8 ms·

In societies that have full respect for private property, I should be able to refuse to do business with you for any reason, including the color of your shoes,

In societies that have full respect for private property, I should be able to refuse to do business with you for any reason, including the color of your shoes, the kind of music you listen to, or your marital preferences. Whether it is wise or rationally self-interested to do so is a different question.

the-dude 6y ago
You are carefully tiptoeing around race & gender here.
- jobeirne 6y ago
  Nope - in free societies you should be able to refuse service on any grounds, including those things. Otherwise you're permitting the government to forcibly compel you to allocate your time and resources to ends they define. In free societies, governments should only be able to forcibly compel people not to do things (murder, threaten, steal, etc.) - see the concept of "negative rights."
  - VBprogrammer 6y ago
    I mean this in the nicest possible way; have you ever faced discrimination based on the colour of your skin, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities or anything else which is protected by law in most civilised countries? If, like a significant portion of the HN audience, you are straight, white, middle class and male it's probably easier for you to dismiss the right to fair treatment than it might be for individuals in those categories.
    - kuzimoto 6y ago
      I don't agree with discrimination, and would never seek to engage in that myself. With that being said, in the private sector, there really is no "right to fair treatment" with exceptions for anything required by law for affirmative action. By forcing fairness (where a business must provide service to someone it doesn't want to), you are simultaneously removing the freedom of association [0]. [0] While not explicitly stated in the US constitution is argued to be a fundamental human right.
    - dnautics 6y ago
      I have. And you know what, civil rights laws did jack all to protect me. I'm much happier knowing that the people that operate that business were racist jerks (instead of, say, them being forced to serve me and spit in my food, which would be a health concern), and I have dissuaded probably on the order of a hundred people from going to that place, and that was in the era before social media.
      - monocasa 6y ago
        Why didn't that strategy work for black people in the 1960s? Or LGBT more recently?
        dnautics 6y ago
        My claim is it didn't. You don't think black people were discriminated against in private locations well past the 1960s? What absolutely worked in the 1960s, was the banning of government REQUIRING segregation in private entities by law (which by the way, many companies absolutely chafed at, because quite frankly segregating your business is a cost-sinking pain in the ass to arrange and enforce). Nobody is disputing that CRA I and CRA II were much needed reforms.
        monocasa 6y ago
        If that were the case, then de facto segregation wouldn't be increasing even to this day. Without the government enforcing segregation, people started separating themselves physically. Schools for instance are more segregated than they were in 1975. Segregation wasn't a case of the government pushing these ideas on to unwilling populace.
        _-david-_ 6y ago
        This could actually be because of forced busing of whites to black schools. Many parents want to send their kid to the best school and were willing to move to avoid their kids going to worse schools. White parents were more likely to be able to afford to move which resulted in them leaving. Minorities tended to be poorer and could not leave and stayed in the areas with the worse schools. Kids who go to worse schools are less likely to get out of poverty so they stayed in the same poor areas and had kids in the same area repeating the cycle. Since schools are typically given money based on property tax it meant that the schools in poor areas tended to receive less funding. There are also issues with teachers getting lower pay if they were in a poorer school. I think these issues are fixed in some states but there are still issues related to this in various states.
  - kuzimoto 6y ago
    You are completely right. In a free society you should have the liberty to do business with whomever you want (no matter how politically in-correct your reasoning is). The great thing about this, is that someone else will realize there is now an under-served market, and create a business to fulfill that need. The same case can be made for hiring practices.
    - VBprogrammer 6y ago
      > is that someone else will realize there is now an under-served market, and create a business to fulfill that need. That is a childishly simplistic understanding of how free markets work. There is no way a retail business would be established to service the needs of 2% of the population who are wheelchair users for example, when they could easily make their stores considerably more efficient by making the aisles a little narrower.
      - roenxi 6y ago
        > There is no way a retail business would be established to service the needs of 2% of the population Slow down there, you're going to need more evidence than that to claim that an underserved segment of the population isn't an attractive commercial target. I agree that wheelchair users might be comparatively expensive customers, but if that 2% stat is correct they would be profitable to someone. A business with 2% of the market as a captive audience is going to be profitable.
        VBprogrammer 6y ago
