SJW Progressives, “White Privilege,” and the Minimum Wage

The gross hypocrisy of today’s SJW progressives knows no bounds. In their quest for a disingenuous “identity politics” based on race, gender, and class, progressives omit the crucial origins of their collectivist obsession. This is because it is not a flattering history they want their young shills and pawns in the universities to know. Thankfully there are voices speaking truth to power on this crucial topic. In particular, let me point to two detailed scholarly volumes, Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era, by Thomas C. Leonard; and War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, by Edwin Black.

Even less well known than their eugenicist past is the racial roots of progressives’ role championing minimum wage laws etc. These “progressive” policies were essentially implicit affirmative action for the white working class. See this authoritative Power Point by Professor Thomas C. Leonard, “Excluding Inferior Workers: Eugenic Influences On Economic Reform In the Progressive Era.”

SJWs talk generically about “white privilege” – essentially a metaphysical phantom – but have nothing to say about dismantling the progressive built infrastructure of “white privilege” other than doubling down on propaganda and quota baloney. A lot of Progressive Era policies were explicit for whites such as apartheid in South Africa which had its origins around the same time: 

As early as 1911, under the coercive influence of white labor unions, the South African government passed the first in a series of restrictive labor laws which became known as the “color bar.” The Mines and Works Act of 1911, under the guise of safety, required “certificates of competence” for many types of work. Such certificates were largely unavailable to nonwhite natives.

The white labor unions and other white supremacists lobbied for other regulations which, in effect, prohibited blacks from being hired. These groups demanded that the hiring of blacks and other nonwhites be subject to the same compulsory employer compensation and minimum wage requirements granted to white union members. The intent of such legislation, Williams contends, is obvious. Such labor laws took away the only bar-gaming chip available to the blacks and other non-whites—their willingness to work for a lower wage. Many whites recognized this. In 1925, for example, the report of the Mining Regulations Commission proposed a mandatory system of minimum wages per job “in order to rescue the European miner from the economic fetters which at present render him the easy victim of advancing native competition.”

Contrary to the view accepted by many on the political left, apartheid is not the result of white businessmen attempting to maximize profits by enslaving cheap black labor. It is instead a product of political privilege.

Update: LRC readers should definitely read the excellent and concise summary article, “Rents and Race: Legacies of Progressive Policies,” by Professors William L. Anderson and David Kiriazis. Thanks to Professor Anderson for making me aware of this pioneering exploration of the dark legacy of Progressivism in the Rothbardian revisionist tradition.

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10:43 am on May 19, 2016