Free markets against discrimination on eBay

I live in Alabama, where college football is the main religion. The two major denominations are the University of Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn University Tigers. They fought a legendary and ridiculously overwrought battle rivalry since 1893, with the exception of the four-decade period between 1907 and 1948, when they stopped playing against each other because the two schools hated each other so much. Suffice to say, Alabama fans (like me) don’t go out of their way to buy Auburn merchandise and vice versa.

Unless of course there is money to be made from it.

In his classical study The economics of discriminationthe Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker introduced the term “taste for discrimination” to describe a person’s preference for avoiding people based on arbitrary characteristics such as race and gender. I would like to explore the concept in a less morally and emotionally charged environment: eBay. Since about mid-February I’ve sold things on eBay for fun, (accounting) gainand inspiration. Markets force me to overcome my morally harmless biases, and this is a case study of how markets push us to overcome our morally serious biases.

The pursuit of fun, profit, and a few economics lessons curb my “discrimination bias” against people who don’t like the things and teams I like. I notice things I wouldn’t otherwise see, and I help people I might not otherwise think of. Until a few weeks ago, I had purchased exactly one Auburn jersey in my life, when I visited in 2008 to present some research. I have several Auburn shirts, sweaters and hats in my garage now waiting for the right buyer. My taste for discrimination against the Auburn faithful – or at least my indifference to their wishes – is curbed by my even stronger taste for a few extra dollars and some examples from the classroom.

But what does the morally trivial discrimination of something as trivial as college sports fandom have to do with morally serious discrimination like racism? Morally speaking, I don’t think they are comparable. Sports rivalries are usually a lot of fun. Racism is bad. But logically, the economics of discrimination against people with the wrong degrees on the wall resembles the economics of discrimination based on skin color, and just as I don’t discriminate against Auburn fans as much if it’s expensive, racists don’t discriminate as much as it is expensive.

Will the profit motive change the hearts of racists? Not directly, although it encourages a kind of ‘exposure therapy’ that probably erodes it. Is it an excuse or justification for racist discrimination? No, but efforts to change hearts and minds by passing laws and pointing guns have ended badly. Perhaps the pursuit of profit is a base and vulgar motive, and earning a few dollars will not restore a corrupt soul. However, profit-oriented free enterprise mutes the dark angels of our nature by creating it more expensive to respond to prejudices.

Art Carden is a Professor of Economics & Medical Properties Trust Fellow at Samford University, and by his own admission he’s as Koched as they come: he has an award in his office named after Charles G. Koch, he does a lot of work for and is affiliated with a range of Koch-related organizations, and he has applied for and received funding from the Charles Koch Foundation to host events on campus.