Libertarians often have trouble in the fight against discrimination. This article describes the situation. Basically, it comes down to the libertarian belief in freedom of association, that is, that an individual has a right to associate (i.e. trade, interact, etc.) or refuse to associate with certain individuals.
This principle runs into a problem when people decide to arbitrary discriminate against others based on race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. and those discriminated against seem to suffer severe psychological harm and other less severe inconveniences.
Although libertarians do not support government force to end this type of discrimination, they could support other methods to bring about its end. My suggestion could be supported by Johnson's analysis of why people vote, even when not gaining a direct benefit from it.
Johnson would say a rational individual would only take an action if its direct expected benefit and other utility gained from it were greater than its costs (B+U > C). And I think there are (at least) two ways a libertarian could make B+U greater than C, say, for the racist. An anti-discrimination society could use market forces to increase B of those who do not discriminate (by only buying their products), and the society could increase U by putting social pressure on those who did discriminate. Through these methods, society could make discrimination too costly for rational individuals to discriminate in ways the society believed were wrong. (This only works in an anti-discrimination society)
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