Indiana's freedom to discriminate law

You really believe that I change my basic ideas about freedom of contract because a certain Mr. Maddox is a not very sympathic guy? LOL.

As I have explained a lot of time, freedom is always also a freedom to misuse. This is something I accept as less evil than a totalitarian dictatorship. After this basic decision in favour of freedom, even given its misuse, I take care about which rules would be necessary to obtain and defend a free society. This gives the Non-Aggression Principle and the Golden Rule. It remains to clarify what counts as aggression, and what counts in case of aggression, as an acceptable self-defense. Here, freedom of contract and the right to do on the own property what one likes are quite simple principles, which allow to solve most conflicts in a quite easy way, without much dispute.

This is what you think. I don't think so. It is, of course, quite easy to invent models with a lot of "simplifying" assumptions where certain things may be stable. And it is your free decision to name them reasonable.

No, the mechanisms how these rules may be enforced are discussed in a lot of detail in the libertarian literature about these questions. Mass hypnosis plays exactly no role in these considerations. First of all, there is reasonable self-defense, bounded by the general simple rule "tit for tat". Then, there enforcement of contracts via reputation: The information about those who have broken contracts will be distributed over the world (in the past this was possible only in sufficiently small communities, today this is no longer a problem), and people react to such information simply in accordance with their self-interest (not to be cheated).

Think about this - a reputational system, where you, if you sign a contract, accept some arbiter and promise to accept his decisions in case of a conflict. With the implication that, if you do not accept his decision, your name appears on a global blacklist - open to everybody, unfalsifiable because with your signature for accepting this particular arbiter, and the signature of this particular arbiter that you have not accepted his decision. A society where such a system is established and works will be quite different from our system.

 

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It's one possible reality check. Whether seeing your ideas in real life operation would change your mind about them I don't know.

The governance that limited Maddox's freedom of contract did not impose a totalitarian dictatorship upon him - despite his rhetoric, matching yours. Instead, it increased the freedom of contract for all the black people in Maddox's community.

No, it's not actually all that easy to invent informative and clarifying models of economic exchange. Neither is their invention my doing, or the choice of assumptions etc my own. It's all standard, peer-reviewed, professional stuff. None of it originates in my beliefs. Here's one guy you can catch up on: https://basu.economics.cornell.edu/bib.html (lay summary here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-economics-of-child-la/ ), one paragraph summary here: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2003/09/the_economics_o_1.html .

The point is that your thinking is without support in fact or in theory - you can claim that child labor, say, will always go away on its own under a free market system, but you have no theory or evidence or argument to support such an unlikely assertion. You appear to believe that stable sub-optimal equilibria themselves, any of them, are impossible in a free market system - that an economy cannot get stuck in a hole, in principle - but you have no argument or evidence to support such an extraordinary claim.

That's how Lester Maddox's free market system worked in Georgia. The reasonable self defense was accomplished by ax handles used to beat agitators and niggerlovers, and the reputation system worked so well that no business in the entire region dared to racially integrate its dealings in goods and services.

We already have that - the real life version, anyway.

 

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A long list of references is nothing helpful, because I do not plan to study this domain of science, which I suspect for being highly ideologized "science". If you want to spend some money of such research, feel free to do this, I don't.

The third link is better, and, given that this guy acknowledges such points as "A 1990s boycott of Nepalese carpets, made with child labor, led many of those children to become reemployed as prostitutes.", he really seems to be a guy who cares about the consequences, instead of being a purely ideological child protection Nazi. The idea that in a situation where the economy is anyway moving away from child labor, the law can increase the speed, is in itself a reasonable one, this is essentially what is done in most countries. But, first, the question if this measure is positive, or if it would have been better than child labor would have existed a little bit longer, but the wealth increasing a little bit faster, is pure speculation.

I think it is reasonable to look at the extremal cases. 1.) An economy where child labor is necessary for subsistence for many families. Here making it illegal does not prevent child labor, but makes it more probable that they will be exploited, simply because they cannot have any legal protection - if the police learns about it, the job is lost. Then, it increases corruption, the children have to pay policemen to close their eyes. Some children move toward criminality and prostitution. Thus, the overall result is obviously harmful. 2.) A rich society, child labor plays essentially no role. So, it will be a tiny minority which uses child labor - some of the really poor. The effect of the law is that these minorities have less possibilities to earn income by work. Thus, they will likely solve their problems using the remaining possibilities - criminality or prostitution.

