Do You Support the Civil Rights Act?

[JayTee]

In this post, I'm referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ( link ). I'm making this post to clarify a reply I made in another thread.

I said I disagree with parts of the Act. The parts about voters rights and access to government facilities is not what I'm addressing. I want to address the issue of banning discrimination in privately owned, public accommodations (restaurants, hotels, etc...).

In this scenario, the assumption is that the majority of people would choose to patronize an establishment that serves all people over an establishment that excludes one or more races of people. Hopefully, this is case, otherwise there is a much bigger problem with this Act.

Obviously, there is an argument to be made that ignoring property rights is always wrong, independent of the outcomes in these scenarios. I won't discuss those here.

Scenario 1:

In this scenario the Civil Rights Act wasn't passed. It is legal to advertise a restaurant as "Whites Only".

I'm driving into a town and I am hungry. I come to a street that has a restaurant on either side. One is labeled, "Whites Only" the other, "Everyone Welcome". I decide that I would rather have the owner of the "Everyone Welcome" restaurant make the profit from my business. Assuming that the majority of people would do the same, the non-racist (or at least not openly racist) owner would earn more profit than the racist owner (or at least the owner who caters to racists). In this scenario the free market has "punished" the racist owner through purely voluntary action.

Scenario 2:

In this scenario the Civil Rights Act has been passed. It is illegal to advertise a restaurant as "Whites Only".

Same opening scene as above. One thing is different, there are no signs. Myself and people like me will patronize each restaurant equally on average. Additionally, black patrons of the racist restaurant may receive poorer service than white customers. The racist owner's racism may actually be even more racist in this scenario, as he is now being forced to open his private property to people who he doesn't want there. He may retaliate by spitting in their drinks, undercooking their burgers, or whatever. He may not retaliate at all. In this scenario, we have no way of knowing that this is a racist owned establishment, or at the least a much less obvious way of knowing.

In this scenario, the racist owner profits more than in the first scenario, while the non-racist owner profits less. Also, the racist would very likely be even more racist in this scenario, and in a way has had his racism "legitimized" by being forced to accept customers that he doesn't want.


Any thoughts?

[AngusThermopyle]

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In this scenario, the racist owner profits more than in the first scenario,

.....


Any thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

Alabama, 1967?

I think your scenarios are just a bit flawed.

[JayTee]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

In this scenario, the racist owner profits more than in the first scenario,

.....


Any thoughts?

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Alabama, 1967?

I think your scenarios are just a bit flawed.

[/ QUOTE ]

My assumption was that the majority of people would support non-racist restaurants. In the thread that I made the statement, Adanthar said that I would have to accept the fact that no candidate would ever win an election who didn't support the Civil Rights Act. In a scenario where more people would support a racist establishment I think you have to resort to the other argument against the Act that I mentioned. The argument that complete respect of private property is necessary for a free society.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
In this scenario the free market has "punished" the racist owner through purely voluntary action.

[/ QUOTE ] Your argument completely misunderstands the point of desegregation, I believe. The point was to make the lives of marginalized groups better, not make the lives of the dominant group worse. One purpose of the act was to grant freedom (namely the freedom from the arbitrary discrimination and racist preferences of others to the marginalized group), not punish the racist owner. When some employers are allowed to be racist, the ability of individuals in the marginalized group to pursue there freely choosen ends is limited: not only in the case of what restaurants they can patronize, but also in the amount of jobs they open to them (this then would leave the demand for there labor lower, lessening the wage/salary that they can get in the market).

[ QUOTE ]
Assuming that the majority of people would do the same, the non-racist (or at least not openly racist) owner would earn more profit than the racist owner (or at least the owner who caters to racists).

[/ QUOTE ] Your conclusion does not follow from your assumption. If the racists had more money, or were less thrifty than the non-racists, the racist owner could certainly make more money. The same thing could be said if the owners of (some of) the companies that sold supplies to the restaurant also were racist, meaning that integrated restaurants would have to pay a higher price for supplies.

[moorobot]

As for your second scenario, members of minority groups are likely to stop going to the racists restaurant, and it is quite likely his behavior will successfully get him sued (whereas before he could not be sued for keeping minorities away). Hence, it would seem that he has a stronger, not a weaker, incentive to avoid imposing his racist views upon others in the 2nd scenario.

Civil rights law does not just integrate businesses, it also makes discriminatory practices like this illegal.

[JayTee]

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[ QUOTE ]
In this scenario the free market has "punished" the racist owner through purely voluntary action.

[/ QUOTE ] Your argument completely misunderstands the point of desegregation, I believe. The point was to make the lives of marginalized groups better, not make the lives of the dominant group worse. One purpose of the act was to grant freedom (namely the freedom from the arbitrary discrimination and racist preferences of others to the marginalized group), not punish the racist owner. When some employers are allowed to be racist, the ability of individuals in the marginalized group to pursue there freely choosen ends is limited: not only in the case of what restaurants they can patronize, but also in the amount of jobs they open to them (this then would leave the demand for there labor lower, lessening the wage/salary that they can get in the market).

