Rosa Parks: Free Market Hero
- From: "GWhyte" <gwhyte3003@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 18:32:40 -0500
Rosa Parks: Free Market Hero
By Thomas Sowell
Townhall.com | October 28, 2005
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19997
The death of Rosa Parks has reminded us of her place in history, as the
black woman whose refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, in
accordance with the Jim Crow laws of Alabama, became the spark that ignited
the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Most people do not know the rest of the story, however. Why was there
racially segregated seating on public transportation in the first place?
"Racism" some will say -- and there was certainly plenty of racism in the
South, going back for centuries. But racially segregated seating on
streetcars and buses in the South did not go back for centuries.
Far from existing from time immemorial, as many have assumed, racially
segregated seating in public transportation began in the South in the late
19th and early 20th centuries.
Those who see government as the solution to social problems may be surprised
to learn that it was government which created this problem. Many, if not
most, municipal transit systems were privately owned in the 19th century and
the private owners of these systems had no incentive to segregate the races.
These owners may have been racists themselves but they were in business to
make a profit -- and you don't make a profit by alienating a lot of your
customers. There was not enough market demand for Jim Crow seating on
municipal transit to bring it about.
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.
It was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of the white voters to
demand racial segregation. If some did and the others didn't care, that was
sufficient politically, because what blacks wanted did not count politically
after they lost the vote.
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.
Just as it was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of whites to
demand racial segregation through the political system to bring it about, so
it was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of blacks to stop riding
the streetcars, buses, and trains in order to provide incentives for the
owners of these transportation systems to feel the loss of money if some
blacks used public transportation less than they would have otherwise.
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.
Initially, segregation meant that whites could not sit in the black section
of a bus any more than blacks could sit in the white section. But whites who
were forced to stand when there were still empty seats in the black section
objected. That's when the rule was imposed that blacks had to give up their
seats to whites.
Legal sophistries by judges "interpreted" the 14th Amendment's requirement
of equal treatment out of existence. Judicial activism can go in any
direction.
That's when Rosa Parks came in, after more than half a century of political
chicanery and judicial fraud.
.
- References:
- The Triumph and Tragedy of Rosa Parks
- From: GWhyte
- The Triumph and Tragedy of Rosa Parks
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