29 July 2020
Right to a Job
Does a liberal have a right to his job despite his view that
does not conform to the liberal convention of his employer? That is one of the questions raised by the
writers of the infamous letter to Harper’s that will be published in October,
2020. In a capitalist society an
employer has the right to hire those who help his company or institution achieve
its goals. However, there are many
rules governing discrimination that derive from the liberal democratic nature
of American society. Therefore, the
employer is prohibited from refusing a job to an applicant and for firing him solely
on the basis of race, gender, religion, age, disability, and other factors.
On the other hand, it has recently become common for
employing organizations to pressure employees to resign or to fire them when
their political views differ from the prevailing ideology in that organization. Particularly when the organization earns its
income or prestige based on a specific point of view, such discrimination may
be defensible. An aberrant view may be
held by a valuable employee who merits the effort by the employer to dissuade
him or to change his or the organization’s own conflicting view. If such an outcome is not possible, however, the
employer may be legally justified in letting go the non-conforming employee or
contractor.
In a capitalist system, no one has the right to be paid
and/or published solely because of his competence. The remedy for tyrannical enforcement of
political correctness is competition. Again,
when it comes to a publisher of political opinions, the non-conformist has the
option to join another publisher or to form his own, unless the state has co-opted
that function.
In a socialist or communist system, a citizen may be
promised the right to a job. But to
exercise that right, the citizen has to relinquish other personal
freedoms. Some of those freedoms may be
abhorrent to liberal philosophy; it is up to the citizens of a liberal
democracy to restrain those freedoms in order to achieve social equity. However, one who has or can raise the capital
and has the entrepreneurship to succeed by espousing a restrictive, non-violent,
non-discriminatory point of view, is entitled to build an organization that reflects
his ideology.
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