But why were they “laws”? They were the actions of a powerful government: a government powerful enough to impose regulations on where people lived, where they worked, where they shopped, and where they ate. They are examples of what the abolitionists hoped to avoid when they developed the concepts of a “limited government” and a “weak government” — those abolitionists who were agitating to end slavery already during the 1700s.
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, “segregation was imposed governmentally,” in the words of historian Ben Shapiro. It was not a social or cultural desire. It had to be imposed precisely because society and culture would not voluntarily go along with it.
It was especially necessary for governments to impose segregation on businesses. In the world of buying and selling, racial prejudice makes no sense. A business is not interested in the color of a person’s skin; it is interested in a person’s money. A consumer is not interested in a manufacturer’s gene pool; she or he is interested in the quality and price of a product.
Because a “free market” economy is intrinsically anti-racist, racists needed the government to control the businesses. If the country had a weak and limited government, it would not have been able to enforce a racist agenda. Progress toward justice and toward civil rights is the search for a weak government.
Free and unregulated markets are economies in which customers and businesses are free to make choices. In situations in which the government did not force businesses to segregate by means of Jim Crow Laws, they were already desegregating even before any civil rights legislation was enacted, as historian Ben Shapiro writes:
In February 1960, four black students in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat down at the counter at Woolworth’s. This was four years before the Civil Rights Act. By July 1960, Woolworth’s lunch counter desegregated itself, after losing $200,000. The market worked.
Racists have an affinity toward strong controlling governments: with such power, the racists can force segregation on society. Anti-racists have a desire for a weak and limited government: under such governments, businesses are free to buy and sell for motives of profit instead of motives of race.
“The bottom line is that racists cannot trust free markets to racially discriminate,” writes economist Walter Williams. “Racists need the force of government to have success.”
Williams goes on to report that “from the 1880s into the 1960s” it was not business, but government, that “enforced some form of segregation through what were known as Jim Crow laws.”
If a business ever acts in a racist manner, it usually is because the government forces it to do so. Business don’t often want to act in a racist way, because racial calculations don’t usually maximize profits.
Those few businesses which act in racist ways usually pay the price. For example, Lester Maddox owned and operated a restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. He would not allow any African-Americans into the restaurant as customers. When three Black people walked up to the restaurant in April 1964 and asked to be seated, he responded by brandishing an ax handle, implying his willingness to use violence. Lester Maddox’s racist ways were not profitable, and soon he and his restaurant were out of business. Meanwhile, other restaurants in Atlanta who happily served any paying customer continued profitably. Although a failure in business, Lester Maddox was rewarded for his racist actions: the Democratic Party chose him as its leader and as governor of Georgia.
The example of Maddox is the example of a business whose racist ways of operating do not optimize profit; the business suffers as a result. By contrast, the Montgomery Bus Boycott shows how an anti-racist company, National City Lines (NCL), was forced by the government to act in racist ways. NCL was a private company which was hired by various cities to operate bus systems in those cities. NCL had been hired by Montgomery, Alabama to run the city’s buses. But the city government imposed a restriction on NCL. It insisted that the buses be segregated.
After examining the “sit in” actions at segregated lunch counters, Ben Shapiro looks at the bus example:
Then there’s the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1955, city ordinances required segregation on buses. Rosa Parks and the NAACP organized a massive boycott that resulted in 40,000 black people refusing to take the buses the day after Parks’ famous refusal to move to the back of the bus. The only reason that the bus company refused to abide by the demands of the boycotters is that they were in negotiations with the city, and the city ordinances prevented them from doing so.
Not only did the government of Montgomery inflict segregation on the passengers of the buses, but it regulated the bus company, forcing it to segregate, and thereby forcing it to act in a way which did not optimize profits. Left to their own devices, businesses will desegregate, because segregation is not the most profitable option. Businesses will segregate only when governments force them to do so, as Shapiro explains:
The market is better at uprooting such discrimination than the government is without invading the rights of private business owners to choose their clientele.
The real estate sector provides a clear example. Readers will know that the term “redlining” refers to the practice of marking some neighborhoods as “off limits” to Black homebuyers. This practice was often established by means of “covenants” in real estate deeds. Racists were able to keep African-American home-buyers out of neighborhoods only because the government enforced these real estate covenants. If the government were a limited government, which allowed free market real estate transactions, then it would not have been powerful enough to keep Black people out of these neighborhoods.
Freed from the restraints imposed by Jim Crow Laws, real estate agents and home sellers would have sold houses to African-Americans. Those who sell real estate seek only to sell to the highest bidder; sellers have no interest in skin color or gene pools.
The most powerful tool to promote justice and to advance civil rights is an unregulated business environment. When buyers and sellers are free to simply look for the “best deal,” then racism is quickly ignored in favor of profit.
Racism without a connection to a strong government is a nasty, evil, and toothless sentiment. It is ugly, but also relatively powerless. Racism in the presence of a strong government is empowered to inflict harm, pain, and suffering. When a society ordains a limited government, instead of powerful government, racism is prevented from having concrete effects.
