Category Archives: Mill

The Case for Equal Pay for Women (in the voice of John Stuart Mill)

http://www.twcnews.com/tx/austin/news/2016/03/30/governor-abbott-addresses-equal-pay-for-women-at-conference.html

Recently, the Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, gave a presentation in support for equal pay for women in Texas. He did not say how he would achieve this goal, but it is a step in the right direction. In our society, people must have independence to pursue liberty, and this requires economic freedom. A person cannot truly be free if they are legally required to be dependent on others. In this case, unequal pay for women causes them to be dependent on their husbands and their employers. It is just a means to keep women down. The result is that society is not as productive as it could be, and, thus, reducing the overall happiness of our society. I offer several reasons for this conclusion. A dollar means more for a working mother than it does to a billionaire employers. The overall happiness of society is, thus, increased by making sure women are paid fairly.

First, equal pay is another step in the direction of equality for all. Society is better off when everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. A person who objects to this conclusion should be able to offer proof why one set of individuals should be treated unequally with others. Imagine the plight of mothers and grandmothers working for low wages while men get much higher wages for the same work. What does this accomplish?

Next, the practice of allowing employers to pay lower wages to women for the same work unjustly enriches the employer. No valid reasons exist for this practice. Employers would have been able to provide proof of such valid reasons long ago if they had existed. And, the overall happiness of society is not improved by this practice. Instead, happiness is taken from one group – women- and given to others – males and employers. Liberty has limits, and one of these limits is to prevent harm to others. Employers have every right to hire who they wish. However, they do not have the right to take advantage of the labor of women unfairly. They are able to do this because the law protects employers, and this practice should be stopped. The government should not be used to take on set of rights and properties from one group and give it to another. A government that does this will lose its right to govern, and the people will have every right to seek another form of government. A society must protect all of its citizens, and the practice of lower wages for women for no valid reason betrays this trust.

And third, we live in a society in which every member has rights, as well as responsibilities. Women have proven themselves capable in many fields that men used to dominate. Almost no field of business has been proven too hard for women. The former ideas that women are soft creatures who need protection, or that women cannot work as hard as men, are dead. Yes, there are some fields, such as professional sports, where women cannot compete. But those fields are rare.

The overall happiness of society will be increased if women are given a legal right for equal pay for equal work.

The State of Texas recently negotiated a deal with the federal government that will fund more than $4 billion dollars in Medicaid health insurance for poor Texas families. However, this deal is only for 15 months, and Texas will lose these funds. Texas officials state they are required to commit to spending billions of dollars more in order to keep getting federal funding. They say they cannot afford to keep this type of spending without cutting costs elsewhere, or without raising taxes.
This approach by Texas officials is short-sighted and will end up costing Texas taxpayers more. Thus, it will not create the highest amount of good for society. In fact, if you take human lives into account in addition to money, the position of Texas officials will create a negative for overall happiness.
We live in a nation in which all lives are considered equal. As a result, all people will be given basic medical care if they show up in an emergency room. This is the law of the land. The hospitals then send a bill to local governments, which then have to raise the local taxes. This situation means that society is paying high cost emergency room bills for simple health care, like colds. These poor people would be able to go to day time clinics and get treated much cheaper if they had Medicaid insurance.
Therefore, a simple financial cost/benefit analysis will show that society actually gains happiness, as measured by money, when Medicaid is expanded.
I know that some people will argue that it is unfair to compel people to pay taxes which will be used to support others. They will argue that people should be free to choose who they help. However, sometimes we need to put the overall good of our society in front of individual rights. Not every issue should be decided by vote of the majority. In some instances, society should be able to compel action from its citizens in order to prevent harm to those who are not able to protect themselves.

