From: pas@kepler.unh.edu (Paul A Sand)
Subject: Re: Outgrowing Libertarianism...
Organization: University of New Hampshire
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 03:02:08 GMT

vy: Victor Yodaiken
ps: Paul Sand

vy: [...] let's examine the "libertarian" position that one has the
    "right" to refuse service in a public place of business on the basis
    of racial bigotry. [...]

ps: Translation: libertarians believe that market transactions should be
    mutually voluntary.

vy: That is not a translation, it is a sugar-coating.

On the contrary, it's an accurate description of the underlying
principle.

vy: The "libertarians" argue that it is moral to impose taxes for the
    purpose of paying for a police force which will enforce the racial
    prejudices of property owners by forcibly ejecting blacks, jews, or
    whatever from hotels, restaurants, banks, or any other "privately
    owned" place of business. [...]

ps: Translation: libertarians believe that A's presence on B's property
    should be agreeable to both A and B.

vy: You may word this how you like, but it would be nice if you could
    confront the reality of the situation.

The reality being what? That, under a system of liberty, some folks will 
use that liberty in stupid and vile ways, and yet be perfectly within
their rights to do so? This is uncontested. 

vy: Thus, the "libertarians" find it perfectly moral to forcibly extract
    taxes from minority groups in order to violently oppress them. [...]

ps: Untranslatable, because false. Some (maybe most, by no means all)
    libertarians find taxation acceptable to adequately protect the
    rights of all individuals; to claim that the actual motive is "in
    order to violently oppress" minorities is baseless slander.

vy: Only if one accepts willingly confuses propaganda with reality.
    Those libertarians who accept the need for taxation (e.g. in
    accordance with the platform the the Libertarian party) [...]

A factual aside: the LP's 1992 platform calls for `the eventual repeal
of all taxation.' Whether this shows Victor's confusion with
propaganda, reality, or just reading comprehension is an exercise left
to those who care.

vy: do so on the basis of government protection of "private property".
    If police, hired at public expense, are going to enforce the
    racial/religious bigotry property owners, then it follows that
    members of unpopular racial/religious groups will be forced to pay
    taxes to support their own oppression. If you want to call this
    process voluntary and freedom-enhancing it only illustrates the
    shallowness of your ideas.

Taxation is only voluntary in the doublespeak of the IRS; if Victor is
trying to claim that *I* said it was voluntary, he's (again) badly
confused, and I shall therefore discount accordingly the usual
Yodaikenian bushwa about `shallowness.' I note he failed to respond to
the actual point I made, which was (once again): his charge that the
actual motive of libertarians is to "violently oppress" minorities is
baseless slander.

vy: On the other hand, the "Libertarian" claim, which has been oft
    repeated in this forum, that under a free-market system such
    discrimination would be unprofitable and would render the racist
    business vulnerable to competition *is* wrong as anyone familiar
    with the history of race relations in the United States can confirm.
    That is, we see from US history that discrimination on the basis of
    race, religion, gender, or whatever, has been quite compatible with
    profitability, and that widespread racial or religious prejudice has
    worked to deprive certain segments of the population of a meaningful
    chance to compete on equal terms with the majority.

ps: Clearly, libertarian claims about what would happen under a
    free-market system have zero applicability to (for example) an era
    in which the state enforced Jim Crow laws. Conversely, that era
    doesn't refute such libertarian claims. If anything, it should lead
    one to wonder why such laws were necessary: to force racists to
    practice racism?

vy: In actual US history, the civil and economic rights of the newly
    freed slaves were systematically and violently stolen from them as
    soon as the Federal government removed its protection by withdrawing
    federal troops. If you would take the trouble to learn a little
    history, you would see that the JimCrow laws were imposed *after*
    non-governmental terrorism had deprived black Americans of their
    liberties. [...]

If Victor took the trouble to learn a little English, he might see that
I used Jim Crow laws as just one example of how the state (and *not*
the "free-market system") failed to adequately protect the rights of
individuals. Victor has not refuted this; he has merely supplied
another example. And once again, this example has zero applicability to
any system libertarians would establish or defend.

vy: You might also see that racism had an economic effectiveness which
    far transcended the Jim Crow laws. For example, as late as 1954 the
    television networks cut away from the Rebublican convention as
    Eisenhower's nominating speech was about to start -- because a black
    man was making the speech and the TV networks did not want to offend
    southern affiliates. 

Certainly the date's two years off--1954 wasn't a Presidential election
year--and I wonder what else is inaccurate in this story? In any case,
if Victor's best evidence of the perfidy of the free market is the
FCC-regulated (read: protected) broadcast industry of the 50's, ho
hum.

vy: Note, not only were there no Jim Crow laws governing the New York
    City based networks or the federally regulated TV stations, but the
    Federal government was clearly interested in having the speech
    televised. The fact is,that popular prejudice was a powerful
    economic force which had the effect of stripping a large
    sub-population of the right to enter the economy on any where near
    an equal footing. Blaming the Jim Crow laws for this is simple
    nonsense.

Victor, as usual, makes Herculean efforts to avoid defending his
original assertion: that the shameful history of US race relations was
somehow an example of libertarian economic and legal ideals given free
rein. The Jim Crow laws are but one simple piece of disconfirming
evidence; yet, despite all his bluster, Victor has not dealt with the
interesting question of why such laws were considered necessary, if the
allegedly overwhelming `economic force' of prejudice alone was doing
such a swell job of keeping blacks subjugated.

ps: If Mr. Yodaiken thinks that *any* period in the history of US racial
    relations was marked by a legal and economic system that
    libertarians would find worthy of defending, he should specify the
    time and place. Otherwise, as he should know, his alleged refutation
    is nonsense.

vy: Well, if "libertarians" are claiming that while their proposed
    policies would fail in any real time or place, but will succeed in
    some mystical utopian era, we have no quarrel and I am happy to let
    you return to your fantasies. [...]

Victor's response here bears no apparent relation to my challenge, or
anything else I said for that matter; I assume that despite his
cavalier suggestion that others `learn some history', he's at a loss
to come up with anything concrete that supports his assertion.

vy: But, if you argue that in the real-world the market mechanisms which
    you seem to revere so religiously, will have effects other than ones
    we observe in history, then I must object.

Fine.  But the lack of anything solid to back up the objections speaks
for itself.
-- 
-- Paul A. Sand           | [S]erious people flinch from being associated
-- Univ. of New Hampshire | with the intellectual slum that is the Bush
-- pas@kepler.unh.edu     | campaign, with its riffraff of liars and
                          | aspiring ayatollahs. (George F. Will)