Employment Quotas

Approx 2100 words = approx 8mins reading time

Written by Diarmaid Ó Conaráin

Recently Emer Higgins of Fine Gael introduced a bill on mandating gender employment quotas on company boards. “This act will make provision for the regulation of gender balance on the boards and the governing authorities of corporate bodies and related matters”, she states. Companies will be compelled to make annual reports on gender balance within their boardroom. Quotas will begin incrementally at 33% and rise to 40%, no doubt eventually seeking 50%. Quotas will be mandatory, but will not apply to a variety of smaller or differently structured companies. She does however specify that the law will allow an opportunity to explain why a quota was not met, before compelling compliance in authoritarian fashion, if the explanation is not subjectively satisfactory. Compliance Certificates will be made available for companies that do comply, and Fine Gael allege that this certificate is precisely what potential employees have been waiting on all this time to sway their decision. It is Emers ambition that this bill will drive gender balance in leadership roles in business, without ever articulating why this should be a fully accepted goal of society.

Firstly I intend to highlight what should be rhetorical, yet is seemingly no issue to our current establishment. Employment quotas are a form of massive government overreach. The state has not the right to regulate private entities it does not own beyond safety regulations which directly protect the public from harm. Seatbelts, construction regulations, food quality control, these are permissible examples of the state directly imposing criteria on a private entity to ensure consumer safety. Beyond those impositions and being subject to law, as we all are, politicians have no right to arbitrary meddling to please their personal perspectives. And I assure you, that is what is being implemented here. A personal opinion on equality that virtually no philosopher in the field has agreed with.

My chief concerns in this matter are the precedent that will be set and the ideologies being both undermined and applied. I have little doubt that this policy is simply the foot in the door, and soon this kind of totalitarian imposition will spread to smaller and eventually family businesses. Such an extreme change to the concept of private property is not within their mandate. The Social Contract was not designed to facilitate the personal opinions of those who’ve been lucky enough to be elected. Those who would implement such radical societal change clearly have very little understanding or respect for the fact that they are not rulers, they are temporarily elected managers. As such many foundational changes are beyond their mandate without a referendum. Even then, many concepts should never reach a referendum if open debate was facilitated and censorship not present. As has become the growing pattern with this and previous governments, there is no debate. In truth their is no opposition. The alleged opposition of the last decade merely demand more extreme versions of the governments proposals. Zero covid being one example, when Ireland was already enduring one of the longest lock-downs relatively. Lastly on the topic of precedents, ideologically there is little chance that this approach of equal outcomes for groups will not be expanded to include quotas for more groups under the guidance of Intersectionality. I will expand more on this inevitable progression towards the end.

The very wording of a Compliance Certificate for employment quotas has an authoritarian feel. Its terminology is in line with the Compliance Officers talked of to enforce vaccine passports etc. When a government starts talking about compliance too often it becomes clear they believe themselves to be our rulers, which is certainly not how democracy works. The sophistry that these certificates might attract talent to a business is mere personal opinion, and the arrogance to project their opinion onto the masses. There is a frightening level of detachment present here. The overwhelming presumption that they are not only correct, but that everyone else agrees to the extent it would influence where they would seek employment. This is an utterly baseless statement, and must be called out for what it is. For too long we have allowed politicians to simply talk to their hearts content without ever imposing genuine scrutiny on their statements, and insisting they justify or prove their assertions in some manner. The level of subjectivity in modern establishments and academic fields is becoming untenable.

The implications of such a policy have clearly been missed by its advocates also. To begin with, they are placing a ceiling on womens achievement in certain areas. Had this become law and extended outwards from its starting point years ago many female teachers would not have found jobs, as there were more than 50% females already employed. I concede that Emer Higgins mentioned nothing about sectors such as education, but that is one example of how equal outcomes would in truth prohibit women from acquiring jobs it appears men didn’t even want. Inevitably also leading to men being deprived of job opportunities women seemingly didn’t even want. For Equality of Outcome to be worthy of becoming dogma it must be consistent. Where is the consistency is selective application? Selective application is to imply that in some industries an imbalance is acceptable. Is the implication of an acceptable imbalance not simultaneously an acceptance that men and women have different interests? And would this not undermine the entire concept of equal outcomes to begin with? Another less than flattering implication is that women cannot achieve 50% of certain positions, despite having achieved more than 50% in other industries. The implication being that big brother needs to step in and force companies to hire women. Sophists may say that the imbalance is due to discrimination, but again these are simply nameless and baseless accusations. When in truth many positions are not filled by women due to a lack of available candidates, as openly admitted in fields like STEM.