        Based loosely on 1.2 million wheelchair users in the UK for a population of 50 million it's in the right ballpark. Honestly, I think the claim that the free market would solve this is so outlandish that the burden of proof is on those who believe it. Maybe, just maybe, in a dense population centre like London their needs would be met by a few specialist 'accessable' stores. But what about some rural town of a few thousand people?
        6y ago
  - nogabebop23 6y ago
    HOw do you reconcile not forcing someone to do something with depriving another of life & liberty? The entire reason for protected classes is to prevent the majority from harming the minority. >> forcibly compel you to allocate your time and resources to ends they define. ...as has been SOP in even the most permissive of societies throughout history. I'm all for classical liberal ideals influencing the world, but these extreme libertarian rules and values have never existed outside the minds of their most zealous believers and you don't have to get too far into the details to see their contradictions.
  - code_sloth 6y ago
    In a your version of a free society, what happens when everyone refuses you EVERY single service because random-reason? They sure as heck aren't murdering, stealing, nor threatening you. They're just refusing to sell you anything because of random-reason, forever. Those services include sales of any food, water, shelter. Taking it further, what if a majority of businesses gradually decide to be racist and refuse all services just because they can? Not serving minorities wouldn't really impact their bottom line all that much. The minorities would literally die off. It's easy to talk about "rights" as if they exist in a vacuum i.e. my rights are mine and they do not affect anyone else, ergo my rights should be absolute. They are not, and should not. Reality is usually a tenuous balance of rights (usually tilted towards the majority) that people participating in civil society share.
    - 0-O-0 6y ago
      > what happens when everyone refuses you EVERY single service If I'll ever find my self in a situation like this - I'll pack my things and run. I'm not going to be happy in a place like this even if government will force those people to tolerate me. > if a majority of businesses gradually decide to be racist and refuse all services just because they can That means anyone entrepreneurial enough will have access to an underserved niche market.
      - vertex-four 6y ago
        Unfortunately, packing your things and running is basically impossible for most people anywhere close to that situation because borders are enforced and countries will find any excuse possible to avoid granting refugee status. The "you could've slept in a forest, never interacted with anyone, and foraged for plants for survival" kind of excuse that LGBT folks fleeing from countries where they're likely to get murdered get. An underserved niche market of people who have significantly less money because they can't find work - and your company won't hire them because your other customers who actually have money will boycott you - isn't worth much.
        rdgthree 6y ago
  - afiori 6y ago
    > In free societies, governments should only be able to forcibly compel people not to do things Well, how about "don't discriminate"? I am not saying it is the perfect solution, but if you want to refuse a service you can always terminate your commercial venture. I do not necessarily see this a clear cut case of positive/negative right. Similarly to how the state can compel you to get a driving license to drive. You can just give up on driving.
  - psychoslave 6y ago
    >Nope - in free societies you should be able to refuse service on any grounds, including those things. You know, in free societies, there is society. That is very different from "wild reign of every impulse going through the head of an individual", which of course would be impossible anyway as an individual is itself permanently full of conflicting impulses. Not to do things and do things is only a matter of wording. Forbidding to kill people is equivalent with compelling to do something: people are compelled to repress their possible will to kill other people. Accepting to follow an interdiction is doing something. Only something that doesn't exist won't act in any way or an other.
Kaze404 6y ago
This is why nobody listens to libertarians.
drekembe 6y ago
Maybe, but I would rather live in a society that has full respect for people than full respect for private property.
- kuzimoto 6y ago
  Unfortunately you can't make everyone have respect for one another. If you force them via laws, that would probably just make them more resentful.
  - afiori 6y ago
    That is completely true, indeed the purpose of the law ought to be not to compel respect, but to allow vulnerable individuals access to society. The intended outcome is not that people that want to discriminate stop existing (well, long term also...) but that non-discriminatory interactions can be allowed to flourish.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    Forcing everyone to act as if they have respect for one another is good enough. They can resent it all they want, for all I care.
tenebrisalietum 6y ago
If public property (streets, society built around cars, tax incentives) is being used to provide access to your business, for the mutual aid of both your business and the public, then you should not be allowed to deny access to the public for anything other than a business reason.
- afiori 6y ago
  And let's not forget another fundamental contribution of the state: the currency itself.
afiori 6y ago
Property is private, but the market is public. I am not sure how much legal barter is, but in many sense the currency is intrinsically linked to the public space of the state.

