Johnson, Libertarians, and Discrimination

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)

New York changes conservation enforcement to reflect marginal benefits

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has decreased the number of pollution tests for factories, power generators, sewage treatment plants, hazardous waste sites, and other producers by 25 percent over the past 3 years, according to a Wall Street Journal article. The DEC enforces regulations that seek to correct negative externalities in production. Certain businesses emit pollutants that harm consumers and the environment and do not have to internalize those costs.

Inspections, which cost money, may be thought of as a cost of regulation; according to our class model, government should seek to set the marginal benefit of additional enforcement (or additional reductions in pollution) equal to the marginal cost of additional enforcement. According to the article, a DEC spokesman “cited 97 a percent compliance rate with pollution discharge permits.” This means that the marginal benefits of additional enforcement have decreased, so - by cutting the number of inspections - New York’s DEC has decreased the marginal costs of enforcement as well.

Finally, environmental groups complained that the DEC was still missing significant amounts of pollution. They are, effectively, arguing that the DEC has underestimated the marginal benefit of additional enforcement, or additional reductions in pollution; presumably, the affected industries would argue that DEC is underestimating the costs of enforcement.

Hairy Logic

In a recent a recent Yahoo! Sports article, the iconic dreadlocks of baseball star Manny Ramirez have come under attack by his new team's personal conduct policy. The Chicago White Sox have a rule that players must have a "neat" haircut, which would mean the unfortunate demise of Manny's flowing locks that have come to symbolize his larger than life personality that his fans adore. Ken Williams, the general manager of the White Sox explains, "from my understanding, it's not going to be an issue, and he's going to make an adjustment and conform to how we like to have our players represented out there."

This policy assumes that any player with hair that is not "neat" would therefore be imposing a negative externality on the team. It is the view of the management that such an unkempt appearance would tarnish the professional reputation of the ball club, and cause fans to consume less of their product in the form of ticket sales and merchandise.

This logic ignores the marginal benefits produced by Manny's hair. A large part of Manny's appeal as an athlete is his laid back goofball attitude, which is embodied by his wild looking hair. When fans pay to see Manny play or buy his uniform, part of it is due to the persona he has made for himself, not just for his production as a player. Furthermore, by forcing him to cut his hair, it could harm his on-field performance by damaging a source of his confidence. The question remains, do the benefits outweigh the costs of a haircut of this magnitude?