Discrimination and Private Property

"My old man was just so full of hate that he didn't know that being poor was what was killing him."
--Agent Rupert Anderson (Mississippi Burning)

Generally defined, discrimination is the ability to recognize or discern differences. In social contexts, discrimination involves making distinctions in favor of or against people based on categorical features such as race, gender, social class, etc.

In a free society, private property entitles its owners to discriminate.  Because a dimension of freedom is the freedom to associate, people are free to elect who they associate with. This may be for better or worse, of course, as there are benefits and costs of inclusion and exclusion.

Take, for example, the owner of a hotel that decides to serve only those persons with a skin color similar to his own. Because he can rightly dispose of his property as he wishes, the hotel owner has the right to discriminate based on skin color.

Observe that he is not committing on act of aggression by doing so. He is not forcing his way into the interests of others. On the contrary, others would be acting with aggression against the hotel owner if they forced him to serve particular individuals against his wishes.

The owner may collect psychic income from his discrimination. He might gain satisfaction from having control over his property. He may gain feelings of superiority by serving only those people who like like him while turning away those who don't look like him.

However, one thing that the owner probably will not gain from his discrimination is economic income.By discriminating against particular customers, the hotel owner loses business. His productive assets are less well utilized. Rivals who choose not to discriminate gain business at the bigoted hotel owner's expense. The hotel owner's discriminatory policies weaken his economic position.

In unhampered markets, people are free to discriminate as they wish, as long as that discrimination does not forcibly interfere with the pursuits of others. However, if those discriminatory policies result in poorly serving consumers, then those policies will be punished by the market while others who choose more consumer-oriented policies will be rewarded.