the-dude 6y ago

You are carefully tiptoeing around race & gender here.

jobeirne 6y ago
Nope - in free societies you should be able to refuse service on any grounds, including those things. Otherwise you're permitting the government to forcibly compel you to allocate your time and resources to ends they define. In free societies, governments should only be able to forcibly compel people not to do things (murder, threaten, steal, etc.) - see the concept of "negative rights."
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  I mean this in the nicest possible way; have you ever faced discrimination based on the colour of your skin, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities or anything else which is protected by law in most civilised countries? If, like a significant portion of the HN audience, you are straight, white, middle class and male it's probably easier for you to dismiss the right to fair treatment than it might be for individuals in those categories.
  - kuzimoto 6y ago
    I don't agree with discrimination, and would never seek to engage in that myself. With that being said, in the private sector, there really is no "right to fair treatment" with exceptions for anything required by law for affirmative action. By forcing fairness (where a business must provide service to someone it doesn't want to), you are simultaneously removing the freedom of association [0]. [0] While not explicitly stated in the US constitution is argued to be a fundamental human right.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    I have. And you know what, civil rights laws did jack all to protect me. I'm much happier knowing that the people that operate that business were racist jerks (instead of, say, them being forced to serve me and spit in my food, which would be a health concern), and I have dissuaded probably on the order of a hundred people from going to that place, and that was in the era before social media.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      Why didn't that strategy work for black people in the 1960s? Or LGBT more recently?
      - dnautics 6y ago
        My claim is it didn't. You don't think black people were discriminated against in private locations well past the 1960s? What absolutely worked in the 1960s, was the banning of government REQUIRING segregation in private entities by law (which by the way, many companies absolutely chafed at, because quite frankly segregating your business is a cost-sinking pain in the ass to arrange and enforce). Nobody is disputing that CRA I and CRA II were much needed reforms.
        monocasa 6y ago
        If that were the case, then de facto segregation wouldn't be increasing even to this day. Without the government enforcing segregation, people started separating themselves physically. Schools for instance are more segregated than they were in 1975. Segregation wasn't a case of the government pushing these ideas on to unwilling populace.
        _-david-_ 6y ago
        This could actually be because of forced busing of whites to black schools. Many parents want to send their kid to the best school and were willing to move to avoid their kids going to worse schools. White parents were more likely to be able to afford to move which resulted in them leaving. Minorities tended to be poorer and could not leave and stayed in the areas with the worse schools. Kids who go to worse schools are less likely to get out of poverty so they stayed in the same poor areas and had kids in the same area repeating the cycle. Since schools are typically given money based on property tax it meant that the schools in poor areas tended to receive less funding. There are also issues with teachers getting lower pay if they were in a poorer school. I think these issues are fixed in some states but there are still issues related to this in various states.
- kuzimoto 6y ago
  You are completely right. In a free society you should have the liberty to do business with whomever you want (no matter how politically in-correct your reasoning is). The great thing about this, is that someone else will realize there is now an under-served market, and create a business to fulfill that need. The same case can be made for hiring practices.
  - VBprogrammer 6y ago
    > is that someone else will realize there is now an under-served market, and create a business to fulfill that need. That is a childishly simplistic understanding of how free markets work. There is no way a retail business would be established to service the needs of 2% of the population who are wheelchair users for example, when they could easily make their stores considerably more efficient by making the aisles a little narrower.
    - roenxi 6y ago
      > There is no way a retail business would be established to service the needs of 2% of the population Slow down there, you're going to need more evidence than that to claim that an underserved segment of the population isn't an attractive commercial target. I agree that wheelchair users might be comparatively expensive customers, but if that 2% stat is correct they would be profitable to someone. A business with 2% of the market as a captive audience is going to be profitable.
      - VBprogrammer 6y ago
        Based loosely on 1.2 million wheelchair users in the UK for a population of 50 million it's in the right ballpark. Honestly, I think the claim that the free market would solve this is so outlandish that the burden of proof is on those who believe it. Maybe, just maybe, in a dense population centre like London their needs would be met by a few specialist 'accessable' stores. But what about some rural town of a few thousand people?
