Many modern liberals will claim the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended discrimination against women and minorities and without it, racism and sexism would be just as prevalent as it was before the act. They also hold the Civil Rights Act as burden of proof in that large, federal regulation can be a positive thing. Where are they wrong?
I honestly differ from most libertarians about this. I think racism would have lasted much longer without the Civil Rights Act than with it. In a purely free society, it seems as if most Southern whites would have avoided “intermingling” with blacks because they are free to do so and could perpetuate more racist ideas in their culture because the children of the new generations would not be as exposed to other cultures as they were in mandatory schooling, etc. There obviously was a degree of segregation even after the Civil Rights Act though. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the South would be nearly as racist today, but I think the CRA hastened the demise of racism in the South.
But a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
To paraphrase Walter Williams from memory: I’m racist and sexist because I chose to marry a black woman instead of a human from a different race or sex.
I heard Tom Woods argue that the forced integration mandated by the Civil Rights Act led to an increase in violence between blacks and whites. A good example of this would be the court-ordered busing in cities like Boston. The effect on the education of both black and white children was negative.
Discrimination is a cultural phenomenon that will persist as long as people of different race and ethnicity exist, and it is in general a positive force that draws people of like-mind together and allows different groups to cooperate peacefully. If you think about it, the family is the ultimate unit of discrimination, and it is also the foundation of modern civilization.
Right, I don’t really have a problem with discrimination as long as it is done peacefully. Obviously I would prefer different members of society to get along, and that is probably done easiest with capitalism. Jim Crow laws were enforced by the State, as I’m sure white capitalists could employ both poor blacks and poor whites together and that would easily have fostered a natural, voluntary, and peaceful environment for both cultures to get to know each other better as well.
Title II is brought up a lot because it affects private companies. I’m allowed to discriminate against people because they’re black, gay, bald, or whatever I want if it’s my own private business. As long as I don’t impede upon their lives, I’m good. When the CRA outlawed discrimination in publicly-funded operations, it had the complete right to do that because the state promoted the segregation in the first place. When things are publicly-funded, the state is, in essence, the owner of the business, so it can decide what is going to be segregated or not. Pretend the state hadn’t been in charge of any schools. Sure, some schools would have segregated, but others wouldn’t have. And something would have happened to the segregated schools, which I like to call the “Asshole Effect”. My apologies if we can’t say bad words on here. ‘Good’ people will always tend to do less business with ‘bad’ people. If you have a choice between going to school with kids who like freedom or with those who are crazy racists, you’ll pick the freedom kids. The racist schools would eventually go out of business because no one wants to be around an asshole. When it’s publicly-funded, there’s no way to go out of business because there’s no true budget. In that way, the CRA controlled its own public schools (its own business, basically) but can’t force others to do the same. It would be the same as it is now.
Libertarian Ron Paul said, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society. This expansion of federal power was based on an erroneous interpretation of the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. The framers of the Constitution intended the interstate commerce clause to create a free trade zone among the states, not to give the federal government regulatory power over every business that has any connection with interstate commerce. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife. Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.”
Libertarian John Stossel said, “Today, the result of government intrusion is that in the name of fighting “discrimination,” all-women gyms are sued and forced to open to men; a gay softball team is sued for rejecting bisexual members; A wedding photographer in New Mexico is fined thousands of dollars for refusing to take photos of a homosexual wedding. Instead of just eliminating segregation, the Civil Rights Act imposed mandatory association. Rand Paul had it right. Neither mandatory segregation, nor mandatory association, is appropriate in a free society.”
Stossel also said, “Companies couldn’t stop discriminating even if they had wanted to: “Jim Crow also mandated discrimination in private enterprise (the opposite of today’s reality which mandates desegregation). If you WANTED to open a restaurant (or run a hotel) that served blacks and whites equally, in most Southern states, you COULDN’T.”
Civil Rights Act of 1964 was pretty terrible. Businesses in the south probably couldn’t afford to continue discriminating anyway.
The State should neither force segregation in the private sector,nor force force integration in the private sector.
However, I do believe that if it has to exist, then the public sector should be integrated, so nothing other than title II was a failure, in my opinion.
They really should’ve made title II a seperate bill, but I would’ve voted against the whole thing because of title II.
Jim crow laws guys… You’d have to believe that business owners would intentionally piss off half of their consumer base, creating a huge profit opportunity, to think that there was mass voluntary boycott of blacks.
The mainstream left needs to get their mythology straight. Either capitalists are racist, in which case they DON’T put profits first. Or capitalists are a bunch of greedy profit maximizing extortionists, who put monetary gain first, and therefore are color blind. You can’t have it both ways.
Just read Richard A. Epstein’s book Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws.
Also keep in mind Title VII, guys.
Couldn’t the Supreme Court have simply ruled that Jim Crow laws were unconstitutional? They did something similar with Brown v. Board of Education (1954), but that was only in the context of public schooling. At the very least, the Supreme Court could’ve ruled that it was unconstitutional to enforce Jim Crow laws on private businesses. On the other hand, there’s the issue of states’ rights.
I lol’d.
You can’t eliminate racism by declaring it illegal any more than you can eliminate bad weather by declaring it illegal.
But you can subsidize racism by making it illegal for minority workers to compete for jobs.
Yes–all government interference in the economy, insofar as it limits competition, will subsidize racism. Furthermore, government itself, regardless of its involvement in the economy, simply by promoting conflict, will promote racism.
Weather does not respond to incentives. People do.
It’s still an issue because one day the government will want it to be illegal to hire a disproportional team of workers (i.e. race, sexual orientation, gender, etc). You know, so everyone is equal the exact same.
I don’t have a problem with civil rights, even with regard to public accommodations. I think that libertarians get so wrapped up in property rights that we forget the moral basis for them, which is rooted in respect for other people. If we truly respect other people as ones who should actively pursue happiness, then we will not only respect their property rights, but we will not discriminate against them merely on the basis of their sex, race, or sexual orientation.
“but we will not discriminate against them merely on the basis of their sex, race, or sexual orientation.”
So people should be forced to associate/contract with others and to employ their own property in the transaction? Who’s going to enforce it?
Sounds decidedly un-libertarian.
Just another form of ‘divide and conquer’.
The South is (and probably always has been) less racist in a de facto sense than the North. Cival Rights Act had nothing to do with it.
Exactly, you can’t legislate racism out of people. And who cares anyways? As long as the racist doesn’t attack you or your property (like any other non-racist person) let them do whatever they want with their racism. If they prefer not to serve someone they don’t like or not socialize with people they don’t like that’s probably for the best anyway.