012 at 1:02 PM. Reason : .]

6/6/2012 1:01:58 PM

Quote :

"My problem is with dismissing these things like they don't count as issues. Just because it's "normal" for women to be nurses and men to be engineers doesn't make it right. Just because it's normal for women to get maternity leave and miss out on the opportunities to advance while men don't even get the option doesn't make it right."

Look at how more funding, recruiting, and preferential treatment is thrown out to get women into higher paying fields like engineering and hard sciences, yet they still do not pursue these careers. Just look at last falls enrollment for NCSU, ~18% of Engineering majors are female, 40% of PAMS. On the flip side, women make up 63% of CHASS, 71% of education, and 69% of textiles. I am sure we can all agree that the career prospects and earnings potential are much higher for Engineering/PAMS than Chass/ED/Textiles.

You can't force someone, or a large group of someones into a career path that they aren't interested in having. Hell, about half of the women that i still talk with that were in engineering or PAMs back in the day have changed careers to things a lot less technical (either managerial or a new field all together)

[Edited on June 6, 2012 at 1:07 PM. Reason : ,]

6/6/2012 1:06:07 PM

Quote :

"Sees discrepancy --> uses language that allows for no discrepancy --> Strong knowledge of absolutely nothing"

Nope. I see a discrepancy and try to explain it. I even include discrimination as one explanation. I correctly point out that there's more at play than powerful white males casting down judgment and low wages upon all non-white, non-male individuals.

This is really unbelievable to me. You jump at the chance to assume discrimination and dismiss other explanations.

80% or more of all single parents are female. You can't properly advance a career while also being a decent mother. You just can't. Children are best raised by two parents, and when a single parent is required to work full time and care for children, both job and family will suffer. The result is that single mothers often don't have the opportunity to advance their career or do anything except work a shitty job barely making ends meet.

It's very important that we look at the deterioration of the nuclear family if we're even going scratch the surface of this discrepancy.

6/6/2012 1:07:52 PM

Quote :

"I correctly point out that there's more at play than powerful white males casting down judgment and low wages upon all non-white, non-male individuals."

What you don't seem to get is that pointing out discrimination against non-white, non-males does not necessarily mean it's white males doling out the discrimination. For instance, when the media and other forces of society project an image of black males, for instance, as being violent and criminal, they will be feared by everyone exposed to that media and society, including other black males. When media portrays women as being generally more subjective/feeling than objective/analytical, it not only makes males less likely to hire women, but also women less likely to hire other women, and it makes women less likely to get into those fields precisely because it violates the notions of "normalcy" they've been afflicted with.


And really, destroyer, you don't get credit for acknowledging discrimination when every single time you acknowledge it you immediately follow-up with essentially declaring it to be the most trivial and insignificant factor. But please, by all means, point out to me on that time series above just when it became about "everything except discrimination" because it looks to me like we're still emerging from a discriminatory time (Considering that entire generation is still alive, especially...).

[Edited on June 6, 2012 at 1:21 PM. Reason : .]

6/6/2012 1:16:31 PM

Quote :

"What you don't seem to get is that pointing out discrimination against non-white, non-males does not necessarily mean it's white males doling out the discrimination. For instance, when the media and other forces of society project an image of black males, for instance, as being violent and criminal, they will be feared by everyone exposed to that media and society, including other black males. When media portrays women as being generally more subjective/feeling than objective/analytical, it not only makes males less likely to hire women, but also women less likely to hire other women, and it makes women less likely to get into those fields precisely because it violates the notions of "normalcy" they've been afflicted with."

Can't argue with the fact that it's not just white males perpetuating discrimination.

Quote :

"And really, destroyer, you don't get credit for acknowledging discrimination when every single time you acknowledge it you immediately follow-up with essentially declaring it to be the most trivial and insignificant factor. But please, by all means, point out to me on that time series above just when it became about "everything except discrimination" because it looks to me like we're still emerging from a discriminatory time (Considering that entire generation is still alive, especially...)."

I haven't declared it to be trivial or insignificant, I've just said that it's one explanation of many.

Let me clarify your argument. The average wage of women (as a percent of the average wage of white men) has trended upwards since the 1970s. During the same period, racial and gender discrimination has become less common due to various legal and cultural factors. Therefore, the wage of women as compared to white men is primarily a function of discrimination, because...uhh...

I should not have to tell you that correlation does not imply causation. I really shouldn't.

6/6/2012 1:35:41 PM

Quote :

"You say people are framing this wrong. I say the deck is stacked from the get go against women, in addition to the 8% accounted for by plain old discrimination."

Sure, to start with, you have the 8% claim. That is consistent with the evidence, we've established that. But again, I have the claim that most of that discrimination may be embodied in old people. All of it could - that would still be consistent. We could be living today with no gender discrimination below the age of 35. We don't have evidence to clearly say otherwise.

Quote :

"My problem is with dismissing these things like they don't count as issues. Just because it's "normal" for women to be nurses and men to be engineers doesn't make it right. Just because it's normal for women to get maternity leave and miss out on the opportunities to advance while men don't even get the option doesn't make it right."

