Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.theory,alt.discrimination
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Subject: Re: On Banning Private Discrimination
Organization: Oracle Corporation
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 05:15:20 GMT
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In article <1992Jul26.141817.8489@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>| >[ discrimination also distributed by market; jobs as well as housing ]

>| >mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>| >| 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.

>gf:
>| >It's a similar process.  A substantial number of non-Tasmanian
>| >bigots won't work with Tasmanians or will take lower wages to
>| >not work with Tasmanians.  Unbigoted managers will either 
>| >take advantage of their desires, or compete at a disadvantage.
>| >Other bigots won't do business with company that hires
>| >Tasmanians.  A free market constantly distributes utility;
>| >that's its great advantage.  But some of that utility can
>| >be undesirable from other points of view.  Bigotry is one
>| >example.
>
>mf:
>| Gordon, if we play this out with real numbers will you accept the
>| results?  I'll even let you set up the initial conditions.

>You're welcome to play it out.  I'm trying to explain my
>observations with a theory.  If the theory doesn't work,
>I'll have to construct another; so, if you demonstrate that
>the process I describe above doesn't work, I'll accept it
>in the sense that the theory is inadequate, not that the
>observations are illusory (unless you wish to construct a
>theory about how my observations are illusions, etc.)

>You will also be demonstrating that a market does _not_
>distribute utility, which to my mind is one of its more
>salient, and usually desirable, characteristics.

So give me the numbers.  After all, if I set it up then I might be
rigging the initial conditions to give the answers I want.

>gf:
>| >| >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.

>mf:
>| >| You mean in places where discrimmination was not mandated by the
>| >| government?  Where?

>gf:
>| >Suburbs of New York City, most of my adult life, which is
>| >most of the last thirty years.

>mf:
>| You mean you lived in an NYC suburb without restrictive zoning laws
>| where blockbusting was legal?  Bull.  Which one?

>Restrictive in what sense?  There are very few places without
>some kind of zoning.  

Well, for example, they got about 5 square blocks where my parents
live designated a national historic district.  The last major fight in
the neighbohood happened when a home owner starter converting his home
into a two family house.  They zapped the necessary renovations that
would have been visible from the outside.  Throughout the fight the
subtext was that it would be a lot easier for undesirables - ie Blacks
- to move in if they could just rent half of a two family house.

>mf:
>| >| 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.

>gf:
>| >A well-run blockbusting campaign does not result in
>| >cheap housing for minorities.  The point is to get the
>| >bigots and those non-bigots who fear for their real-
>| >estate values to sell cheap, and then jack up the prices
>| >for the minorities.

>mf:
>| Gordon, use your head.

>| Who do they sell cheap to?  Hint.  It isn't the real estate brokers.
>| It's the minorities themselves.

>| You seem to have some really weird ideas about how block busting
>| works.  Want to explain them to us?  Do you think that the real estate
>| agencies involved warehouse the buildings? 

>In answer to your last question, yes, certainly.  The lawyer
>who handled my closing 15 years ago owned about a dozen houses,
>not for the purpose of blockbusting but simply as items in
>trade.  He rented some of them out meanwhile.  It's obviously
>perfectly legal.  In a blockbusting campaign, the first step
>is usually to buy a couple of houses and move in the most
>offensive examples of a minority one can find, as renters at
>very low rents.  The frightened homeowners now want to sell
>cheap.  Why have them sell cheap to the minorities, when you
>can make a substantial profit by buying the houses, kicking
>out the offensive renters, and selling at high prices to
>respectable minorities?

Higher than those homes are worth?  Even if you are correct about how
they do it the minorities still win.  They get nice homes at less
thant he price of a similar home in an all-white suburb.

As I said before, anti-blockbusting legislation is legal protection
for segregation..

>The main thing to notice is that most people operate on a
>profit motive, and the high utility accorded to discrimination
>by bigots means that the profit motive and the market will
>serve them.  

Sometimes it serves and sometimes it screws.  Note, however, that it
is governemtn that steps in and helps out when it threatens to screw
them.  That's why I always use block busting in these arguments - it's
such a beautiful example.


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