Discrimination and Segregation - Dr. Walter E. Williams

[Idaho_Cowboy]

Discrimination and Segregation
By Walter Williams
Published Oct. 5, 2016
Read more at http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams100516.php3#7aCt6fFLsUYAmPZ0.99

I was invited, along with several other American professors, to deliver lectures at South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in 1979.

Pieter Willem Botha was the prime minister, and apartheid, though becoming a bit relaxed, was the law of the land. Under apartheid, intermarriage between blacks, coloureds and Indians on the one hand and whites was prohibited.

There was the Group Areas Act, which determined where different races could live. In addition to many other racially discriminatory laws, there were job reservation laws that determined who could hold what jobs by race.

My lecture sought to produce the argument that in free market settings, one is apt to observe less racial discrimination because it is costly to both the discriminated and the discriminator.

So my lecture began with this question: Why doesn't South Africa have a law against elephants flying?...
...
...The bottom line is that racists cannot trust free markets to racially discriminate. Free markets, with their dispersion of power, have little respect for race. Racial solidarity could not prevent white South African businessmen from contravening laws that banned them from hiring blacks in jobs "reserved" for whites. In the U.S., Jim Crow laws were frequently ignored. In South Africa, the U.S. and elsewhere, the private desire for profits and other personal gain challenged racial loyalty. Racists need the force of government to have success.
Read more at http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams100516.php3#7aCt6fFLsUYAmPZ0.99

Dr. Walter E. Williams really nails it on this one.