        6y ago
- nogabebop23 6y ago
  HOw do you reconcile not forcing someone to do something with depriving another of life & liberty? The entire reason for protected classes is to prevent the majority from harming the minority. >> forcibly compel you to allocate your time and resources to ends they define. ...as has been SOP in even the most permissive of societies throughout history. I'm all for classical liberal ideals influencing the world, but these extreme libertarian rules and values have never existed outside the minds of their most zealous believers and you don't have to get too far into the details to see their contradictions.
- code_sloth 6y ago
  In a your version of a free society, what happens when everyone refuses you EVERY single service because random-reason? They sure as heck aren't murdering, stealing, nor threatening you. They're just refusing to sell you anything because of random-reason, forever. Those services include sales of any food, water, shelter. Taking it further, what if a majority of businesses gradually decide to be racist and refuse all services just because they can? Not serving minorities wouldn't really impact their bottom line all that much. The minorities would literally die off. It's easy to talk about "rights" as if they exist in a vacuum i.e. my rights are mine and they do not affect anyone else, ergo my rights should be absolute. They are not, and should not. Reality is usually a tenuous balance of rights (usually tilted towards the majority) that people participating in civil society share.
  - 0-O-0 6y ago
    > what happens when everyone refuses you EVERY single service If I'll ever find my self in a situation like this - I'll pack my things and run. I'm not going to be happy in a place like this even if government will force those people to tolerate me. > if a majority of businesses gradually decide to be racist and refuse all services just because they can That means anyone entrepreneurial enough will have access to an underserved niche market.
    - vertex-four 6y ago
      Unfortunately, packing your things and running is basically impossible for most people anywhere close to that situation because borders are enforced and countries will find any excuse possible to avoid granting refugee status. The "you could've slept in a forest, never interacted with anyone, and foraged for plants for survival" kind of excuse that LGBT folks fleeing from countries where they're likely to get murdered get. An underserved niche market of people who have significantly less money because they can't find work - and your company won't hire them because your other customers who actually have money will boycott you - isn't worth much.
      - rdgthree 6y ago
- afiori 6y ago
  > In free societies, governments should only be able to forcibly compel people not to do things Well, how about "don't discriminate"? I am not saying it is the perfect solution, but if you want to refuse a service you can always terminate your commercial venture. I do not necessarily see this a clear cut case of positive/negative right. Similarly to how the state can compel you to get a driving license to drive. You can just give up on driving.
- psychoslave 6y ago
  >Nope - in free societies you should be able to refuse service on any grounds, including those things. You know, in free societies, there is society. That is very different from "wild reign of every impulse going through the head of an individual", which of course would be impossible anyway as an individual is itself permanently full of conflicting impulses. Not to do things and do things is only a matter of wording. Forbidding to kill people is equivalent with compelling to do something: people are compelled to repress their possible will to kill other people. Accepting to follow an interdiction is doing something. Only something that doesn't exist won't act in any way or an other.

Kaze404 6y ago

This is why nobody listens to libertarians.

drekembe 6y ago

Maybe, but I would rather live in a society that has full respect for people than full respect for private property.

kuzimoto 6y ago
Unfortunately you can't make everyone have respect for one another. If you force them via laws, that would probably just make them more resentful.
- afiori 6y ago
  That is completely true, indeed the purpose of the law ought to be not to compel respect, but to allow vulnerable individuals access to society. The intended outcome is not that people that want to discriminate stop existing (well, long term also...) but that non-discriminatory interactions can be allowed to flourish.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Forcing everyone to act as if they have respect for one another is good enough. They can resent it all they want, for all I care.

tenebrisalietum 6y ago

If public property (streets, society built around cars, tax incentives) is being used to provide access to your business, for the mutual aid of both your business and the public, then you should not be allowed to deny access to the public for anything other than a business reason.

afiori 6y ago
And let's not forget another fundamental contribution of the state: the currency itself.

afiori 6y ago

Property is private, but the market is public. I am not sure how much legal barter is, but in many sense the currency is intrinsically linked to the public space of the state.