Why Write A Book...

...when an article would suffice. I picked up a book at the library the other day that is essentially a Marxist critique of "diversity." The basic point is that liberals have embraced the idea of "diversity" as a good social goal and the widespread acceptance of it from colleges to employers is a dangerous trick to ignore the real issue in American society: economic inequality. He argues "diversity" is a clever trick - an end-run around the idea of reparations - by not appealing to redress historical wrongs - but rather to value a diverse racial make-up as an end goal in itself. His best point - it costs us NOTHING as a society to embrace diversity. Elite colleges simply pick top students from all the races and get to feel good about themselves as if they are making our society better rather than an accomplice in making the rich richer. Employers are able to hire diverse staff and continue to pay them a stagnant wage.

I am not going to read the whole book. I'm not sure why this is a book rather than an article, but he makes a few smart points. He also is startlingly honest about the issue of competition - the rich are able to out compete the poor. Rich students will be better than poor students - they have better schools, better habits, more fallback options, tutors, all sorts of things. So if you care about social justice - which liberals claim to - one can't simply ignore this issue or try to apply an easy, cost-less balm, like affirmative action, which basically just assists rich people of different races and genders.