Freedom, Society, and State - Ludwig von Mises Institute

itself coerCive, but either may be depending on how
they are undertaken.
While voluntary private discrimination would be
permitted, it should be noted that individualist anarchi
s t s bel i eve t hat the rna r ke t wo u I d ten d tom i n i mi z e
such behavior by placing the cost squarely on the
shoulders of the property owner involved. Suppose,
says Rothbard, that a landlord of an apartment building
is a great admirer of six-foot Swedish­
Americans. and decides to rent his apartments
only to fami 1 ies of such a group. In the
f r e e soc i e t y i t wo u 1d be full yin his rig h t
to do so. bu t he wo u 1del ear 1y s u f fer a I a r g e
monetary loss 8S 8 result. For this means
that he would have to turn away tenant after
tenant in an endless quest for very tall
Swedish-Americans. While this may be considered
an extreme example, the effect is exactly
the same, though differing in degree, for
any sort of personal discrimination in the
marketplace. If, for example, the landlord
dislikes redheads and determines not to rent
his apartments to them, he will suffer
losses, al though not as severely as in the
first example.(34)
This argument is not altogether convincing, for the
market is ethically neutral and will, as a general
r u Ie. ref I e c t the val ue s dom ina ntin the c omm un i t Y. I t
i s c e r t a i n 1yeo nee i v a b 1 e t hat ina c omm un i t Y wh ere
ant i - b 1a c k. ant i - s em i tic 0 ran t i - redh e a d fee lin g isextremely
high. the "costs" of doing business with a member
of such an anathematized group would also be very
high. In" fact, a businessman who is not himself prejudiced
may find tha t his employees refuse to work wi th
blacks or Jews, or that his customers refuse to buy
from him if he employs such "undes"irables." In such
cases the market would actually intensify discrimination
by imposing a heavy cost for not discriminating.
Still, it is likely that the overall effect of
the market is to reduce rather than intensify the incidence
of discrimination. For, as Milton Friedman has
poi n ted 0 u t, nth e pur c has e r 0 f b rea d do e s not know
wh€ther it was made from wheat grown by a white man or
a Neg r 0, b Y a C h r i s t ian 0 r 8 J ew . " I tis precisely
this "impersonality of the market,l1 he notes, that
It s epa rat e sec 0 nom i cae t i v i t i € S from po lit 1 ca I views 'I ,
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