[/ QUOTE ]

Notice that I put "punish" in quotations. The punishment that I described was the non-racist owner profiting more over time. This is all based on the assumption that the majority of people would support non-racist businesses over racist ones. I should have included the context of the post that I was following up on, my fault. Non-racist business prospering would seem to have the added benefit of more jobs for blacks.

As far as less/lower paying jobs for blacks, that would require institutionalized discrimination, which seems to be the result of the state laws.

I guess this boils down to "freedom to travel", which I don't think is a right.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Assuming that the majority of people would do the same, the non-racist (or at least not openly racist) owner would earn more profit than the racist owner (or at least the owner who caters to racists).

[/ QUOTE ] Your conclusion does not follow from your assumption. If the racists had more money, or were less thrifty than the non-racists, the racist owner could certainly make more money. The same thing could be said if the owners of (some of) the companies that sold supplies to the restaurant also were racist, meaning that integrated restaurants would have to pay a higher price for supplies.

[/ QUOTE ]

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You are making useless speculations as to the thriftiness or wealth of racists vs. non-racists. Unless you have specific statistics, I think we must assume that both are equal. If integrated restaurants are the preference wouldn't the market open up for a supplier who would supply for true market prices. Again, I think you are assuming institutionalized racism here, which seems to be a product of the law. I mentioned earlier that I was not taking issue with those parts of the act that prohibited government from making decisions based on skin color.

[moorobot]

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In a scenario where more people would support a racist establishment I think you have to resort to the other argument against the Act that I mentioned. The argument that complete respect of private property is necessary for a free society.

[/ QUOTE ] But you didn't make this argument, possibly because it is very difficult to sustain.

One problem with these arguments is that they don't mention WHO is being made free; namely, the owner of the property. The non-owners of the property are made un-free when one individual is given complete control of a piece of property. To illustrate, suppose Bob appropriates a previously unowned piece of property, or a piece of public or otherwise held in common property. Before I could use what is now Bob's property to have a picnic or to play baseball (or use it in a number of other ways). Now, if I go onto Bob's property without his permission, some entity (government or private security firms) will remove me and coercively deprive me of my freedom to act in that way. Hence private property creates both freedom and unfreedom, because it restricts some people's freedom in order to create freedom for others.

[Kimbell175113]

moorobot,
Let's start off with the OP's assumption that racism is not the majority view, and that people - even those not in the racist's target minority - prefer to stay away from it.

So if there were no restrictions, no laws, then racist business would die out, like unfit gene. Even if the racists had a head start by owning a disproportionate amount of firms. Because for any racist business that exists, a competitor can start a similar business minus the racism, and he would be more successful. We can literally be sure that the racist businesses will decline until either disappearing completely or becoming super-rare. All it takes is time.

If, however, there are laws passed, if there are restrictions on people's choice or their information, then we can't be as sure as we were in the first scenario. That's all OP is saying.

[moorobot]

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Unless you have specific statistics, I think we must assume that both are equal

[/ QUOTE ] You were making a logical argument originally, not an empirical one. I was simply saying that your conclusion does not logically follow from the premises. Statistics have nothing to do with that.

The reason why this is important to point out is that your argument is a contingent one, meaning that it requires several empirical facts to hold which may not in fact hold in order to have any weight.

[ QUOTE ]
As far as less/lower paying jobs for blacks, that would require institutionalized discrimination, which seems to be the result of the state laws.

[/ QUOTE ] This is false, and quite obviously false. If 20% of employers are racist against blacks to the point of being unwilling to hire them, but only 1% are that racist against whites, then less jobs will be available to them.

Or, if 20% of a service providers customers are racist against blacks, but only 1% of them are racist against whites, even a non-racist owner would tend to make more money hiring a white employee as opposed to a black employee who was identical to the white employee except in skin color.

Finally, if whites have a better education than blacks, perhaps because there parents had less money, on average, than whites, then less jobs would be open to the blacks.

[moorobot]

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Because for any racist business that exists, a competitor can start a similar business minus the racism, and he would be more successful.

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Your conclusion that racist businesses will "die out" is false and doesn't follow from this. As long as there is a "significant" minority who would prefer, everything else being equal, a segregated business to a non segregated business, we can expect both the racist business and the non-racist business to both survive, as the racists will continue going to the first business. A business doesn't have to be "more succesful" than all of its competitors to survive, but simply has to make a profit, that is, get enough customers. In a town with 100 restaurants, 50 restaurants are "more successful" than each and everyone of the other 50, but that does not mean the other 50 dissapear.

In fact, we can assume that, given a decent sized minority of racists in an area, that people could and would successfully create segregated businesses that are otherwise similar to non-segregated businesses, as the racist customers currently going to the non-segregated business would decide to go to the segregated one instead, and filling this niche would be quite profitable in some cases.