DEBATE 500: Business Discrimination

Framework When we look at a society, we have to look at the traits benefiting it the most. Through any and all instances we must view society through the lens of Utilitarianism to adhere to Hedonism to see what, on balance, benefits society the most and creates more pleasure than suffering. The very foundations of a society are built around the concept of utilitarianism which is why civilization exists in the first place as it helps give people a mutual benefit. Having a business required to treat their customers with equality and permit anyone to purchase their products is necessary to ensure society reaches the maximum amount of happiness and efficiency. Without this enforced equality we would see society begin to devolve of there would be a decrease in living standards and the average person, no matter race, religion, or creed, will suffer. Businesses only have Positive Rights In society, Kant argues, there are two types of rights, positive and negative. Positive rights are those that promote society like welfare, equality, and laws similar, while negative rights are those regarding right to privacy, self-defense, etc... [1] The business is an entity that is a vassal used by an individual. While it could be argued the individual gives the Negative rights to the business permitting discrimination, this is simply impossible. The business is meant to benefit society as it would result in a mutual benefit for all parties involved, as I'll go in depth later on. The requirement for the protection of the society in the rights of a business helps aid the society through the increased amount of net pleasure society has. Even if the store owner wishes to deny any sort of minority or group their pain is outweighed by the pleasure society and their customers will feel by using their business. Once a business has publically advertised their product and/or service available for sale to the public, they are then obligated to sell to the public, regardless of their feelings. A Christian baker does not have the right to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a LBGT couple. This is since the Christian baker has opened the bakery, with the purpose of selling wedding cakes or any kind of cakes to the public and have done so for years. They have also been advertising as such. With such an advertising and service for years, they surrender their right to discriminate as anyone is able to purchase their product as they made it available to the market. This may seem harmless, but these things can get a lot worse. Hospitals discriminating on religion by excluding a Muslim or discriminating on race can be extremely harmful as they would then have to go to another town and in some cases these places are miles and miles away and if the injury is severe enough, the person would die in the process. We have to see in this case, the life of the individual is more important than the bias of one person running a store. Economic Harms Individual harms When we look at the individual we can see the harms of discrimination go a bit more extreme and more serious than a simple bakery. When we look at the Physiological needs of the individual, we can see that the minority faces an uphill battle even in today's society. Home ownership amongst blacks was 48.1% while whites were nearly 75%, and African-Americans were 3 times more likely to receive a subprime mortgage during the crisis according to the Federal Reserve [2]. Another hard hitting fact is the net worth difference, the average white net worth is $67,000 to the blacks’ net worth of $6,200 [3]. This is a significant difference caused by discrimination in current society which has yet to actually account for the change in the status quo which my opponent is purposing in this debate. There are many places that refuse to even severe or listen to the Black community when it comes to something as simple as an apartment rental. This would cause more and more people to worry more and more about their Physiological needs creating more harm on a society as the workforce would deteriorate and crime. One study found that those who are homeless tend to commit crime ranging from petty theft to major crimes in order for them to find shelter [4]. This would harm more and more businesses as they would need to focus on figuring out how to better protect not only themselves, but their places of business. Allowing more and more people to enter their business would help decrease the chances of crime which helps the business more than harms it. Another area that minorities tend to suffer is what is known as the Ghetto tax. Low income blacks, when receiving a bank loan, would have their interest rate anywhere an upwards of 10% higher than a white family of the same income [5]. On car loans, we would see very similar issues when it comes to these minorities. The average increase was 2% higher for blacks than whites of the same income which can result in paying thousands more a year on car loans. With allowing businesses to discriminate, they could get away with charging even higher prices on these loans resulting in the possibility of there being little or no transportation for minorities. Harming business Outside of the petty theft and other crimes that are done to businesses that I have discussed last round, there are several other issues that can come out of discrimination which can truly harm a business. In business, the purpose is to see your product/service and maximize the amount of profit you can make, but when business owners discriminate, this tends to work against their own desires. By discriminating, these businesses place an arbitrary barrier to entry in the market which drives their prices higher, this not only harms the customers who purchase their products, but it harms the business as they would now have to pay more and purchase less products to make a smaller profit. It would not be wise for a business to discriminate as they would generate less profit and possibly be ran out of business by a business who refuses to partake in such a practice. There are many instances and groups of people where if discriminated against, could do serious economic harm. One group, the LBGT group who is the most recent targets for discrimination as of late, can harm the economy is there is massive discrimination enforced against them. A study ran showed that if the nation, or a large part of, barred LBGT from entry into the market, the collective American economy would lose nearly $1 trillion in profit and this number is expected to grow by 21% in upcoming years [6]. There are instances where people will boycott industries and areas that discriminate. A good recent example is when Gov. of Indiana Mike Pence introduced a strict law that permitted businesses to discriminate against LBGT groups, several states boycotted goods from Indiana as well as 9/10 law firms criticized the law. Allowing this discrimination would be practical suicide for businesses that do it as there would be a major loss. Another recent example was where Georgia was planning anti-transgender law, the NBA, Disney, and Hollywood all threatened to withdraw their businesses from the state if the law was enacted. Such discrimination can devastate a business and the economy as these laws allowed businesses to discriminate, not just a total ban. If this was issued nationwide, there would be catastrophe for any business that would elect for discrimination as well as harm in international trade.Business Discrimination endangers lifeDiscrimination is something that will drive others to perform actions that will endanger their lives. The discrimination minorities face on an average basis can lead to a massive amount of self harm. The College London's Institute of Psychiatry, which had interviewed people from more than 35 countries, had found that out of everyone he had surveyed with depression had found 79% of them faced discrimination on an average basis. 25% of them refused to search for work because of the fear of discrimination while nearly half of those surveyed expierenced discrimination while searching for a job [7]. This shows the workforce is shrinking even further creating more of a burden on soceity as they will have to try and support more and more minorities who are unable to work due to their inability to get a job due to discrimination or just simple discrimination on a dayly basis which is nearly 3/4's of the minorites depressed, which is a great deal of people. This type of discrimination in business causes massive harms as we see suicide occur with much of these issues. It is seen as minorities and even whites who are discriminated against by these places of buisness see suicide occur. In a study done, it showed each year, in an average population of 100,000 that 1,369.2 blacks commit suicide and 177.7 whites commit suicide over these issues [8]. These numbers would skyrocket with businesses to be permitted to discriminate and selectively choose who to sell their products/services to. Many places of business will harm the overal society as these numbers would drastically climb. Another study done showed that 15% of people who suffer from depression commit suicide each year [9]. This means that nearly 7.5% of those who commit suicide do so out of the discrimination they face through what occurs from these businesses. If more businesses are permitted to discriminate, on whites, blacks, LBGT, and so on, suicides would increase furthering the harm to humanity caused by this. Sources1. (http://tinyurl.com...) 2. (http://tinyurl.com...) 3. (http://tinyurl.com...) 4. (http://tinyurl.com...) 5. (http://tinyurl.com...) 6. (http://tinyurl.com...) pg 6 7. 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