I can start with the second paragraph of your third link: "Obviously wealth is the best cure for hazardous and oppressive child labor. By the latter part of the 19th century, child labor was declining in the richer nations." Add the idea that free markets are the best way to increase wealth, and you have my theory. The other big point - the problem that working children are forced to use even worse alternatives - has been also supported by your own source.

No. Of course, sub-optimal equilibria are possible. But what is an equilibrium changes if society changes, and if child labor is optimal changes if the society becomes richer.

which is, of course, far beyond reasonable self-defense. Reasonable self-defense against agitation starts from simply ignoring the agitator and ends with counter-propaganda, the use of force is not justified. And force is certainly completely inappropriate to react to some private preference like loving niggers. Propaganda may be a nasty thing, in particular if it is on the border of stalking one can argue that some self-defense measures are justified. But doing something against "niggerlovers" is clearly aggression, to apply the word "self-defense" in such a situation is nonsense.

 

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No, you misunderstood. The idea is that an economy stuck in a child labor trap will remain in it, despite higher equilibriums being available, until forced off. Market forces alone will not move an economy off of a stable equilibrium.

OK.

"1.) An economy where child labor is necessary for subsistence for many families " The "necessity" is an aspect of equilibrium stability - in any modern day economy, meaning one that uses money for trade of goods and services, other equilibria exist, is the point. Their necessities will be different. Getting to them is the challenge.
"2) " A rich society, child labor plays essentially no role " Of course - child labor traps an economy in poverty. If you want a rich society, or anything other than the most miserable of poverty, you have to reserve childhood as a time of investment.

If a society is shortsighted and ignorant enough to force such families to support themselves, then many bad consequences follow. But there is no reason to assume that. A society aware of the economic penalties of child labor might (and many have) make much less societally damaging arrangements for this tiny minority.

A stable market equilibrium will not change unless forced by agencies outside the market, by definition. Child labor economies are in a stable labor market equilibrium, very often.

Says who? The libertarian capitalists defending their freedom of contract against those who were using force to make them do business with black people thought they were defending themselves and their fundamental rights against violent aggression. And you agree with them completely, in all your posts above. You have no problem with their assessments and their reasoning, until we get to the part where a real life example shows up. And it's Lester Maddox, racial bigot in a region dominated by racial bigots. And freedom of contract for white folks turns out to mean black folks cannot get a drink of water from the public fountains, or go to the nearest hospital when injured or taken sick, or find employment in any job paying more than a regular white person earns, or say hello to an attractive woman on the street.

 

This is not at all a fact. As far as I know, making child labor illegal has worked in states where it was already in decline because no longer necessary. The decrease in the role of child labor was a consequence of economical growth. Which was, obviously, possible in these societies.

A large part of traditional child labor is support of the family business - and, therefore, combined with the necessary education to do this job, given by teachers very interested in giving them a good education in this relation, for the own interest too (economic security at old age). This, of course, is no investment into education necessary for different jobs - but the child labor also leads, for the family, to additional income, which allows investments into the own business. Once the economic pressure decreases, the investment in education increases. In a free society, this can start with small investments into somebody who teaches the children how to read, write, and count, which needs much less investment than large public schools. This is usually also much more efficient than public schooling, because the children are much more interested to learn.

So, even on a family level there is a way out. The situation for a society as a whole is much less problematic, because no society needs 100% educated (except for ideological reasons). There will be different groups, from rich to poor, with different levels of necessity for child labor on the family level. The richer - or, more accurate, all who can afford this - will educate their children as good as possible, because this gives them better jobs. So, with an increasing number of people of people rich enough to educate their children, there will be also an increasing number of educated people to get the good jobs, which leads to increasing income for the society as a whole. Which, of course, trickles down, even if nobody from the left believes this.

