Reparations not Representation without Authorization

Individual Rights and Historical Injustices

Since Spring of this year, Harvard and Stanford universities, as well as three of the leading University of California campuses – Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Irvine – have faced investigations by the Department of Justice under the False Claims Act due to (“soft”) quota policies, raising questions over the extent to which race can affect admissions decisions. In the business world, DEI has been a major hiring and post-hire progressive campaign, but has been met with overwhelming opposition from the Trump Administration. Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand, reacting to the Democratic National Convention’s 1972 racial quota policy for selecting delegates, wrote in her essay “Representation without Authorization”:

The notion of racial quotas is so obviously an expression of racism that no lengthy discussion is necessary. If a young man is barred from a school or a job because the quota for his particular race has been filled, he is barred by reason of his race. Telling him that those admitted are his "representatives," is adding insult to injury. To demand such quotas in the name of fighting racial discrimination, is an obscene mockery.

– The Ayn Rand Letter, I, 21, 2

A critical point made in Rand’s essay is that quota-based systems deprive individuals of the ability to determine for themselves which issues matter most, i.e. which representatives would best serve as their agents, or which political interests define them. Self-determination is a fundamental right, without which there is no concept of personal freedom. What good is it if your government officially grants the liberty to move about your country at will, if the same government empowers your town hall to prevent you from doing so? The town hall, not the individual, determines where a person may live.

Direct voting when feasible is ideal. Voting for individual representatives, not limited by involuntary group membership, allows individuals to choose their proxies to the government on whatever basis they deem most important intellectually, rather than to be forcibly defined by their demographic characteristics. Despite Rand’s surprise and outrage at the violations of individual rights associated with quota-based representation, she still didn’t believe that the collectivists would manage to get away with quota systems in the US.

Although collectivists in this country have made only modest progress in formally instituting a quota system for elections, such quotas have been widely adopted in other important aspects of life, including university admissions, grant and scholarship selection, and hiring practices. Unofficially, physiological quotas are applied not only in politics, but in all positions of power, wealth, and influence, including achieving celebrity status or appointment to critical roles in government bureaucracy. Yet in some cases, serious contemporary or historical injustices have been committed against the groups intended to benefit from quota policies.

It’s important then, when condemning quota systems, to recognize the damages suffered from racist or other physiologically-driven discriminatory cultures or policies over time. Given that quota-based representation, hiring practices, or reward systems are not an ethical remedy to very severe wrongdoing against minority groups, other solutions should be identified and pursued. Eliminating any ongoing discriminatory practices is merely a “stop-loss” and does not offset damage suffered for wrong that has already been done. If the injustice had been on an individual level, personal injury claims could've been sought. If it had been one individual wronging another, torts might've been alleged, and the legal system could've potentially provided adequate remediation of the damages. For large-scale oppression against groups, class-action lawsuits are warranted and appropriate settlements of such magnitude may be termed “reparations”.

The extent to which reparations are called for varies from group to group, with the most well-motivated and discussed being descendants of former American slaves. Reparations need not be considered impractical or terrifying. An expert panel of economists from philosophically stratified high--reputation universities and private market think tanks could be selected to simulate the average wealth of the group’s members if their ancestors had entered the United States as free citizens rather than slaves. Major non-wealth attributes affected by past wrongdoing could be valuated (measured) through economic or actuarial means. Any gap between the actual and simulated overall levels of wealth constitutes the gross damages due. Subtract the dollar value of any programs used as partial substitutes for reparations and that amount is, roughly, the net due. This amount might be paid out over decades, with a portion going into trust funds for younger recipients.

One of my favorite variations on this idea is one wherein instead of all reparations being paid out directly, a large chunk is facilitated by the Small Business Administration in the form of business loans with unenforced repayment terms, similar to those issued as COVID-2019 relief. Of the many interesting potential effects of that strategy, the economy would boom with a never-before-seen wave of non-stop African American small business capitalism and entrepreneurial innovation. Reparations alone are not enough to fully undo the effects of America’s shameful history of slavery. Nothing is. To at least approximate an adequate job of addressing that injustice, reparations would need to be combined with ongoing public education and anti-racism laws preventing quota policies just like those being implemented in some of the finest universities.