Posted by
Tyler Durden, 08/18/2015 - 23:50 and Mises Institute, Same-Sex Marriage Submitted
by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute
The
Colorado Appeals Court ruled that the owners of a bakery do not have any right
to control their property, and that they shall be forced to provide bakery
services to a couple that the owner would rather not do business with. In other
words, they have no property rights. The court writes: Masterpiece
remains free to continue espousing its religious beliefs, including its
opposition to same-sex marriage.
However,
if it wishes to operate as a public accommodation and conduct business within
the State of Colorado, CADA prohibits it from picking and choosing customers
based on their sexual orientation.
These
sorts of rulings essentially rewrite the very nature of commerce and our whole
concept of contracts. A business agreement (i.e., a contract) is based on two
parties agreeing to a voluntary relationship. This is the foundation not only
of business relationships, but of the relationship between citizens and states
themselves. This is why "social contract" theory is so popular among
theorists. Everyone recognizes that
coerced relationships are inherently unjust,
which is why defenders of the modern state system claim that states
derive their legitimacy from a
"social contract" in which both parties agree to the relationship.
Without
this contract into which both parties have presumably entered voluntarily, the
relationship is unjust and a violation of basic human rights. But that all just
goes out the window, apparently, when we're talking about discrimination. With
court decisions like these, the court is saying that we can have contracts in
which one only side agrees to it. But let's just call this what it is: seizure
of one of the party's private property.
Moreover,
in an attempt to muddy the waters further, we're being told that this case is
about religion. Ultimately, though, cases like these are really about nothing
more than the simple right to control one's private property:
In
practice, the decision to exclude is always based on some type of
discrimination. The type of discrimination can run the gamut from “you’re
banned from my store because you groped customers” to “I don’t serve your
(racial) kind.” In everyday life, the merchant, salesman, clerk, or owner of any kind must — because time is
scarce — make constant discriminatory
decisions as to whether or not he will do
business with client A or client B. Indeed, every single economic act
requires this sort of discrimination. A person may prefer to do business with
more attractive people, or people who are friendlier. Or he may wish to work
only with his co-religionists or citizens of his own nation-state. On a
fundamental level, everyone knows this is the case, but many accept that it is
the legitimate role of the state to decide which types of discrimination are
acceptable and which are not. Hence, discrimination against unattractive people
remains acceptable. Discrimination against certain racial groups is not.
Regardless
of what groups end up being favored, the effect of any anti-discrimination law
is to curtail the freedom of the owner and to increase the size and scope of
government’s coercive power over the lives and livelihoods of property
owners. Moreover, since
anti-discrimination law is heavily dependent on proving intent and motivation,
such regulation also puts the government in the position of investigating the
thoughts and opinions of owners. Sometimes, owners make this easy for
regulators by stating their motivations outright, but in other cases, private
owners are investigated and inferences are made as to the feelings and views of
owners. This is necessary because, since every business transaction requires
some sort of discrimination, the mere act of not entering into a business
transaction is not sufficient to prove not-government-approved
discrimination.
And even
from a consequentialist angle, there is no real "cost" on the party
being refused service. In this case, the refused party merely needs to drive
down the road to one of dozens of similar bakeries in the Denver metropolitan
area. But even if there were no other bakery in town (which is untrue of any
community but the tiniest) the answer to this is to encourage more commercial
freedom. Restricting commercial freedom merely produced the opposite effect of
producing fewer bakeries:
Thus,
those who wish to lessen the negative effects of discrimination on consumers
ought to concentrate on expanding the economic options for those who face
discrimination. This is done through
deregulation of industry and the elimination of corporate welfare and other
anti-market programs and regulations that favor incumbent and semi-monopolist
firms. Unfortunately, however, those who favor regulation of discrimination
also tend to favor government regulation in general, including wage rates,
employment practices, lending practices, food “purity,” and nearly everything
else, in spite of the fact that the sum effect of such regulations is to
prevent the entry of new firms into the market place while protecting the
standing of large politically-powerful firms. The result is fewer merchants,
fewer firms, fewer jobs, and more monopoly power which leads precisely to the
negative discrimination-imposed burdens that the pro-regulation lobby claims to
be fighting against.
Source: Mises
Institute Same-Sex Marriage Published on Zero Hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com)
Source
URL:http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-18/court-bakery-owners-you-have-no-property-rights
Links:
http://www.zerohedge.com/taxonomy_vtn/term/10413
http://www.zerohedge.com/taxonomy_vtn/term/11458
http://www.zerohedge.com/taxonomy_vtn/term/9488
https://mises.org/blog/court-bakery-owners-you-have-no-property-rights
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/colorado-bakery-refuse-service-gay-couple-appeals-court-ruling-121331.html?hp=l4_4
https://mises.org/library/discrimination-isnt-about-religion-its-about-private-property
http://apartments.about.com/od/housingdiscrimination/ht/pursuefhclaim.htm
Comments
America
has a choice, to continue to enforce economically damaging laws or to back
off. The 2008 Meltdown was caused by the
Community Reinvestment Act of 1993 and HUD anti-discrimination rules. These forced banks and lenders to lend
mortgages to unqualified buyers due to race. This bakery case violates business
rights and invites even lower rankings of US economic freedom.
Why would
legislators continue to pass laws that discourage free enterprise unless they
are Communists who want everybody to go on welfare and crash the US economy ?
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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