Reflecting on the death of Rosa Parks, Thomas Sowell makes an important point: Racial segregation was conceived, passed and enforced by government, not a lack of government. Today’s civil rights proponents who decry the profit motive and unfettered markets don’t realize that it was state manipulation of the free market that brought about segregation. Had the state not intervened, we’d have never experienced Jim Crow.

It was politics that segregated the races because the incentives of the political process are different from the incentives of the economic process. Both blacks and whites spent money to ride the buses but, after the disenfranchisement of black voters in the late 19th and early 20th century, only whites counted in the political process.

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The incentives of the economic system and the incentives of the political system were not only different, they clashed. Private owners of streetcar, bus, and railroad companies in the South lobbied against the Jim Crow laws while these laws were being written, challenged them in the courts after the laws were passed, and then dragged their feet in enforcing those laws after they were upheld by the courts.

These tactics delayed the enforcement of Jim Crow seating laws for years in some places. Then company employees began to be arrested for not enforcing such laws and at least one president of a streetcar company was threatened with jail if he didn’t comply.

None of this resistance was based on a desire for civil rights for blacks. It was based on a fear of losing money if racial segregation caused black customers to use public transportation less often than they would have in the absence of this affront.

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People who decry the fact that businesses are in business “just to make money” seldom understand the implications of what they are saying. You make money by doing what other people want, not what you want.

Black people’s money was just as good as white people’s money, even though that was not the case when it came to votes.

It’s difficult to run a successful business while hating and discriminating against your customers. Markets are infinitely better at fostering respect and understanding than any government diversity program, hate crimes law, or sensitivity training, because the best businesses need to understand customers’ needs in order to competitively cater to them. Insult your customers, and watch them flee. Capitalism by nature integrates. Jim Crow-like segregation could never have taken place without the hand of the state.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 28th, 2005 at 10:31 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.