{"id":313,"date":"2010-05-24T19:29:46","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T02:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chasingeden.com\/?p=313"},"modified":"2010-05-24T19:29:46","modified_gmt":"2010-05-25T02:29:46","slug":"is-racism-ok-the-issue-with-libertarianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chasingeden.com\/?p=313","title":{"rendered":"Is Racism Ok? The issue with Libertarianism."},"content":{"rendered":"\t

Rand Paul has come under serious fire<\/a> lately for his staunch libertarian stance on the Civil Rights Act.\u00a0 The basic gist is:\u00a0 Government doesn’t need to interfere in a business’s right to be racist if it wants.\u00a0 The market can decide; if people don’t like racism, they won’t shop at or buy from racist businesses.<\/p>\n\t

One site likened his somewhat naive comments to something college students might discuss in a coffee shop…not something politicians would discuss with any seriousness.<\/p>\n\t

So…I’m a kid in a coffee shop…what would I say?<\/p>\n\t

Let’s play the thought experiment:\u00a0 pretend we let the market decide…and it decides that it wants to be racist<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is probably the reality anyway, since why would you need to sign an anti-discrimination law if there weren’t any to begin with?<\/p>\n\t

So is it ok for the market to be racist?<\/p>\n\t

If I don’t like the businesses where I live that are discriminatory; I can just move somewhere else, participate in a different market, right?<\/p>\n\t

Hmm…but you forced me to move.<\/strong> Someone else’s discrimination is affecting where I live, where I shop. And that is just me…what about the people that are being discriminated against?<\/p>\n\t

The Libertarian argument that businesses (or anything else they are referring to) should be “free” to do what they like is bunk.\u00a0 Your freedom is not always yours alone.\u00a0 It affects other people; it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.<\/p>\n\t

The extreme example is smoking.\u00a0 You should not be free to smoke….because your smoke affects other people too.\u00a0 If you want to smoke at your house or something…ok.\u00a0 But a ban on smoking in planes, or in buildings, or restaurants is completely appropriate.\u00a0 If your freedom to smoke means I get cancer, then you should not be free to do it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t

Many things are like this.\u00a0 A more subtle example is the time honored American “freedom” to be rich…really rich.\u00a0 In America it is ok to be rich (not all countries are so positive about the rich).<\/p>\n\t

But being rich comes at least somewhat at the expense of those who worked to make you rich.\u00a0 The rest have to watch the rich move to the front of every line, drive nicer cars, live in better, safer houses.\u00a0 People worry about their plight in life compared to the rich.\u00a0 The rich simply existing is a source of anxiety which causes ill health.<\/p>\n\t

I’m not saying it is bad to be rich…only that it isn’t in a vacuum.\u00a0 The rich existing does affect the poor.\u00a0 The larger the income disparity between the rich and poor, the more the effect.\u00a0 Most countries have progressive tax schemes at least somewhat due to this.\u00a0 It is a tax on the rich simply because they are rich (which affects everyone else).<\/p>\n\t

So no.\u00a0 Racism is not ok.\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rand Paul has come under serious fire lately for his staunch libertarian stance on the Civil Rights Act.\u00a0 The basic gist is:\u00a0 Government doesn’t need to interfere in a business’s right to be racist if it wants.\u00a0 The market can decide; if people don’t like racism, they won’t shop at or buy from racist businesses. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3IMYj-53","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":386,"url":"http:\/\/chasingeden.com\/?p=386","url_meta":{"origin":313,"position":0},"title":"What is the “Free Market”?","author":"kellio","date":"December 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I can't believe I haven't written about this before, but here goes: Free Market: When we think of the free market, it conjures up the classic example of an open air market where there are a near infinite number of sellers all right next to each other with similar items.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"economics\"","block_context":{"text":"economics","link":"http:\/\/chasingeden.com\/?tag=economics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":663,"url":"http:\/\/chasingeden.com\/?p=663","url_meta":{"origin":313,"position":1},"title":"The free market doesn’t exist except as a rhetorical device.","author":"kellio","date":"September 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I've talked about this before, and it is also discussed very well here. 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