The Case for Discrimination by Walter E. Block

Author:Walter E. Block [Block, Walter E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781933550817
Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute
Published: 2010-12-05T02:00:00+00:00

32. THE FEMINIST COMPETITION/COOPERATION DICHOTOMY: A CRITIQUE

“The function of battle is destruction; of competition, construction.”

– Ludwig von Mises

FEMINIST LITERATURE OFTEN POSITS THAT COMPETITION AND cooperation are opposites. Exchange is seen as competitive, not cooperative (Strober 1994; Hartsock 1983; Gross and Averill 1983).1 The dichotomy is important in that it is often invoked in order to explain why mainstream economics has focused on market activity to the exclusion of non-market activity, and why this fascination is sexist. Since resource allocation through markets is determined by competition for monetary profits, if this process can be interpreted as sexist, then reliance on markets is sexist as well.

This paper addresses the conclusions of both the “feminist empiricist” position and the “feminist difference” position, as explained by Marianne A. Ferber and Julie A. Nelson.2 Both of these feminist views have described cooperation and competition as opposing ways of organizing society or of solving social problems. With respect to the feminist empiricist position, it is not male economists’ theories per se that are patriarchic, “but the questions male economists have asked and the conclusions they have drawn” (Ferber and Nelson 1993, p. 8). To the extent that male economists choose to focus on and study competitive means to achieve social goals to the exclusion of cooperative means, they may be viewed as sexist. Competitive behavior is defined in the present paper as rivalrous (Kirzner 1973); e.g., individuals try to out-do others in order to achieve their goals. In contrast, individuals agreeing with and working with others to achieve their goals, is seen as cooperative. The exclusion of cooperation in the analysis of these male economists might be due to activities often performed by women. But if by focusing on competition the economist is also, of necessity, studying cooperation, then the argument that a focus on competition is biased (at least against cooperative “feminine” behavior) is dissolved.

On the other hand, the feminist difference position posits that male economists study and define competition in a given way because of the methods they have developed over time; methods which do not incorporate “women’s ‘ways of knowing’” (Ferber and Nelson 1993, p. 8). If the methodology used leads male economists to study competition to the exclusion of cooperation, such methods may be fostering sexist analysis. Even if the strict methodology of mainstream economists does not allow for an analysis of competition which includes both rivalrous and cooperative behavior,3 we argue that once we depart from this methodology, the analysis of competition is not separate from that of cooperation. Therefore, insofar as feminists4 treat the two as separate (after they have stepped outside of mainstream methodology) they are incorrect in doing so.

Once it is demonstrated that the competition/cooperation dichotomy is false, it will be shown, pari passu, that competition and cooperation, at least in the context of free markets, are not mutually exclusive but are, instead dependent upon one another. That being the case, if economists focus on market activities to the exclusion of non-market activities, it is not because of

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