'Right To Discriminate' Bills

lobosrul said:
Oh yes there were definitely Jim Crow laws that codified how private business could interact with their customers based on race. Having separate waiting rooms, separate rest rooms, even separate ticket offices were required in certain states for privately owned business in some states or localities.

Jim Crow laws were always there to try and prevent the "mixing" of races as much as possible. I don't believe it was ever illegal to serve only blacks, or only whites. Its when your business catered to both, that certain laws had to be followed.

The law in Alabama if you don't believe me: "It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment."
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I stand corrected.
Is there a rationale for why businesses carried out these practices where not legally obligated to?
 
Ziggurat said:
Discrimination on the basis of factors which should have nothing to do with the product or service in question will always hurt the person doing the discriminating, because they will lose out on opportunities. That's why hard-core racists always try to get government intervention: by making discrimination not just permissible but required, that forces everyone to pay for the cost of discriminating, so that the people who want to discriminate are not longer at a competitive disadvantage because of it. And some forms of government intervention which don't require discrimination (such as minimum wage laws or rent control) still enable it by reducing or eliminating the cost of discrimination. So government isn't the most reliable partner when it comes to ending discrimination.

A totally free market does not prevent discrimination, but it does relentlessly punish it. And outlawing discrimination doesn't necessarily make it go away either, nor do such efforts come for free.
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If that was really true then anti-discrimination laws would be unnecessary, or almost so. Say I open a restaurant in some fictional place chock full of racists. 95% of the people are of race A, and 5% are of race B. I realize that my customer pool becomes too small to service only race B. I'll never have enough customers. But I'm not racist, so instead of only serving people of race A, I put a big sign on the front that says "everyone welcome". Well now I'm boycotted by everyone of race A. I realize that financially speaking, I'm better off just conducting business with race A. And that's excluding threats of violence or damage to my business.

Distracted1 said:
I stand corrected.
Is there a rationale for why businesses carried out these practices where not legally obligated to?
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See above. They didn't want to scare away business from the majority, who had more money to spend anyways. They also didn't want their place of business burned down. Also add that some of the business owners were themselves racists (to the point of not caring if they could make more money by serving everyone regardless of color).
 
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Upchurch said:
Unless, of course, members of the majority in your potential client base won't purchase from you if you also sell to members of a minority in your potential client base. In which case, you must choose between not discriminating and having a smaller customer pool and discriminating and having a larger customer pool.
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lobosrul said:
If that was really true then anti-discrimination laws would be unnecessary, or almost so. Say I open a restaurant in some fictional place chock full of racists. 95% of the people are of race A, and 5% are of race B. I realize that my customer pool becomes too small to service only race B. I'll never have enough customers. But I'm not racist, so instead of only serving people of race A, I put a big sign on the front that says "everyone welcome". Well now I'm boycotted by everyone of race A. I realize that financially speaking, I'm better off just conducting business with race A. And that's excluding threats of violence or damage to my business.
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That was much better put than the what I said.
 
Ziggurat said:
It's pretty much part of the definition of a totally free market. In order to prevent someone from discriminating, you need to remove their right to do so, in which case the market isn't totally free. Is that honestly confusing to you?
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I want proof, not your assertions. (Cute how you've gone from "free market" to "totally free market"though.) Show where the free market ruthlessly punished those who discriminate.
 
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lobosrul said:
If that was really true then anti-discrimination laws would be unnecessary, or almost so.
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In terms of US history, it gets more complicated because of the conflict between local and federal government. Federal anti-discrimination laws effectively trumped local discriminatory laws.

Furthermore, we don't have fully free markets in many sectors of the economy, and the public doesn't seem to really want one. As I mentioned before, laws that constraint the free market for some other intended purposes can still create situations in which undesirable discrimination becomes cost-free. If we want to keep those laws because of their other intended purposes, then anti-discrimination laws can obviously serve a use in preventing discrimination.

