The Spontaneous Order Theory of Systemic Racism

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Friedrich von Hayek proposed a theory of the market order as a spontaneous order of individual actions that go to build up a system bigger than the individual decisions themselves. Such decisions are based on individual knowledge which consequently any planning would have to take into consideration. The difficulty if not impossibility of such accumulation of knowledge made rational allocation of scarce resources by a central power inefficient and inferior to the market order.

This got me thinking about the idea of systemic racism. While there have been criticisms of such a concept, I began thinking, what if it could be explained by spontaneous order?

To put it bluntly, the many racist actions of individuals build up a spontaneous order of systemic racism. This is different than governmental legislation targeting races as occurred in apartheid South Africa and in the Jim Crow era. It also makes it more difficult to ‘target’ because of the dispersal of such decision making, but which is necessary per Catholic doctrine declaring racism a sin, and a violation of the natural law.

So, I was wondering what people think of the theory and how to implement changes to overcome it?
 
A curious contrast has emerged in recent weeks between the United States and Brazil. More enslaved Africans were shipped to Brazil than to any other destination in the New World, including Britain’s American colonies, later the United States. In Brazil, however, slavery hasn’t left the same legacy of racial animosity that fueled the recent wave of BLM protests in the U.S. and around the world. There were no such protests in Brazil. One reason, I suspect, is that Brazil never enacted any legislation imposing racial segregation. Racial prejudice is as strong among Brazilians as among most other nations, but it was never institutionalized in the form of separate schools, separate seating in buses, and all the rest of it.

Prior to abolition in 1888, anybody in Brazil, white or black, was free to own slaves. It was quite common for manumitted slaves, particularly women, to start their own small businesses in areas such as catering and dressmaking, and their “employees”, naturally, were all slaves. In a slave economy, no business could afford to pay wages. It would have left them hopelessly uncompetitive. The 18th and 19th century county records show that, in some places and in some years, more than half of all slave owners were classified as “black or mixed race”.
 
That’s an interesting comparison as I was just reading a bit about that in some book. I think it was by Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn but I could be wrong. He made the argument that it was due to the Catholic influence prevalent in Brazil.

We read something interesting and similar in Frederick Douglass as well about his trip to Ireland.
 
BartholomewB said:
Prior to abolition in 1888, anybody in Brazil, white or black, was free to own slaves. It was quite common for manumitted slaves, particularly women, to start their own small businesses in areas such as catering and dressmaking, and their “employees”, naturally, were all slaves.
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not to defend the institutionalized sin of Brazil, but, did Brazil like the US deal in the selling of children of slaves even at the cost of breaking up families, or did family units in the Brazilian model stay intact?

To me it seemed US slave trading of humans born into bondage and sold as separate commodities was far worse than merely employing slave labor…and I offer this thought with no intention of downplaying the horrific nature of Brazilian slavery.
 
I think I read something about that in the book I mentioned. If I remember right they didn’t but I could be wrong.
 
dscath said:
did Brazil like the US deal in the selling of children of slaves even at the cost of breaking up families, or did family units in the Brazilian model stay intact?
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I don’t know the answer to that question, but my guess is this: Even if had been illegal to break up families in that way, would it have been easy, or even possible, to enforce that law? Probably not, I suspect, at least not on a wide scale.
 
StudentMI said:
This is different than governmental legislation targeting races as occurred in apartheid South Africa and in the Jim Crow era.
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It is different only in that these other forms of racism were codified into laws, while the spontaneous order type of racism is not. But that is an inconsequential difference. Spontaneous order is a precursor to legislation. The Jim Crow laws went into effect not because some small group of legislators wanted to put down the blacks, but because many of the white citizens who were once in a position of legal superiority felt threatened by sharing power with the former slaves and spontaneously demanded of their representative legislators to enact such laws. So the difference between the two is only in the extent to which the racism has become entrenched. There are middle-ground cases to, such as racist land covenants that are not laws, but are enforceable and normal civil contracts by means of laws. And such things existed far longer than Jim Crow laws, so we are not talking about the distant past here.
It also makes it more difficult to ‘target’ because of the dispersal of such decision making…
So, I was wondering what people think of the theory and how to implement changes to overcome it?
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If society decides it is desirable to overcome racism, the society can exercise proper authority for the common good through legislation. It would be best if we could “win the hearts and minds” of all those inclined to unjust racist acts, but in the meantime, we should at least do what we can to protect the present generation for unjust suffering. The expression of an unambiguous will of the society often goes a long way in affecting hearts and minds too.
 
Yes but what concrete acts?

I was thinking some type of massive investment in black communities and business, especially toward small businesses. Perhaps tax breaks for hiring locals?
 
What about judging people by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin?
 
That is part and parcel, of course. But besides just treating individuals as such, we are social beings and live in communities.
 
I do not understand how it helps to end racism by giving preferential treatment to groups of people based on their race.
 
Anesti33 said:
I do not understand how it helps to end racism by giving preferential treatment to groups of people based on their race.
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Actually I can see this being necessary across the board as far as the poor go.

But the business idea is just one idea. We must remember how many subsidies big business gets. Small businesses deserve a share as well.

I can also see subsidiarity being very necessary to implement such a plan.
 
Anesti33 said:
I do not understand how it helps to end racism by giving preferential treatment to groups of people based on their race.
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Most of the proposals to address systemic racism that I have seen do not give any race special treatment. For example, investing in a poor community that just happens to be mostly black is not giving blacks special treatment just because they are black, even though it may look like that to the casual observer.
 
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dscath said:
Could be, but its hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
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These help with that problem. You’re welcome in advance.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
I’m from Brazil and I must confess that I don’t know much about this time of the history of my country, that because our education is a mess and the few instructions we receive are left wing doctrine at middle and high school, during this time the main focus we learnt is about Zumbi dos Palmares which is idolatred like a slave liberator, but he had slaves too and a fun fact which only happen here was slaves had they slaves. For example: Instead a slave buys his freedom he brought other slave.

The Catholich Church were the main reason why Brazil could mixed many ethnicities since everyone has the same faith, not only focus on skin color, but we are descedent of Portuguese, Polands, Germany, Japanese, Arabic, African, Natives, etc. All these people unites the same faith makes they mixed with themself, but in the past this was some less common, it’s speaks from here the white people and black start to mixed more when our soccer player Pele starts date a TV children program presenter Xuxa, but this doesn’t happen in my age.

Today with the secular state this is almost forsaken by ours, we have some black racist movements from the left against miscegenations which claims genocide against black people and minor groups of Germany, Netherlands and Polands people against other people which have more portuguese and hyspanic descedents.
 
Anesti33 said:
What about judging people by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin?
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While this is, indeed, ideal, if we let this become a blindness to race, we risk exacerbating existing racism in a society where systemic racism is ubiquitous. Those who are white, for example, who purport to be blind to race may hold unconscious biases against others that then allow racist structures in our society to perpetuate and go unchallenged, making it more likely that problems of racism are ignored or dismissed as long as whites are unaffected by it. It’s difficult, after all, to recognize racism in society if one has no knowledge, imagination, or personal experience of the numerous, sinister ways it can manifest itself–much more if one refuses to see it as a possibility.
 
I deny that these United States suffer from systemic racism. I believe this is mainly a manufactured grievance, a bill of goods we are sold so that we can wring our hands and be pushed into outrage mode. I refuse to be outraged.
 
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