The legal regulation of genetic discrimination: old responses to new technology.
Richard Allen EPSTEIN · PubMed · 1994
The subject of genetic discrimination is one of obvious importance today, but it is one that I have reached only by a circuitous route.I published my book Forbidden Grounds in 1992.'There I took the position that current anti-discrimination laws should be repealed insofar as they apply to private competitive employment markets. 2 I relied on my libertarian bent to explain why a system of free entry and open markets can better cope with invidious forms of discrimination in employment markets than any system of government mandated and enforced norms.3 Prejudice in markets is always costly to the parties who practice it, so that there is a strong corrective against unthinking prejudice that works without the heavy administrative costs and logrolling mentality that often infect the political decision-making process.4 But whatever the strength of these arguments, there is today little chance that we shall depart from our current destructive regulatory policies, and little chance, either, that the underlying economics of the situation will improve.The framework that I used to attack employment discrimination laws does not rest on any categorical or a priori belief that government intervention is always bad.Rather, it rests on the assumption that the valid reasons for government intervention are: (1) to counter the use of private aggression; (2) to limit the operation and influence of private monopolies;