Anyone on Medicaid is by definition poor, and many children are covered by Medicaid. Put yourself in the position of a single mother with a sick child. You will have no problem taking that child to the emergency room even if you know you cannot pay the bill. The life of the child is much more important to you. If you take this scenario and take the emergency room care out of the picture, there is no telling what that young mother will do to get treatment for her child. Multiply this by millions of individuals. The result is a breakdown of social order, and no one wants anarchy.
And finally, social progress requires liberty, but what is liberty if your children die young? Society needs healthy young people to continue to survive. According to the healthinsurance.org’s Texas government Medicaid website, almost 5 million individuals are covered by Medicaid. That is almost 20% of the population. The State of Texas cannot afford to cancel Medicaid and put the health of a fifth of its population in danger. This is certainly true since the federal government is willing to pay more than $65 billion for Medicaid expansion. Society will be better off with Medicaid expansion, and the overall happiness will increase. The effect on individual rights of the taxpayer is important, but not more important than the lives of children.

The Colombian people have rejected a proposal of peace between their government and the rebels FARC, who have been engaged in warfare for the better part of a century. Whether or not this action can be said to have been of the greatest utility to that nation will not be discerned for many more years. But the vote itself indicates that it will not.

As I have written before, I believe the sole legitimate test of the desirability of an outcome is whether or not people do indeed desire it. This proposal of peace was put forth before all Colombias, who by all accounts fairly and democratically voted. The majority voted No. Although I may believe this to be an inferior outcome, sure to bring greater misery over a Yes, ultimately that is my judgement alone, and it may be flawed. Asking every Colombian whether or not they desire this outcome, and tallying the respective responses, is the only way to truly discern what the people desire, and thus we can believe that ultimately the most utilitarian outcome must have been brought about- or so the argument goes.

However, such a sophistic analysis neglects to account for the greater effect the outcome has on some over others. Although each outcome brings some amount of misery and some amount of pleasure to all, yet that utility and pleasure be not equally distributed. Imagine that in a sum of ten thousand men a vote is taken: 4,999 of the men are to be sold into slavery, while 5,001 are to each receive some small sum of money. If every one of those to be sold into slavery voted No, and every man to receive money voted Yes to such a proposition, the winning side would be that of the sum of money- yet no one could argue that the more utilitarian outcome was achieved: the small amount of happiness the men with the money will gain does not outweigh the crushing misery each of the men in slavery will endure, though there be more of the former men than the latter.

In Colombia, who stands most to gain and most to lose from a YES or a NO is much more difficult to divine. An approximation, however, can be derived by seeing which provinces of Colombia have seen the most losses, as a percentage of the population, from the ongoing conflict. These provinces are those most likely to be affected by a future of peace. These provinces overwhelmingly voted YES. Since the act failed by the narrowest of margins, 50.2% versus 49.8%, if the overall greater effect the war has had on certain populations was reflected in the result, it is clear YES would have been victorious.

Is there a better course of action that could have been taken, rather than a simple referendum? The government could have weighted the votes of civilians according to how much they stand to gain or lose from the passage of the deal. Such a mechanism would not only be inexact but impossible to put into place- how many more votes should a person who has lost three brothers in a conflict gain over a person who could potentially lose three brothers in a future conflict, to indicate just one particularly thorny dilemma?

However, just because the most obvious remedy for the problem at hand is impossible, does not mean we should discard the ultimate goal of the greatest true utility. Are there other mechanisms, more readily available to us, with the greater chance of selecting the correct outcome? Colombia is a republic, and one could have expected the representatives to override the popular will and take the proper, more utilitarian course of action. It is possible that the representatives, reflecting their constituency, would have still voted No. However, I would argue that having the republic rather than the people decide is more likely to represent the overall most utilitarian action, since representatives are morally obliged to consider the effect their votes has not only to themselves but to others. Of course, individual people also have this obligation, but it is not as directly enshrined in principle as it is among those whose duty is to the public and the good of the nation.

Regardless of whether or not Colombia’s road to “no” could have been averted by other means, it is clear that it is unlikely that the current path truly represents the more utilarian outcome, and it’s a sober reminder that the most democratic result is not always the most utilitarian.