The Economics of Discrimination (Economic Research Studies) Reviews

The logic is simple: bigotry, if practiced by employers, has a cost. The best, almost all greed-driven profit maximizers will have no demand for this sort of strange, cost-imposing behavior. In a competitive market, we can expect that this behavior would lead directly to bankruptcy, and rightly so. Free markets supply the profit incentive for a color-blind society. Where would you expect to see the almost all discrimination, then? Government, of course, because it lacks profit incentives. Not-for-profit organizations are also easy victims. In other venues, discrimination is just too costly to be viable. Restrictions on the ability to choose, though, do nothing to stop bigotry, only to encourage it.

This book delves in to this argument in great detail with total academic honesty, and it is thoroughly researched, well documented, and succinctly presented. Dr. Becker is a 1st rate scientist and an excellent writer, and even though this was written early in his academic career it still carries his signature style. This book is a complete, definitive, authoritative work on the subject, however also suitable as an introduction. It could be readable by anyone with elementary economic knowledge, and even by the intelligent lay person. Anyone who wants to know what discrimination is really about and what we can do about it would do well to read and understand this book. No argument about discrimination is complete without understanding the logic and models Dr. Becker presents.

As a contrihoweverion to an impressive trend of applying the economic way of thinking to the almost all important issues we face, this book is absolutely invaluable. If this book interests you as much as it did me, you may want to read other books by Dr. Becker. For more about discrimation, though, try The State Against Blacks by Walter Williams.