Forbidding child labor in a situation where it is yet necessary for large groups is, instead, harmful for the economy as a whole.

That means, you use meaningless economic science. Real economy changes. Real market economies too. Equilibrium is essentially only a theoretical entity without much practical relevance. Every invitation (if not forbidden by patent law) will be used to produce better, cheaper, or simply more things, and changes the equilibrium. And this happens because of the market forces. The agencies outside the market only prevent this.

Usually in highly restricted economies, where the market is unable to develop. Where every successful business has to pay a lot of bribes to the state to survive.

And, once they are forced to "make business" with somebody they don't want to make any business, they are right. They defend themself against a form of slavery.

But it is something complety different to use force against other people, named "niggerlovers", simply because they want to make business with blacks. This is itself aggression.

The difference is simple and clear. Everybody has the right of freedom of contract, and of discrimination as part of this freedom. Those who don't want make business with blacks should have the right not to make business with blacks, and the "niggerlovers" should have the right to do this. This is what libertarian principles prescribe. And they do this in a sufficiently simple and easy to understand form. So, no, I agree with them only in one part - their own right to refuse to serve blacks. I completely disagree with what they do against "niggerlovers" who want to make business with blacks.

Libertarianism is a minority position, you are not libertarian, but want to force white people to serve blacks (as a sort of retaliation for slavery or so), and those who beat "niggerlovers" are also not libertarians, because they want to prevent freedom of contract for niggerlovers.

Again, if "public fontain" means something build for taxpayer's money, then there is no right of discrimination, because the blacks have also, via their taxes, paid for this fontain. If it stands on private ground, and has been build with private money, to name it "public" is only a form (or a first step) of expropriation of private property. Same for the hospital. Same for the job. And, of course, the laws which distinguish between "saying hello" and stalking should be also based on equality before the law.

It seems, you have a moralistic view of law: The law should enforce good behaviour and punish bad behaviour, and what is good and what is bad depends on your personal feelings. The libertarian approach is completely different. It is based on simple principles, and if one does not violate these principles, one can do what one likes - without having to care if you find this behaviour good or not.

The result of your approach is that you think racism is bad, thus, every behaviour (whatever it is) somebody makes out of racist intentions is inherently bad and should be forbidden. This combines scientific research about IQ differences between races with some verbal expressions of some bigots, with the refusal to have business with blacks, with the beating of "niggerlovers" up to KKK lynching into one big basket named "racism". And the people in this basket are the racist bigots, the subhumans of your variant of fascism.

The libertarian thinks completely different. He acknowledges that people are different, that there will be conflicts between them, some will hate others, and the best way to preserve peace is to separate those who hate each other, giving them the possibility to live their lives without those of the hated groups. And then one needs simple principles which allow everybody to do this, and to minize conflicts if, nonetheless, some contacts with the hated groups are unavoidable. Libertarianism cares about these principles. And these principles will defend the rights of the bigots not to serve blacks as well as the right of the "niggerlovers" to make business with blacks without being beaten by the racist bigots.

 

Since when is cheap labor "no longer necessary" to a business?

Most child labor was in mills and coal mines.

 

Who cares about the necessities of the business? If the families no longer need the child labor income for their subsistence, their children are no longer available on the labor market.

The first consequence is that they have to pay more. Which increases the income of those families which yet depend on child labor, and helps them to reach a level where they no longer need it.

 

Since when have we ended poverty? You really think no one needs more income?

 

Bill Gates also needs more income. Does that mean he is poor?

 

Yes, it is. It's the definition of a stable equilibrium, and they have been proven to exist theoretically (I linked for you) and found in real life in many places (also linked, somewhat).

It's almost never "necessary".

It was a cause of the economic growth, according to theory and apparent reality.

Of course. It had been possible for a long time, but not happening. Multiple equilibria are almost always present - and most of them are superior to the child labor one - but child labor perpetuates itself, holds the economy in the suboptimal equilibrium in which it is necessary, depresses growth in an industrial economy.