Say I open a restaurant in some fictional place chock full of racists. 95% of the people are of race A, and 5% are of race B. I realize that my customer pool becomes too small to service only race B. I'll never have enough customers. But I'm not racist, so instead of only serving people of race A, I put a big sign on the front that says "everyone welcome". Well now I'm boycotted by everyone of race A. I realize that financially speaking, I'm better off just conducting business with race A. And that's excluding threats of violence or damage to my business.
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Unless this place is very small, then you've missed out on some very important aspects of your scenario. Most towns don't have only one restaurant, which means that multiple restaurants will need to compete with each other. If 20 restaurants all compete for the business of race A, then they're each going to get a little less than 5% of the total population. A new restaurant would do better to gain a monopoly on that unserved population B than to compete for a small fraction of population A.

Furthermore, this hypothetical isn't really representative of anywhere in the US anymore. More realistically, the number of people who would refuse to eat at a restaurant that served racial minorities is itself going to be a minority, and likely smaller than the number of people who would refuse to eat at a restaurant that refused to serve racial minorities. So restaurants that cater to them have access to a smaller market, and those customers themselves have access to fewer restaurants, and would likely pay higher prices for less selection. In a realistic scenario in this country, those customers would be hurting themselves with their discrimination. What's more likely to happen now even in the absence of antidiscrimination laws is that almost all restaurants serve everybody, and the racists will end up eating at the same restaurants as the minorities even though they don't like them.

See above. They didn't want to scare away business from the majority, who had more money to spend anyways. They also didn't want their place of business burned down.
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Unless the government fails to enforce the laws (which brings us back to what happens when government is actively part of the problem), then that's not really a concern.

Also add that some of the business owners were themselves racists (to the point of not caring if they could make more money by serving everyone regardless of color).
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The owners who don't care about making more money will lose out to the owners who do.
 
Ziggurat said:
Furthermore, this hypothetical isn't really representative of anywhere in the US anymore.
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I thought we were talking about the US when the government forced discrimination upon the market, not the current day US.

It seems to me that you've confused the effect for the cause.
 
Redtail said:
I want proof, not your assertions. (Cute how you've gone from "free market" to "totally free market"though.) Show where the free market ruthlessly punished those who discriminate.
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Did you forget what you posted? Let me remind you:

Redtail said:
Ziggurat said:
A totally free market does not prevent discrimination,
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Prove it.
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You asked me to prove that a "totally free market" does not prevent discrimination. You did not ask me to show that free markets ruthlessly punish those who discriminate. And my phrasing of "totally free market" was there from the beginning of our interaction.

Don't blame me for your own confusion.
 
Upchurch said:
I thought we were talking about the US when the government forced discrimination upon the market, not the current day US.
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Then perhaps you need to review the thread. The original topic was present-day law. Past conditions were brought up as evidence for people's positions about the present.

It seems to me that you've confused the effect for the cause.
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And you have merely assumed a cause for the effect.
 
Ziggurat said:
Then perhaps you need to review the thread. The original topic was present-day law. Past conditions were brought up as evidence for people's positions about the present.
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Including your own. Can you not defend your evidence conjecture given the historical context of our country?
 
Ziggurat said:
Did you forget what you posted? Let me remind you:



You asked me to prove that a "totally free market" does not prevent discrimination. You did not ask me to show that free markets ruthlessly punish those who discriminate. And my phrasing of "totally free market" was there from the beginning of our interaction.

Don't blame me for your own confusion.
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My mistake, I cut off more than I meant to. Apologies.

Now then, where does the free market ruthlessly punish those that discriminate?
 
Ziggurat said:
In terms of US history, it gets more complicated because of the conflict between local and federal government. Federal anti-discrimination laws effectively trumped local discriminatory laws.
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OK. I am unclear what that has to do with either of my previous posts in this thread. I was speaking of an example where there were no anti-discriminatory law at any level.

Furthermore, we don't have fully free markets in many sectors of the economy, and the public doesn't seem to really want one. As I mentioned before, laws that constraint the free market for some other intended purposes can still create situations in which undesirable discrimination becomes cost-free. If we want to keep those laws because of their other intended purposes, then anti-discrimination laws can obviously serve a use in preventing discrimination.
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You'd be very hard pressed to find a "fully free market" in the last millennium or so, excepting very remote nearly lawless places. Please find an example of a "fully free market" where discrimination is just not done because its costly to do so.

