The Right Way

Fred Randall: “I'll enter the same calculations using what we like to call The Right Way.”

—RocketMan (1997) Harlan Williams as Fred Z. Randall

That’s from a very funny movie about an astronaut who was as far from the prototypical crewcut, athletic, military pilot as one can imagine but who happened to be the right person for the job. The Right Way was Fred explaining programing to an astronaut. Where his competitors who fit the mold were unable to keep themselves from going crazy in and isolation chamber, Fred was able to entertain himself with sock puppets. In a sense, this was NASA hiring on merit, not on prejudice toward military test pilots as President Eisenhower had originally decreed. It wasn’t because of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, (DEI) and that’s a good thing.

In economics, Gary Becker originally published his theory of discrimination in his 1955 PhD thesis and popularized it in a 2014 book called The Economics of Discrimination. Becker believed that discrimination could not persist in a market economy. Rational individuals, particularly employers, could not afford not to hire the most qualified person. It didn’t depend on whether they were black or white, male or female, young or old because if they didn’t hire the most qualified person, their competition would. Sooner or later, their competitors would be able to outcompete on quality or price. So, discrimination has consequences for both the employee and the employer. Becker didn’t see markets as completely curing racism. For example, he thought that some people would pay higher prices to avoid dealing with black employees.

Read the full piece on my Substack here.