Mike,
I was using the story to contradict your statement that the free-market
could not fix the situation. There were two examples of the free-market
fixing the situation, and I know that there are plenty more. Though racism
is a belief, and no economic system can actually fix a faulty belief system.
Segregration and discrimination cannot be stamped out, only punished as our
current laws show. But my stories did well to illustrate that even things
being unequal, freedom of trade can be a great equalizer.

But to continue with this debate, we need to first start out properly with
the proper definations, and basis of ideas. First off the free-market is a
product of a liberal economic system like Laissez-faire. It is not a
political system, nor a judicial system. Racism is a belief (unsubstantiated
idea of truth) that genetic profiles can determine superiority. It is a
psychological issue that no law can stamp out in anyway. So no regulation or
economic system can remove racism.

So the first question is if a vendor has the right to deny service to
anyone, for any reason? Does the government have the right to force you to
do business with everyone? Even a man that raped your wife and/or children?
If your answer is yes, then the debate stops... by those ideals, a man does
not own the property that is his own effort. Man is in effect a slave to the
wills of the government and every other person who "deserves" his effort. If
your answer is no, then I expect that you can easily see how that line of
logic can easily apply to race. Is racism  a complete abomination? I believe
so, but those are my own opinions, and I do not force my own opinions upon
others. But more importantly, I believe that I can decide who I work for,
and how I can disperse the product of my effort.

We can go through the separate scenarios you described, and I can show you
with historical evidence how the free market provided the needed/wanted
services. If their was no other grocery store, then someone would have
started one, which was quite common with the all black clubs, stores, and
even some golf courses. The laughable "separate but equal" jim crow laws
made sure of that. But you said that they only service a small percentage of
the population. There is still a service to be offered and a profit to be
made. Time tables can be easily adjusted along with routes to account for
the smaller clientele, and still offer a decent service to the customer. You
state that such a setup would be a second rate service. Do you consider
having to "sing and tap dance" a first rate service?

Simmons

On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 18:34, Mike Miller
<mbmiller+l at gmail.com<mbmiller%2Bl at gmail.com>
> wrote:

> On Thu, 19 Aug 2010, J.A. Simmons V wrote:
>
> > A history professor I had loved to tell the story of his cousin who
> > owned a piggly-wiggly in a good-ol' boy Alabama town during the civil
> > rights movement. His cousin refused to high a single black (do not know
> > of any other minorities). Well, since the majority of his clientele was
> > black, they refused to shop at his store. He eventually had to bend to
> > the demands of the public.
>
> Oh, OK, so the free market worked to stop a racist employer from refusing
> to hire black workers, but only in a place with a majority of black
> customers who had to organize to stop him.  What happened in places where
> the majority was black but there were no other grocery stores.  What about
> places where the majority was white and the minority was black.  I have to
> say that a government intervention seems like the right thing -- it gets
> jobs for the black people, jobs that they deserve, and it spares the local
> black population from the hassles of having to organize a boycott to get
> what should have been theirs in the first place: freedom from racial
> discrimination in hiring.
>
> Do you really think your story is a good argument for a free market in
> hiring that allows for racist discrimination?
>
>
> > The same for the bus boycott that was sparked by Rosa Parks.
>
> Right, it's good that poor black people have to suffer such humiliations
> and hassles to get a seat in the front half of the bus.  But what if
> blacks were 5% of the riding population and the local whites preferred
> that the black riders have to sing and tap dance for them while riding?
> It would be OK for the bus company to require that they do so, right?
> I'm sure you'll say yes, because that's what a free market is all about.
> Suppose the boycott didn't work because they could do without the 5% rider
> share in order to please their white customers.  Now the blacks either
> dance or walk.  Sounds bad, but I'll bet the free market has a cure ....
> yes, it's that another bus company will spring into existence to give
> rides to blacks.  But whites won't use the new buses, so they can only
> serve 5% of the people and have to run way less often.  Freedom in action.
> So it all works out -- the black people in a majority-white local dealing
> with racism and a racist bus company have to live with second-rate busing.
> Too Friggin' Bad.  Don't cry to me -- it's FREEDOM!  Let's keep government
> out of it.  Government is too restrictive.
>
>
> > I will disagree with your statement that with a free market, you get
> > what you get. I would say that with a free market, you get what is
> > offered. You can either negotiate for what you want, look for another
> > company that is offering what you are after, or build your own company
> > that does what you are looking to do (obvious market segment that is
> > being ignored). Add regulations to that, and now you are tying the hands
> > of any entrepreneur who is trying to provide a service to others.
>
> When you say "add regulations to that," what do you have in mind?  I'm
> unaware of rules preventing people from starting businesses that provide
> services.
>
> Mike
>
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