Ideologically we must begin again with what should be obvious. Equality of Opportunity will not produce Equality of Outcome. If it did they would not be separate schools of thought. Ethically, an equal opportunity from a systemic and legal standpoint is the states only responsibility with regards to equality. Anything else is the excessive control of individuals to produce subjectively desirable group outcomes, and again Individualism being trampled by Collectivism. I believe the vast majority of individuals would rather be seen by the best Doctor possible, and not one who was less competent but the right gender or race to make a random outside observer more content with the whole situation. Merit is not only the most ethical method of distributing positions in excessive demand, but the most beneficial for those on the receiving end. Whether they be a patient in care, a voter in a democracy, or a customer having construction work done for example. To impose identity based quotas is potentially to deprive both employees and consumers of the best possible service. Unlike Emer Higgins, I believe most consumers or potential employees seek competence, not a warped sense of equal division of people by identity.

The blind expectancy of equal outcomes is unjustified, and cannot occur organically without state imposition. It is a dangerous path to a divisive group collectivism and identity politics. The fact it is being applied to political parties slowly too is a sign that the ideology of Equality of Outcome has certainly taken a hold of our establishment. For those aware of the other schools of thought influenced by equal outcomes they share a common denominator. That is the assertion that the only cause for a disparity in outcomes must be inherent discrimination or systemic issues. Employment quotas, Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, Equality of Outcome, all essentially share the subtle assertion that equal outcomes are entirely organic, and our unequal results must be due to societal or systemic flaws. Unwilling to accept that results in an egalitarian system may be natural and acceptable, they persist with a philosophy that goes against the grain of individuality and personal choice, along with personal interests and aptitudes distributed randomly across millions of people.

Aside from potential expansion into every industry and business no matter the size, where does it lead? As with other schools of thought, this is either a weaponized idea or simply hypocrisy. Will there be an investigation into potential bias regarding the under representation of men in childcare? If not, what does that imply? Perhaps that like Intersectionality etc it’s advocates are interested only in selective advocacy for groups they subjectively deem disadvantaged. Or perhaps that as mentioned earlier, some personal preferences are acceptable and some aren’t, which becomes arbitrary subjective tyranny with regards to the inconsistency in the application of alleged beliefs and equality. Or more frightening still, will the state attempt to coerce more men into childcare as it does with women and STEM etc? Does the state intend to barrage the youth with indoctrination swaying their personal choices so that a few politicians twisted ideals might be met?

As briefly mentioned earlier there is no doubt employment quotas will soon come under the influence of Intersectionalists. It is an entirely logical progression for an ideology that seeks equal outcomes for groups. Employment quotas aimed at achieving outcomes concerning women could also be deemed a feminist agenda. As much as Intersectionality is linked to CRT it is also linked to Feminism. These idea sets are so interwoven, and already taking root here in Ireland, that they will seek nothing but expansion. Soon Intersectional Feminists will attack these quotas as a white privilege, and insist their particular group is afforded a percentage.

The concept of equity or equal outcomes supports the idea that the state has the right to divide up resources it does not own as it sees fit, in this case employment. A private entity does not belong to the state to be restructured and controlled via authoritarian opinions. This is outrageous overreach by people who had no power other than that given to them by trusting voters. We are not in a time of kings and queen, and these elected representatives do not have unfiltered dominion over the population. I have very little interest in defending large companies, but I am acutely aware of where roads like this one lead.

In closing I would say this, there are many in our establishment who have little understanding of equality. Equality of Opportunity makes us equally free. Equality of Outcome makes us equally controlled. Equality is not innately a positive state, there are certainly negative iterations available, many of which virtually our entire crop of elected officials are pursuing a great pace unchallenged. It seems our establishment would rather ensure equal misery than tolerate that not everyone can have exactly what they want in life. Unfortunately as is the case with many things in life, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and the monopolized media is deciding who we hear from, as always. The Irish public are simply too distracted by media bombardment of covid details to have room for much else. While those who attempt to speak out are labelled and slandered. This is deliberate attention control while Irelands most authoritarian laws in decades are being passed. There is little that can be done now but to genuinely make an effort to remove these inexorable individuals from power finally.

As much as I do not wish to be sidetracked by other issues, I feel it worth highlighting how comfortable this establishment has become believing it is their right to reshape society completely. Their willingness to use accusations of hate speech, which they intend to make law, to shut down opposition has been made clear. This is outright censorship of freedom of speech, further subjectivity and collectivist identity politics. Their willingness to throw the Irish population under the bus with regards to energy prices and potential power outages by prematurely abandoning our own production to appease someone else’s climate goals. Their willingness to leverage the Irish people into massive debt after imposing lock-downs that sent many SMEs out of business entirely, while many of the decision makers are millionaires, and will never suffer the consequences of economic destruction. Their willingness to essentially force the entire population to transition to electric vehicles, cycling or public transport by way of slowly pushing other options beyond the reach of many of the population financially. In short, our establishment has delivered wave after wave of imposition and destruction of lifestyle on the population, virtually all driven by ideological pursuits that have nothing to do with the foundational ideology of Irelands systems. They are slowly eroding every concept or reality in this country, and we’re footing the bill for all of it.