But in Maddox's community blacks did not pay much in taxes, since they were seldom permitted to own high tax property or work at highly paid jobs or buy luxury goods with large sales taxes and so forth. So the white people - who paid the taxes - claimed the freedom of that contract. Are you going to deny the right of discrimination to the people who paid for this stuff? Maddox said no.

You are practically quoting Lester Maddox. Two peas in a pod. And so black people don't get medical care like white people - whether they can afford it or not. And they don't get to swim in the pools, work at the good jobs, etc.

So own it - that's called "segregation", and we have many examples of societies run like that in America. You should be happy to showcase your theory by pointing to its real life exemplifications. Lester Maddox's community and society, say.

 

He doesn't need more income.

 

About child labor it makes no sense to answer, you believe in your beliefs about stable child labor, independent of the fact that its role has changed often enough without legislation, ok, your choice.

For libertarian principles irrelevant. As far as a libertarian accepts states at all, it is clear out of principle that, once it is based on taxes from all people, should handle all people on equal foot.

I don't care what Maddox thinks. If you think that I'm "practically quoting" him, this is simply some sort of defamatory attack - because it is quite obvious, that you hate him and consider him as something similar to the Antichrist - but I don't really care. You like to use defamation, ok, this is typical today, democratic level of political discussion, such is life.

No, it is not called segregation, and you very well know the difference.

At least I think that you are not that stupid not to understand the difference between a society where everybody has the right to decide with which people he wants to make business, and a society where whites are obliged to make business only with whites and blacks only with blacks, named segregation, where against "niggerlovers" is used force. Thus, I consider this simply as yet another example of defamation.

 

They aren't "beliefs", they are mathematical consequences of standard market theory, and observed realities. You seem to have mistaken the direction of argument - no one is claiming that force of law is the only outside force that can move a child labor economy to a new and better stable equilibrium. The claims is only that free market forces within the existing economy cannot. It does not move by itself.

But often in the racial segregation cases it is not based on taxes from all people - often, only white people are in the relevant tax base, or allowed to donate to build fountains, etc. In many small communities in the US park benches and drinking fountains and bandstands and warming houses and field lights and so forth are donated by local clubs for public use - these clubs often restricted their membership to white men.

Besides, your fellow "libertarians" who want to impose their racial bigotry have a different conception - they think those who actually pay the taxes should have more say in how these taxes are spent. "No representation without taxation" is the slogan, if I'm not mistaken.

It's a statement of obvious fact. If you don't care what the people who put your principles into action in the real world ended up doing, more fool you. Let me remind you what you posted:

That's what Maddox was advocating: separating the races , preserving the peace, defending what he called "our way of life".

It damn well is called segregation. Its real life proponents - such as Lester Maddox - called it segregation. That's its name.

I've seen hundreds of examples of no such difference existing. Consider the game of professional baseball before Jackie Robinson.

Force was not required, in general, for racial segregation - since white libertarian segregationists own almost all the resources and occupy most of the official posts (this is still true), anyone who wanted to buy a house or get a loan or eat at a restaurant or play a game of baseball or send their kids to school or receive timely police and fire protection, cooperated of their own free will. Actual force was only used in self defense, as defined by a white person feeling attacked and other white people agreeing of their own free will.

I agree it's defamatory. Unfortunately, it's also accurate.

 

"Standard market theory" is, of course, only an idealization. And equilibrium theory is an idealization which is almost certainly wrong, because the economy changes. Simple technical progress can be, of course, named "outside force", even if the reason why people apply technical progress is closely connected with the market - in a free market, technical progress will be applied faster than in a heavily regulated or socialist economy. This is a reason why in a free market the notion of "equilibrium" is a purely theoretical construction with not much practical importance. It is important for human beings who want to understand what happens. To understand, we have to simplify, and equilibrium is a powerful method of simplification. But the real free market in not in equilibrium.

Whatever, the general principles should not make a difference between people. The Golden Rule does not make a difference, the Non-Aggression Principle too, basic principles like freedom of contract, self-ownership, and other libertarian concepts also make no difference.

Of course, different people have different friends, different property, like to do different things on their property, and can prefer to segregate.

Yes. There are libertarians who want some minimal state, and, in this case, there is a big problem how this state will be ruled.

