From the Equal Pay Act 1970 to the Equality Act 2010, there has been a wave of antidiscrimination legislation in Britain to turn the state into some omniscient being that can determine an employer’s intentions. While these pieces of legislation did not enforce direct hiring quotas for businesses, they have increased inefficiencies because companies and organizations need more human resources employees to cover their own backs.
These pieces of antidiscrimination legislation assume that the state can determine an employer’s intentions. There are many reasons why an employer may not hire somebody or give an employee higher pay. However, the government cannot possibly know their reasoning. This leads to employers overcompensating in order to escape government punishment for employing whomever they wish.
Lew Rockwell encapsulates this perfectly:
Imagine that the government appoints a party planner who says that you can invite or not invite whoever you want, provided that one consideration is not part of the mix: you must not decline to invite someone on the grounds of hair color. Now, it may never have occurred to you to think along these lines. But now you have to. You notice that you have no redheads attending the party, much to your alarm.
What if this fact is taken as evidence that you are discriminating? Will it? You can’t know for sure. You think again: even if no redheads are coming, this is surely not the reason why you are not inviting them. There are other factors, too many factors to name. In any case, how can the state’s party planner know what your motivations are? Isn’t it astounding that a government agency would presume to read your mind, know your heart, and discern your innermost emotions and motives?
Truly this is totalitarian.
Over the past decades, those who believe that inequality of outcome must be due to discrimination have come to the mainstream. Modern-day feminists demand the abolition of the gender pay gap as if it were due to sexism. The Black Lives Matter movement has put critical race theory—an ideology that attributes all race inequality to racism—in the mainstream. These demands are an attack on private property and free enterprise.
Not only does this encourage companies to hire with equality of outcome in mind, but this egalitarian legislation has led to an increase in diversity and inclusion officers. This has made the United Kingdom the world leader in diversity and inclusion roles. Those in these roles have been implanting leftist ideology into every industry while receiving a very generous salary. “Diversity and inclusion” roles have grown by 122 percent since 2010.
The Network Rail’s diversity chief, Loraine Martins, receives a salary of £160,000 a year. Martin’s tweets openly criticize Boris Johnson for his “white privilege,” which is a violation of Network Rails’ code of ethics to “avoid conflict of interests” including “political activities.”
Furthermore, there are currently twenty known diversity officers within the Ministry of Defence. One director of diversity and inclusion receives £110,000 a year. Is there any wonder that the MoD is preaching that “If we want to be the best Armed Forces, then the only way to go is Feminist”?
These diversity officers work as activists. The National Health Service equality chief has led called a government watchdog’s ruling that biological men who call themselves transgender can be excluded from single-sex wards ”transphobic.” This mutiny is threatening the safety and comfort of biological women. Instead of prioritizing the women who need treatment, there is pressure for the NHS to prioritize wokeness.
These roles have caused inefficiencies within each industry, taking money and resources away from what needs to be done in order to pour it down the endless drain of bureaucracy. Instead of prioritizing what serves the customer best, organizations and companies are forced to prioritize what is politically correct.
As Lew Rockwell states:
Every employer must constantly prepare and organize to diminish the likelihood that a complaint will be filed. In doing so, they take steps that lead to inefficiencies or avoid steps that might improve efficiency.
The trojan horse of antidiscrimination legislation has led to leftism corrupting every institution, which now has to discuss topics like “white privilege” and “microaggressions.” Through this Gramscian takeover, the notions that we should prioritize equality of outcome and value egalitarianism have further been normalized.
Not only are businesses and organizations concerned with government officials punishing them for not being progressive enough, but now there is an enemy within. It is not enough for the business to be visibly diverse; their employers must now preach egalitarian ideas too.
