From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Subject: Re: Economic Discrimination in Libertaria
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 00:22:44 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell) writes:

>I suspect that the biggest problem with the Liberteria solution to
>discrimination (ie suggesting that it won't matter, and will have its
>worst effects on theose discriminating) is that it tends to ignore
>that the discrimination is widespread ususally.  In other words, we
>don't have to worry about restaurants alone, we have to worry about
>banks and other loaning facilities, schools and other education
>dispensers, real estate developers, employers, the courts & police
>officers, etc, etc.
>
>Each taken in a vaccuum might indeed be unimportant, but taken all
>together, it spells trouble for the discriminated against.

It seems to me that the problem you point to will normally be greatly
mitigated if the class suffering generalized discrimination (let's call
them "Croats") is large, transportation and communications are good,
and the economy is diverse and continually changing.  Then to the
extent the others (call them "Serbs ") don't want to have much to do
with them, the Croats will be able to set up their own businesses,
restaurants, banks, schools, and so on.  Since such enterprises would
receive no government aid in Libertaria whether run by Croats or Serbs,
the ones founded by the Croats would be able to compete on more equal
terms with established Serb enterprises than in a non-libertarian
political order.  Opportunities would increase still more for the
Croats if they were faced not with a uniform mass of hostile Serbs but
with a diverse agglomeration of peoples, mostly Serbs but also Slovenes
and others, as well as Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim religious
communities. (I should add that if our "Croats" really were faced with
a dominant mass of hostile Serbs there would be no possibility that the
government would enact anti-discrimination laws anyway.  So that can't
be the real situation we're talking about.)

The story I just told may not be very relevant to conditions in
Yugoslavia today or in rural Alabama in 1940.  It does seem relevant to
the experience of most of the groups that immigrated to the United
States.  Many of those groups (like the Irish) weren't much liked when
they first came here and some of them (like the Chinese and Orthodox
Jews) look different from everyone else.  They have nonetheless
prospered, partly through dealings with other people who wanted to deal
with them and partly through developing their own institutions.

I suppose one way to approach the issue you raise is to ask what makes
sense for a group to do that finds itself poor and discriminated
against in a setting like the one I described.  I imagine that if I
were a member of a group in that situation the things that would run
through my mind might include the following:

	1.  Experience shows that it's possible for people in our
situation to prosper.

	2.  The groups that have done so most have not gotten where
they are by getting more government aid than other people.  Rather,
they have been helped by the qualities they have valued -- family
cohesion, mutual aid within the group, industry, love of learning,
enterprise.  We are capable of those qualities and I would like for us
to exemplify them.

	3.  Government aid as the foundation of a way of life is
habit-forming, which means it leads to the acquisition of qualities
that cause people to continue to need such aid.  Those qualities don't
lead to happiness or prosperity.

	4.  If it's really true that most of the world doesn't think
much of people like me, then I'd be happier associating with people
like me who respect me, and trying to get something good going among
ourselves, rather than trying to force the majority to pretend to
respect me.

	5.  Therefore, rather than trying to advance by getting help
such as anti-discrimination laws from the government, it will be better
for us to pull together and make our own success.

>Of course, there is another argument.  Anti-discrimination laws make
>sense because they help to keep the minority from getting so unhappy
>that they revolt and kill all the people declaring their right to free
>association.  For example, one can see that in a case here at MIT.  An
>MIT student was killed by some guy from one of the less affluent parts
>of town last week.  The campus is up in arms and morally outraged, etc.
> A judge puts this kid's bail at something like $1 million.  The kids
>from his block are like, "hey man lots of other people in our hood get
>killed and the murderers get out in a year or two and their bails are
>never that high...."  The message is clear:  your lives aren't worth as
>much.  This compounds the problem they existed in the first place.  For
>the discrimination laws, the message is clear:  we don't care if the
>banks, schools and everyone else dumps on you; we got ours--go get
>yours.  Eventually, someone is going to get pissed enuff to do
>something that everyone (at least everyone who has something to lose)
>will regret.
>
>In short, this is a good idea because it gives the illusion (if not
>the reality) of a real stake in the system and its promise of
>opportunity for the hard-working individual.  Without that stake, an
>individualistic system like Liberteria loses whatever moral backing it
>may have.

The MIT example you give is of discriminatory government action that
would have no justification under the laws of Libertaria.  Certainly, it
has no connection to freedom of association.

I don't think of Libertaria as all that individualistic a place.  It
seems to me that if people can't rely on the government to do much for
them beyond repress force and fraud, then informal social ties to
family, friends, neighbors and the like will be taken more seriously. 
If those ties are strong then the kind of alienation you refer to, in
which it seems that there is me on one side with no power except the
power to destroy, and social institutions like banks and schools that
are indifferent to me on the other side, will be less common.

>                                   -\--/-
>    Don't just adopt opinions     |  \/  |       Some of you are homeboys
>          develop them.           |  /\  | but only I am The Homeboy From hell
>                                   -/--\-

I admire your spirit.
-- 
    Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory