capitalism

6 Affirmative Action
Had Adams distilled his arguments into one, organized
volume, the Defence could well have become a classic.
Instead, he produced a repetitive work weighed down by
long, often unattributed quotes cribbed from works in
history and political philosophy. Therefore, although the
Defence is unattractive reading, it was circulated at the
Constitutional Convention and remains a treasure trove for
students of the American constitutional regime.
Adams saw two major threats to a free republic: the
envy of the people and the ambition of the elites. He
believed that a nation’s “natural aristocracy” posed a potential
social problem. A society must give those who excel
room to exercise their talents; otherwise their resentment
will be turned against the system. In contrast, unchecked
democracy leads to calls for the redistribution of property,
that “absurd figment of the mind.” Therefore, the rule of
law must protect the “sacred” property rights of rich and
poor alike. According to Adams, only a balanced constitution
can protect the lives, liberties, and properties of the
people by securing a stable and free government.
See also American Revolution; Declaration of Independence;
Jefferson, Thomas; Rule of Law; Washington, George
Further Readings
Handler, Edward. America and Europe in the Political Thought of
John Adams. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.
Haraszti, Zoltan. John Adams and the Prophets of Progress.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952.
Thompson, C. Bradley. John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty.
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
MV
Affirmative action is a term drawn from the American experience
with racial discrimination. It refers to public policies
and private efforts designed ostensibly to help individuals
overcome the effects of past discrimination. As typically
practiced in the United States and elsewhere, affirmative
action usually involves preferential treatment for members
of specified groups. Affirmative action practiced in that
manner shares common ideological premises and goals, but
often different rhetoric, with efforts to promote racial and
ethnic diversity.
To understand the contemporary debate over affirmative
action, one must have knowledge of competing concepts of
equality and of the history of discrimination in America.
The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “All
men are created equal.” The equality to which the Declaration
refers is the fact that each person is equally possessed of
certain inalienable rights, theirs by virtue of their birth, and
thus each stands equal before the law.
The key attributes of that understanding of equality are
universalism and individualism: All individuals should enjoy
equality under law. As Thomas Paine argued, that principle is
“plain and simple” for “where the rights of man are equal,
every man must finally set the necessity of protecting the
rights of others as the most effectual security for his own.”
Libertarians argue that such equal treatment by the law
should be distinguished from equal outcomes. As F. A.
Hayek points out, “From the fact that people are very different
it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result
must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only
way to place them in an equal position would be to treat
them differently.” That requires what Hayek calls “discriminatory
coercion.” As Hayek observes, “Equality before the
law and material equality are therefore not only different,
but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve
either the one or the other, but not both at the same time.”
Libertarians have traditionally insisted that the principle
of equality before the law must be absolute. In Thomas
Paine’s words, “Whenever we depart from the principle of
equal rights, or attempt any modification of it, we plunge
into a labyrinth of difficulties from which there is no way
out but by retreating. Where are we to stop? Or by what
principle are we to find out the point to stop at, that shall
discriminate between men of the same country, part of
whom shall be free, and the rest not?”
Sadly, for a nation founded on the claim that “All men
are created equal,” even the United States of America failed
from the outset to honor the principles of equality under law.
The institution of human slavery—the subjugation of individuals
by making them the property of others—represents
the most profound nullification of equality under law.
Hence, when the Civil War was won, the Reconstructionera
Congress, imbued with classical liberal ideals, not only
abolished slavery (the 13th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution), but also passed the 14th Amendment, which
provides that, “No State...shall deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Senator
Jacob Howard, a principal author of the amendment,
declared that its goal was to “abolish all class legislation and
do away with the injustice of subjecting one caste of person
to a code not applicable to another.” The authors of these
amendments embraced equality of opportunity, not equality
of result. Representative Benjamin Butler observed,
“Equality—and I will embody it in a single phrase, as the
true touchstone of civil liberty—is not that all men are
equal, but that every man has the right to be the equal of
every man if he can.”
Still, for the next century, governments across the
United States engaged in discrimination in access to
employment, business opportunities, education, voting, and
public accommodations. Against blacks, those policies
were called “Jim Crow Laws,” and these ostensibly were