The highlighted bit.... err yes that is true.

Unless this place is very small, then you've missed out on some very important aspects of your scenario. Most towns don't have only one restaurant, which means that multiple restaurants will need to compete with each other. If 20 restaurants all compete for the business of race A, then they're each going to get a little less than 5% of the total population. A new restaurant would do better to gain a monopoly on that unserved population B than to compete for a small fraction of population A.
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If everyone lived in a big city where there were myriad choices for services for everyone nearby then it wouldn't be such a big deal. It was in small towns that people suffered the most. It was also a way to essentially create all white communities. Blacks could be essentially driven out of a town because no business there would serve them. Would you live somewhere where you couldn't shop at the grocery store, or go to the bar, or the movie theater etc?

Furthermore, this hypothetical isn't really representative of anywhere in the US anymore. More realistically, the number of people who would refuse to eat at a restaurant that served racial minorities is itself going to be a minority, and likely smaller than the number of people who would refuse to eat at a restaurant that refused to serve racial minorities. So restaurants that cater to them have access to a smaller market, and those customers themselves have access to fewer restaurants, and would likely pay higher prices for less selection. In a realistic scenario in this country, those customers would be hurting themselves with their discrimination. What's more likely to happen now even in the absence of antidiscrimination laws is that almost all restaurants serve everybody, and the racists will end up eating at the same restaurants as the minorities even though they don't like them.
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If all anti-discrimination laws were lifted right now in 2014, would discrimination be as bad as it was in 1960? No certainly not. But it would come back, especially in some small little towns in the south, and minorities would suffer for it.
 
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Ziggurat said:
Then perhaps you need to review the thread. The original topic was present-day law. Past conditions were brought up as evidence for people's positions about the present.
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It was relevant because those were the conditions when there were no anti-discriminatory laws. And this is only about a half century ago were talking about, not some long forgotten age.
 
I am really interested to hear of an actual "totally free market" in a country with no anti-discrimination laws in which discrimination has been punished and removed.

The history in the US does not bear out the assertions that are being made. But of course if there is a real world example please bring it up.

Someone brought up baseball as an example of how private business will end discrimination on its own. Baseball integration was the work of years of social and media pressure. The same pressure that was used to eventually end segregation and create the CRA. It was not primarily a business choice. Sure there was a black audience but the white audience was far larger with far greater income.
 
Biscuit said:
I am really interested to hear of an actual "totally free market" in a country with no anti-discrimination laws in which discrimination has been punished and removed.
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Find me an example of a country with a "totally free market" and a population where the majority believe that discrimination is socially unacceptable.

The history in the US does not bear out the assertions that are being made. But of course if there is a real world example please bring it up.
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For much of it's History the US has had Governmental support for discrimination either on a Federal or a State level. Poor choice for an example.

Someone brought up baseball as an example of how private business will end discrimination on its own. Baseball integration was the work of years of social and media pressure. The same pressure that was used to eventually end segregation and create the CRA. It was not primarily a business choice. Sure there was a black audience but the white audience was far larger with far greater income.
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Congratulations, you just actually explained why our argument is valid. When Social and media pressure was applied, the business changed its discriminatory practices just as when social and media pressure on Governments forced them to repeal their discriminatory laws.

When a society is advanced enough this is how discrimination should be dealt with, but Society saying "No" and forcing those that practice it into the poorhouse. Anti-discrimination laws hid the bigots and so protect them from Society using the Free Market to stomp on them.

The responses to this appear to all revolve around the claim that "the US simply isn't advanced enough to do it because while 'I' might be enlightened enough, all those others out there are a bunch of bigots."
 
Upchurch said:
Thinking on this a little more, how do you keep slaves despite the government making slavery illegal?
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You have to do it secretly and in hiding, the same as any other criminal. However, no one is going to return the person you had as a slave and agree with you that it just isn't right, a slave escaping from their master, are they?

Instead when Society find out about your actions, you get dealt with swiftly and decisively.
 
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