I don't want a state at all, and all what I propose as conditions for a state are some sort of compromise, nothing more. The state which these minarchists want, will be probably less evil, and, anyway, in comparison with the actual states much less evil. But it will be nonetheless evil.

The point is that there is a real danger: What if there is a majority which does not pay taxes, or pays only formal, but receives more from the state than it pays? In this case, the majority will have the power to increase this exploitation even more. The result would be a sort of slavery. Those who pay the taxes would have, essentially, nothing to say, the taxes would therefore increase until the system crashes. This is not an equilibrium, but much worse, an instability.

The proposal that only those who actually pay real taxes have the right to vote solves this instability problem.

Please stop distributing defamations that I propose separating the races.

I propose freedom of contract, freedom of association. This includes freedom of some racist bigots to associate with other racist bigots to create racist communities, but is nonetheless something completely different from racial segregation. Because the white people who are not racists have the right to associate with blacks, which would be forbidden if there would be separation of races.

The racist bigots want to forbid associations with mixed races, the antiracist bigots want to forbid associations with segregations, what unites them is their fight against freedom of association.

Ok, Maddox wants segregation, but then stop to call Maddox a libertarian. Somebody who fights against freedom of association is not a libertarian.

 

? The stable child labor economies are matters of observation, not just theory. What the theory does is prove that you don't need a market distortion or political interference to keep an economy in a suboptimal condition of child labor (market pricing of labor will do that all by itself ) but rather to get it out of that trap (which market pricing of labor will not do).

That hasn't been true in real life. Look around.

That's the excuse for not taxing rich people, yep. You and Lester Maddox and Ronald Reagan, threatened by all those dark skinned freeloaders.

Since real life experience has had so little influence on your thinking it is not surprising that the gaping hole in that argument is invisible to you, so this is not as condescendingly meant as it appears: the higher the degree of economic inequality in a given economy the greater the need for government spending on infrastructure and other services for the lower classes, who could not otherwise afford them. That's not a threat, but a homeostatic correction in a well run economy - compounding wealth in the wealthy is taxed away, and used to provide government services for the public in general. That's how it's supposed to work. That's not a "danger", but a feature.

And denies poor people, especially poor black people in Lester Maddox's home communities, the right to vote. Win Win.

No, actually that is exactly what racial segregation is.

Which delusion is how you came by the assumption that there was a law against renting motel rooms to black people all over the south. Black people had to sleep in their cars, or in the ditches, or on bus and train station benches, or in clandestine private homes, because of the freedom of contract enjoyed by white bigots.

The exclusion of black players from major league baseball in the US prior to 1947 was not a matter of law, but a consequence of freedom of contract as enjoyed by white bigots.

There is no such thing as "associations with segregations". The anti-racist folks do not want to forbid any associations between people.

It's your quote. I'm just quoting you, agreeing with Lester Maddox that different kinds of people who have conflicts and hatred between them should be segregated.

His principles were exactly the same as the ones you explicitly labeled "libertarian" right here. Do I need to quote you again?

 

No, this is not proven. You are, obviously, ready to believe it is, but this does not make these "proofs" proofs. You need market distortions, and a lot of them, to prevent economy from raising, and if it raises, child labor becomes unnecessary.

I look around, and it has been true. In all cases where direct comparison between highly regularized economies and free market based ones are possible the free market economies are more successful.

No, this is not proven. You are, obviously, ready to believe it is, but this does not make these "proofs" proofs. You need market distortions, and a lot of them, to prevent economy from raising, and if it raises, child labor becomes unnecessary.

I couldn't care less about american economy, instead, I would be happy if it goes rapidly down, because this would decrease the american danger for the rest of the world. This would not be nice for the white as well as for the black people living in the US, but good for whites and blacks in the rest of the world.

Fine. I have described a danger, a clear instability - but this, it appears, is not a danger but a feature. Ok, I could have guessed it: Whatever destroys the evil capitalist society is not danger, but a feature.

And, therefore, I couldn't care less about this particular case. Once it was not forbidden for blacks together with the "niggerlovers" to create an own baseball league (or was it? I don't know), this would be indeed a case of freedom of contract.

