Clint Bolick is warmly to be congratulated on his exceptionally lucid review of Ellen Frankel Paul’s Equity and Gender, a most timely book (The Freeman, February 1989). He is also right to point out—as his sole reservation about the book—that it fails to “claim the moral high ground for adversaries of comparable worth.” In one case, however, even the remedy he proposes concedes too much of that ground. I would like to address this point at the risk of nit-picking with an otherwise exemplary review.

Mr. Bolick suggests that “defenders of the market must . . . expose comparable worth as a paternalistic theory that assumes women are incapable of succeeding on the level playing field guaranteed by the present anti- discrimination laws.” However, if you concede the moral legitimacy of “the present anti-discrimination laws,” I suggest that you have already surrendered the high ground—and consequently undermined your case by accepting the opposition’s premises. In reality, the present “anti-discrimination” laws should be repealed as well. It is completely indefensible that an employer who wishes to support the embattled traditional family by favoring mar-fled men is now a criminal. Similarly, if an employer believes that women’s well-being will be facilitated by deliberately hiring more female employees, he (or she) should be entirely free to do so.

We forget too easily that modern economics was born in the eighteenth century as an outgrowth of a belief in natural law, which led to the conclusion that there are certain things best left to natural processes, including eco nomic decisions. Employment decisions in a free society—as, except for state oppression of blacks, the United States has always largely been—cumulatively reflect authentic individual choices. Very simply, the crucial reason that men make considerably more (on average) than women is that—as, for instance, a 1982 Harris Poll conducted for Virginia Slims demonstrated—approximately nine out of ten women (in contrast to men) do not desire full-time employment outside the home.

If those who believe that most women do not properly understand their own interests would limit their efforts to persuasion, one could simply address the plausibility of their belief. One could demonstrate its similarity with the Marxist notion of “false consciousness,” and note the contradiction that those holding this view often claim to represent the majority of women. However, when feminists add to persuasion the pervasive coercion of “anti-discrimination” legislation—whether it is called “equal pay for equal work,” “affirmative action,” or “equal pay for work of equal value”—that eternal vigilance which is said to be the price of liberty obliges liberty’s defenders to take a stand, as both Clint Bolick and Ellen Frankel Paul have so eloquently done. I would only caution that this battle cannot be won if one concedes one’s opponents’ premises—and in this case, there is no need whatever to do so, on the contrary, they should be called to account.