And what the fuck do we do about it?

I've been to the women in engineering meetings. I've encouraged the women I know to do engineering. But I'm not a teacher. I'm not a parent. If you convince somebody of this point, what does it matter? Decisions about study area and study level (like higher degrees) is something I only get to decide about myself.

Quote :

"Can't explain discrepancy --> Assumes discrimination. Strong knowledge of statistics."

*sigh* I was very explicit in the other places I used the 8% that it represented the fact that discrimination likely exists up to that amount. I even used words to try to justify the fact that other factors (representative of career effort) are included in the 8%, this argument provided the rational basis to say that the discrimination was up to the 8%, but probably not higher.

Maybe it's 6% discrimination. Maybe 4%. Maybe it's 3.14159%

[Edited on June 6, 2012 at 1:41 PM. Reason : ]

6/6/2012 1:40:03 PM

Quote :

"*sigh* I was very explicit in the other places I used the 8% that it represented the fact that discrimination likely exists up to that amount. I even used words to try to justify the fact that other factors (representative of career effort) are included in the 8%, this argument provided the rational basis to say that the discrimination was up to the 8%, but probably not higher. Maybe it's 6% discrimination. Maybe 4%. Maybe it's 3.1415%"

That wasn't directed at you.

6/6/2012 1:42:06 PM

Quote :

"80% or more of all single parents are female. You can't properly advance a career while also being a decent mother. You just can't. Children are best raised by two parents, and when a single parent is required to work full time and care for children, both job and family will suffer. The result is that single mothers often don't have the opportunity to advance their career or do anything except work a shitty job barely making ends meet."

But single motherhood increases workforce participation! So you start having to ask yourself the question of what the objective is. With more full family units, we would be looking at women working less, but probably getting paid more for what time they do put in due to a wide variety of factors that have to do with the support they get from their partner.

Quote :

"So I'm just wondering...when did it stop being discrimination and start being these myriad other theories? Or was it always this way, and the pay gaps were never about discrimination at all? Did women in 1970 just take 80 days a year vacation or what?"

I'm surprised how infrequently I hear about the so-called "M-curve". It's a very helpful construct.



I'll leave you to speculate as to what the M is and why.

6/6/2012 2:00:54 PM

Quote :

"But single motherhood increases workforce participation! So you start having to ask yourself the question of what the objective is. With more full family units, we would be looking at women working less, but probably getting paid more for what time they do put in due to a wide variety of factors that have to do with the support they get from their partner."

Are we talking about work force participation or wages? I'd rather see lower workforce participate rates in men and women if it meant that children were, on the aggregate, getting a higher quality upbringing.

With two parents, the mother won't necessarily stay at home. The father can stay at home, or they can both work. Either way, they'll both have a greater opportunity to increase their wage earning potential than they would have if they were single parents.

6/6/2012 2:10:00 PM

Quote :

"So it's pretty damn close. Now, take into account that girls are more often raised to fulfill a gender role that amounts to "look pretty", while boys are ultimately judged on their achievements and ability to fill the position of alpha male, and you can see why things turn out this way. "

It's not "damn close" and it's not a gender role thing either... you DO realize that there are several analyses, linked in this thread even, that normalize for occupation and show a large discrepancy?? Even the more optimistic evaluations show large deltas between men/women pay.

It's baffling to me why people are so willing to pretend discrimination doesn't exist in this case, when it so obviously does. Why is this even being framed as a partisan issue...?

This seems like a pretty clear, well studied, easy-to-understand problem that conservatives apparently don't want to accept.

It's like right-leaning white males believe that the world is perfectly fair to everyone, and any signs of obvious discrimination aren't discrimination.

An 8% wage discrimination is still a very significant... the republicans threatened to shut the government down over a 3% tax hike for the rich, but paying women 8% less just because they are women is no big deal?

My personal inclinations are to look for actual solutions for problems, not just ignore the science and statistics that demonstrate a problem exists, and never try to fix a problem. It's sad that some people insist on viewing something in a partisan way, rather than trying to understand and fix them.

This mentality is exactly why our legislature wrote a bill telling scientists which data and algorithms they should be using.

Where I work, we just hired a female in a tech position, who is exceptionally capable of doing this job well, but she was hired because she had the best "soft skills" of the candidates, showing more people-skills and leadership abilities than the other interviewees. Even though she started at what everyone starts at for this position (higher actually because of past experience), institutions generally have a harder time giving people promotions for soft skills that are important for group dynamics, versus someone who has a more rote measurable technical abilities. This bias in how compensation is determined would result in a wage discrepancy over time for the female, versus a male employee who is less competent overall but has more tangible technical skills.

If it takes legislation to force managers to re-think how the evaluate compensation, i'm all for it. I'm not sure why the "M" curve thing factors in either. If a man and woman are doing the same job, they should get paid the same, regardless of if the woman might have to quit at some point to have a child. Since when was it okay to penalize women for carrying on the existence of the species...?

6/6/2012 2:45:07 PM

^^ Unless she's superwoman, she won't be staying at home much as a single mother.

