From Booklist
Preferring members of specified groups in higher education, employment, receipt of government services, getting business contracts, and so on is a worldwide phenomenon whose effects are demonstrable. Black economist Sowell focuses on affirmative action in India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and the U.S. In those nations, preferences for minorities metamorphosed into preferences for majorities (e.g., women, when made affirmative-action candidates in the U.S., tipped the numbers of the preferred to more than half the populace), intergroup friction increased (Sri Lanka, once a model of ethnic cooperation, descended into civil war, as did Nigeria), "brain drain" occurred (in Malaysia, preferences for less-educated Malays led to massive Chinese emigration and the ouster of Chinese-dominated Singapore from the Malay federation), and/or something else bad happened. Most damning is that in all five countries, the upper crust of preferred groups reaped the lion's share of benefits. Affirmative action is never rejected, however, because it is evaluated "in terms of its rationales and goals rather than its actual consequences." Invaluable argumentation, more accessible than usual for Sowell.
Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
This book moves the discussion of affirmative action beyond the United States to other countries that have had similar policies, often for a longer time than Americans have. It also moves the discussion beyond the theories, principles, and laws that have been so often debated to the actual empirical consequences of affirmative action in the United States and in India, Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and other countries. Both common patterns and national differences are examined. Much of what emerges from a factual examination of these policies flatly contradicts much of what was expected and much of what has been claimed.
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