Why, then, your rants against a harmless baseball league restricted to white players only? Hey, these guys are simply playing baseball. Maybe, they want to restrict it to whites for the same reason that in most forms of sport we have segregation between men and women, and paralympics are segregated too, because else almost no women would have a chance to win?

Its not my quote, liar! You know very well that there is a great difference between giving people the freedom to segregate, by their own decision, and forcing them to segregate, as implied by "should be segregated". And I underscore this difference all the time, so that you should be already aware of this. If there would have been only one or two posts, one could think about a misunderstanding, may be I have not be clear enough about this difference. But I think this can be already excluded now.

Yes, whenever you distribute such defamations, please make explicit quotes! Maybe you are really that stupid that you cannot distinguish between the rights of people to do something and forcing them to do something, and will show this stupidity by distorting the meaning of my words, but, once you quote them, this will be at least obvious to the readers. (But I don't believe that you are that stupid - I think you want to use defamation.)

 

All this from the forum's chief whinger of other people throwing "supposed insults" at Schmezer! Oh Pot, Kettle, Black!

Thank fuck I say that your political views, just like your scientific views will never see the light of day!

 

Thank you, this makes me even more optimistic, coming from a believer that flat Earth theory is true because it can be used in a certain domain of applicability.

There is, anyway, a good base for optimism, given that the new technology - the global reputational system based on electronic signatures - will be implemented anyway, and, after some time, will have a sufficiently large group of followers. This group, then, has all the advantages which today are available only to small groups which are based on repuation. But this group is open, everybody can participate and obtain reputation for holding promises and contracts, with the rule "one strike and you are out". Thus, it is predictable that this group will grow and, after a short time, cover many important people. Simple economics - people will prefer to make contracts where they can be sure that the other side does not cheat, the reputational system will increase this probability, thus, they will use it.

After this, an important part of state power, namely private conflict resolution, will be outside the control of the state. Predictable, because the natural result of a simple new technology.

This, together with other technologies protecting privacy (protection from police spies with encryption, Tor-like provate networks, electronic currencies like bitcoin out of control of governments) creates a new world without a state - at least for those who decide to use it, which will become the new elite. Try to fight this new elite with the state, and you will fail.

And then we will see what the new elite decides about what to do with the remains of the state. This will be the interesting thing. May be the state will remain, even as a democratic one, for the stupid sheeple who don't get it that they are handled like slaves. Who knows, nobody can tell us that this new elite consist of morally good people, some of them may feel quite comfortable using stupid democratic people as slaves.

But I don't believe in this scenario. Because the reputational system is open anyway, and its advantages will be obvious even for quite stupid people. So, they will use it too. They will use it to sign contracts, and they will fulfill these contracts - even if this sometimes leads to unwanted consequences like loosing the job in a government agency or so, because the penalty of the reputational system is more serious: One contract violation and you are out. The result will be a totally corrupt state, even more corrupt than the Ukraine now, moreover, a state which cannot tax the rich, because the accounts of the rich (the real ones, not the fake accounts for taxation) are not accessible for the state. Thus, a state which taxes what he can access in real life, which hits the poor much more than the rich, and distributes the taxes via bribery schemes among the rich. And a state without supporting mass media, because the elite, which matters, has better information channels, and the mass media are ignored by everybody except the completely stupid.

In this scenario, how long will the state survive?

 

Say a republican wanted to run as a democratic candidate in the up coming presidential election. At the same time, he says he wants to maintain his beliefs as a republican and opposes most of their beliefs. Do the democrats have to supply him with resources, equally, or can they discriminate against him, and tell him to hit the road because their beliefs are in conflict? Or do they have to serve him?

As far as child labor, say a parent gives their child an allowance and expects him to her to do certain tasks, with the allowance less that it would cost them, if done by a professional; mow the lawn for $10 instead of $50. Is this exploitation of children, or is this a teachable moment? Does this income need to be reported, or will it be done under the table and why? Child labor occurs in places where children want/need money, for independence, but the parents can't provide an under the table allowance job; poor countries.

 

Certainly longer than your continued long rants about SFA.