Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.theory,alt.discrimination
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Subject: Re: On Banning Private Discrimination
Organization: Oracle Corporation
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 07:14:49 GMT
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In article <1992Jul22.025917.19315@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) wanted me to email a
>copy of my argument that a free market distributed racism.
>I can't find it, so I reconstituted it.  And here it is,
>in case you didn't see the other one:

>Let us suppose that there is a population which includes a
>Tasmanian minority comprising about 10%, and that the
>non-Tasmanian majority is about one-third bigoted --
>sufficiently bigoted so that they will either not live near
>Tasmanians at all, or will at least pay a premium not to.
>Let us also suppose that there are a number of landlords and
>housing developers, and a free market in housing.

>Now, the landlords and developers will quickly find that if
>they serve the Tasmanians, they will lose the one-third who
>prefer Tasmanian-free housing, that is, about 30% of their
>potential customers, whereas if they refuse Tasmanians, they
>will lose only 10% of their potential customers.  Every
>single landlord and developer will thus feel economically
>pressured to discriminate against Tasmanians.  And so, even
>though only a minority of the population are bigoted, their
>preference for the "utility" of prejudice will be spread by
>market forces throughout the community. 

Gargh.  You have totally neglected to include the landlords who will
raise their prices by 5% and then advertise in the Tasmanian
newspaper.  

If you think about it, in the case you describe there will be some
mixed housing and some all non-Tasmanian housing.  The actual
percentages of each depend on complicated factors related to the size
of the housing market, etc.  People who are able to live in either
will have the most choices and will get the best deal.  Tasmanians and
bigots will both be worse off, but unless we break it up by whole
neighborhoods, only marginally.


>This example is, of course, a considerable simplification of 
>a complex process.  For instance, we have not considered how
>the price of housing will rise for Tasmanians, or how
>analogous processes in the job market will cause them to
>have less money to bid for housing.  

Mind justifying that?  After all, why won't the 60% who don't mind
Tasmanians try to take advantage of the Tasmanian labor pool that the
bigots won't hire?  Either the Tasmanian wage rises to the national
average or the bigots lose money evey day they don't hire Tasmanians.

>However, since we can
>see results in history which the theory would predict, we
>can assume the theory at least approximates the behavior of
>real communities.

You mean in places where discrimmination was not mandated by the
government?  Where?

If you look at real life it doesn't work that way.  For example, the
government prevents block-busting.  Who gets screwed by block-busting?
Bigots.  Who benefits?  Minorities who get good houses cheap and the
real estate brokers who sell to them.  Who stops it?  The government.

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