Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!qantel!dual!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: (Re:**N) Affirmative Action
Message-ID: <598@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Jul-85 17:23:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.598
Posted: Fri Jul  5 17:23:39 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 06:41:23 EDT
References: <259@kontron.UUCP> <7800346@inmet.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 38

In article <7800346@inmet.UUCP> nrh@inmet.UUCP writes:
> 
> Yes.  Unquestionably.  For details, see Walter Williams, "The 
> State Against Blacks".  In general, acting within the confines
> of a prejudice not in harmony with reality tends to make you
> make mistakes (you fail to hire the best person for the job because
> he's black, you fail to rent to the most desirable tenant because
> she's not Christian (or whatever).  A competitor, not bound by these
> rules can take advantage of the situation by attracting people who
> you refuse to deal with.  Because you have lowered your demand 
> for these people (by refusing to deal with them) he may pay less, or
> charge more (he faces less competition for their services or tennancy), and
> he gets a better employee/tenant than you do.  In short, you labor under
> a disadvantage because you choose to be less free than your competitors.

I grow very tired of these ignorant, ivory-tower economic predictions.

If you are so certain that there is a financial benefit to not discriminating,
go into a bigoted white neighborhood, build housing, announce (by word or
deed) that you're a "nigger lover" (they'll call you that), and that you
intend to outcompete them because of this pragmatism.

You will very quickly see many of the mechanisms by which discrimination is
reinforced despite market pressures.  The fact is that there are many forms
of coercion besides market pressures, and postulating a libertarian society
without coercion is as realistic as wishing away crime in our own society.
Vandalism, arson, assault, and a variety of other hate (think Ku Klux Klan)
are coercive realities that must be dealt with.

The fact is that coercion must be overcome by greater coercion.  Economic
coercion of the sort you suggest is far too mild to defeat pervasive
informal and amateur coercion for discrimination.  Several hundred years
of discrimination show this clearly.  30 years of stronger government
coercion has produced sudden and dramatic lifting of barriers, as a variety
of history and occupational statistics show.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh