{"id":38991,"date":"2017-06-28T01:00:26","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T05:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=38991"},"modified":"2017-06-18T14:52:49","modified_gmt":"2017-06-18T18:52:49","slug":"qotd-how-jim-crow-laws-were-brought-in-to-suppress-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/06\/28\/qotd-how-jim-crow-laws-were-brought-in-to-suppress-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: How “Jim Crow” laws were brought in to suppress competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lebergott\u2019s historical account \u2013 which reinforces the important findings of Robert Higgs<\/a> about the postbellum economic trajectory of blacks in America \u2013 reveals the equalizing powers of economic competition. Contrary to popular myth, even racist southerners put their own economic well-being ahead of their irrational prejudices by competing with offers of higher wages for blacks\u2019 labor and with offers of low prices for blacks\u2019 business. This competition, in turn, increased blacks\u2019 geographic and economic mobility and raised their incomes. The reason southerners \u2013 whether racists or rent-seekers (or both) \u2013 turned to government to get Jim Crow legislation is that market forces were undermining their racist preferences and competing away their uncompetitively high profits, rents, and wages.<\/p>\n

Lebergott\u2019s account also further reveals the utter implausibly of the claims of those who assert that today\u2019s market in America for low-skilled workers is infected with monopsony power. While this market isn\u2019t textbook perfect (no real-world market is), and while this market would be improved by making it even freer (for example, by eliminating occupational-licensing statutes and zoning restrictions), the ability of low-skilled workers today throughout the U.S. to move from job to job is surely better than was the ability of low-skilled blacks 150 years ago throughout the American south to move from job to job. And yet, as Lebergott documents, low-skilled American blacks of 150 years ago in the American south did indeed enjoy such mobility that economic competition raised their wages. Similarly, the ability today of entrepreneurs and business owners to discover and compete for under-priced labor is surely greater than was the ability of employers 150 years ago to do the same \u2013 and yet, again as Lebergott documents, such competitive initiative by employers was common 150 years ago and served to increase low-skilled workers\u2019 mobility and wages.<\/p>\n

Don Boudreaux, “Quotation of the Day\u2026”, Caf\u00e9 Hayek<\/em><\/a>, 2017-05-22.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lebergott\u2019s historical account \u2013 which reinforces the important findings of Robert Higgs about the postbellum economic trajectory of blacks in America \u2013 reveals the equalizing powers of economic competition. Contrary to popular myth, even racist southerners put their own economic well-being ahead of their irrational prejudices by competing with offers of higher wages for blacks\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,7,41,13],"tags":[484,95,99,661],"class_list":["post-38991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-history","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-competition","tag-jobs","tag-racism","tag-regulation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-a8T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38992,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38991\/revisions\/38992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}