To take a trivial example from game theory, a seller and a buyer discussing price. In the classic example, the agreed price represent the result of sellers power vs the buyer power. Since its trivial, control, influence and cause-effect reflects the same values, so if the price is low it means the buy both has higher power and more control over the price.
But then we add a second seller. The position of the buyer has increase and we would say that the buyers power has increased. Inter-group competition influence the result, but the buyer aren't in control over how that competition plays out.
Then we add an government entity that adds regulation which incidentally limits supply. This increase the sellers power, but is completely outside the control of the buyer and the seller. This entity has no stake in the outcome of the transaction, derive no power from it, but got full control.
When talking about power disparity, we need to define what resource the groups are competing over, but also acknowledge that it won't tell us anything about who controls the outcome. To do that we need to define cause and effect, and that require more than just looking at the result. As a political matter, I believe that government intervention should focus on power disparity when it impacts the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and it should do so by addressing each individuals need. It should focus on control disparity for everything else.
> I believe that government intervention should ...
That's politics, and is really not my thing. But even if you are interested in social science solely from the political perspective (like an engineer who's interested in science just so they can build what they always wanted to), I think you should separate the more descriptive elements (the science) from the prescriptive ones (technology), as the latter do not always directly flow from the former, and also require a good dose of ethics, which is may be very personal.
You say that the social science concentrate on areas where it is meaningful, but much of what we have discussed is focused on the end result. Do the property owners have, in the average, the upper hand in negotiations and do they get their way most of the time. Its an odd place to stop asking further question and not ask the question that really matter, which is what model can predict the price tomorrow.
The big benefit of such model is that such theories can be tested, and later used in prescribing ways to influence the outcome.
But even if we had a good explanatory mathematical model, it could not be used to predict anything because of a technical reason, although one that seems to be -- as far as we know -- limited by theoretical constraints: our mathematical techniques simply do not allow us to predict the behaviors of systems with so many variables and so many interactions. Even numerical simulations (the kind used in weather forecasting) would diverge very quickly. In fact, measurement alone would likely take more time than the validity duration of the prediction.
The problem is not unique to the social sciences. Even if biologists could understand the evolutionary mechanism in its entirety, it seems like prediction is beyond our means. All we can do is work back from results to causes, and figure out which evolutionary pressures were more powerful. Computer science is limited by similar constraints: we can explain how a bug came to be, but working forward in time and preventing all bugs requires a computational effort that is probably out of our reach. So the social sciences -- except for very special cases in psychology, where the number of variables is kept artificially low -- is content, like biology and computer science, to provide historical explanations only.
But we don't need perfect models. Sometimes its enough just to get a idea over what influence the outcome. The popular science book freakonomics has a famous example where its describe crime and what influenced the outcome. Interestingly, it involved neither actions done to the criminals nor victims.
In the case of race we are both in agreement that there exist a power difference, ie that the outcome is not identical. What we have not talked about it what influence it. For example, is it the material starting point that causes ripple effects and influencing the outcome? If so there should be some validating data from isolated local areas where the material starting point is smaller or greater, result in a detectable effect. If we can't find such support, it would strongly hint towards invalidating such theory.
Sure, this is very common in the social science.
> there should be some validating data from isolated local areas where the material starting point is smaller or greater, result in a detectable effect
Absolutely. What do you think sociology/history/anthropology journals publish? They're full of such studies.
If transgender people were not allowed to wear clothing of their choice, or act outside their born gender, no discrimination could happen (in the context of power). Same with Muslims. Identification is required for the form of discrimination you are talking about, and that which is illegal is not done in the open.
But here I would say that the definition being presented here do clash with reality. Making the act of doing identifiable faith, transgender, or other self-identity illegal in order to protect those groups from discrimination is not exactly how society in general view discrimination. The closest we get is the argument behind uniforms, where the idea is to hide peoples social group identity and strengthen the new social group. While partial effective, I have also heard that humans are quite good at identifying social groups even when hidden. It would imply that nudists are not so blessed from discrimination as you describe, and as a minor note I also recall quite a few movies where a nudist family is found out inside a gated community.
> You don't have a car because I am currently still holding on to it.
In that example society will provide cars to anyone that needs it. I have a car, and you have one.
The stated moral question was if society should fix material situations for everyone rather than exclusively those that are in a material situation because of past discrimination.
I will also remind that in this made up example, the suggestion solution was to treat everyone equal from this point on. Any existing discrimination are to be stopped, be those positive or negative.
> if men were actually made significantly less powerful than women in society ... As this is currently far from reality
A fact I disagree with, especially in local context but also on a global scale. Money and work positions are useful proxies for power, but they are an imperfect representation and devalues all other form of influence that exist. For example, living 10 more years in average is a quite power property, and extends influence of the social group.
The race situation is more clear in the local context of US, but less so on a wider scale. Money is again used here as a proxy, but comparing money in one nation to money in a other nation is imperfect. Mots nations are not ruled by the richest person in that nation. Its also very questionable to compare a poor farmer influence in one nation with a poor farmer influence in an other. Influence at international politics tend to be limited to a small number of people.