I live in Alabama, where college football is a major religion. The two major denominations are the University of Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn University Tigers. They have fought famous and comically large wars. competition Since 1893, the two schools did not play each other, except for a 40-year gap from 1907 to 1948, because they hated each other so much. Suffice it to say, Alabama fans (like myself) don’t go out of their way to buy Auburn merchandise, and vice versa.
Unless, of course, you can make money.
In his classic study economics of discriminationNobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker introduced the term “discriminatory preference” to describe the tendency to avoid people based on arbitrary characteristics such as race or gender. I’d like to explore this concept in a less moral and emotional environment: eBay. From around mid-February, I was selling things on eBay As a hobby (accounting) profit, and inspiration. The market forces me to overcome morally harmless prejudices. This is a case study of how markets push us to overcome deep moral biases.
The pursuit of fun, profit, and some economics lessons keeps my “discriminatory tendencies” in check against people who don’t like things or teams I like. I notice things I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, and I help people I might not have thought of otherwise. Until a few weeks ago, I had just bought her one Auburn shirt in my life when I visited to present a study in 2008. I currently have several Auburn shirts, jerseys and hats in my garage waiting for the right buyer.my preference discrimination My opposition to the Auburn faithful, or at least my indifference to their desires, is tempered by my even stronger preference for a few extra bucks and some examples in the classroom.
But what does morally trivial discrimination over something as trivial as college sports fans have to do with morally serious discrimination like racism? Morally, I don’t think they can be compared. Competitive sports are almost always a lot of fun. Racism is evil. But logically, the economics of discrimination against people who have the wrong diploma on the wall is similar to the economics of discrimination based on skin color, and the economics of discrimination against people who have the wrong diploma on the wall are similar to the economics of discrimination based on skin color, and if I were to call Auburn fans expensive is not very discriminatory, just as Racists discriminate less when it costs them more.
Will the profit motive change the minds of racists? Although not directly, it probably encourages a kind of “exposure therapy” that erodes it. Does that excuse or justify racism? No, but efforts to change hearts and minds by passing laws and pointing guns at finished poorly. Perhaps the pursuit of profit is a vile and vulgar motive, and earning a few dollars will not restore a fallen soul. But free enterprise in pursuit of profit silences the dark angels of our nature in doing so. Acting on bias is costly.
Art Carden is a professor of economics and Health Estate Trust Fellow at Samford University and a self-confessed Koch. He has an award named after Charles G. Koch in his office, and he does a lot of work. He is affiliated with various Koch-related organizations and has applied for and received funding from the Charles Koch Foundation to host on-campus events.