I agree, becoming a single mother probably ranks among the worst possible things you could do for career advancement. The rates of single motherhood have been going through the roof recently, and it shouldn't be surprising if we see an age-adjusted, profession-and-education-adjusted, decrease in the F:M earning ratio as a result of that. That's one possible example of how women can wind up making less for the same job. It's not a stretch to imagine that you won't go as far in your job if you're loaded with other responsibilities outside of your work.

Plus, the idea of "staying at home" has a whole lot of gray area. I imagine most people would take the standard 3 months, but people will take everything in-between that and decades. This time is also highly subject to economic pressures.

If you think about it, the traditional family structure made perfect sense under the assumption that men had greater earning potential (which was entirely true). If the literal gender discrimination is gone, then it might only be a matter of time before family structures adjust to the optimal economic behavior. But we also have lots of negative trends to point to that paint a different picture.

Removing the father role from a large fraction of households out there would be disaster for gender equality, simply because it defaults to placing the upbringing responsibility on women. But I know a lot of single fathers too, so I don't really know what kind of situation that's creating.

[Edited on June 6, 2012 at 2:52 PM. Reason : ^^]

6/6/2012 2:51:59 PM

Quote :

"It's baffling to me why people are so willing to pretend discrimination doesn't exist in this case, when it so obviously does. Why is this even being framed as a partisan issue...?"

You need to consider what the objective is.

As numbers in this thread have established, gender discrimination accounts for less than 20% of the problem of gender economic inequality. You seem to be bringing out a focus on the morality of gender discrimination. We will all agree it is immoral to pay a woman less for doing the same job.

But if something is a moral evil, what's the right thing to do about it? How many times in your life have you convinced a bigot to not be a bigot anymore? I'm sure I will get a long list of TSB threads where aaronburro conceded your point and provided concrete examples of how he changed his actions for the better.

Once we get past the issue that the morality component lies in the hearts and minds of other people, then we have to realize that economic inequality is the only thing we have a chance at empirically addressing in a public sense. Out of the economic inequality problem, literal gender discrimination component is possibly the most difficult to change.

6/6/2012 3:01:14 PM

Quote :

"Is that all it is? Not that men are more successful at negotiating higher pay? Women do it themselves because they're weak and powerless to negotiate?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/13/negotiate-young-women-college-graduates-first-job_n_875650.html

Quote :

"n addition to the recent studies by Van Horn and Carnevale, Sara Laschever, who along with Linda Babcock also co-authored "Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want" found that men not only negotiate for more money out of the gate, but they also ask to be promoted with far greater frequency. In general, men ask for things for themselves four times more frequently than women do."

So, yes, women (on the whole) DO do it to themselves because they simply DON'T negotiate.

Is this the only factor behind lower pay? Of course not, but it's certainly an interesting part of it.

[Edited on June 6, 2012 at 3:19 PM. Reason : ]

6/6/2012 3:15:13 PM

^ I remember seeing that a few years ago and was going to bring it up here.

6/7/2012 8:44:13 AM

Quote :

"They should get paid whatever they can manage to get someone to pay them. If it is more than a man can get doing the same job, their benefit. If not, their loss. It is none of our business what contracts women freely negotiate with those they choose to associate. "

end of topic

6/7/2012 8:57:07 AM

save the women and children first.

---so no, they shouldn't.

[Edited on June 7, 2012 at 9:12 AM. Reason : trololo]

6/7/2012 9:11:49 AM

Quote :

"end of topic"

If lived in libertarian fantasy land where contracts are granted equally independent of bias or there were an infinite number of alternative employers so you could easily find someone who isn't a biased prick then fine.

It's just me, but I think the context of reality should factor into conversations about the way things are happening in...reality.

6/7/2012 9:27:19 AM

^and in YOUR reality you can eliminate all bias. impressive

6/7/2012 9:41:01 AM

Yep I said that.

What we can do is take off our Ayn Rand blinders and address bias instead of pretending it doesn't exist or doesn't matter.

6/7/2012 9:59:58 AM

It's a curious proposition that the libertarians make regarding civil rights and fairness.

Do people have a right to fairness? That's a valid question, and most people would answer "no". However, it's interesting to consider a world unfair to women, agreement on the fact, and inaction by the government. If you've identified clear inequality, then is it a defensible position to wholeheartedly be against the practice and maintain that the government shouldn't do anything about it?

Ethics itself should dictate that an action exists. Even if it's other people making these unequal and immoral decisions, there should be something that you, as someone who recognizes the inequality, does about it. The inherent human condition demands it. Our founders made similar statements about rights - that they are self-obvious and not granted by any government. That's consistent with the belief of an absolute and objective moral framework we should aspire to, and I think that all the ideals of the civil rights movement should be included in this framework. The issue is that some people believe the government shouldn't take action on this.

So we then accept an absolute moral framework, and within that framework find actionable and in-actionable items for the government. Is human trafficking the business of government? I would venture a guess that the libertarians among us would agree with me in answering "yes".

If the line doesn't reach to equal opportunity and economic fairness to all, how do we draw the line between what is government's business and what isn't?

6/7/2012 10:08:44 AM