This sounds to me rather similar to the (abhorrent) old argument that schools should stay segregated: Why would black students even want to go to a white school where they would have a hard time? Why would they want to continue in that environment? Wouldn't it have been best for the school and the student if schools had been able to continue admitting whomever they wanted for whatever reason?
It is an entirely different story under government run operations, such as your school example. The answer to this, in my opinion, would be not to have the schools run by the government in the first place. This would lead to schools, in those days, that were "white" only and "black" only. But it would have opened the door to the school entrepreneurs who only cared about providing the best education value and to profit from that. And to be really successful in that context would argue against being racist and excluding half of the potential students. Of course, in those days, racism was culturally embedded, but this would not have stopped the "black" entrepreneurs from creating high value schools that would have given students a big advantage down the road, and potentially in other less racist locations.
An interesting note is that racism in a modern culture seems to be inversely proportional to prosperity in that culture. Look at Mississippi and Alabama in the US, the Middle East, etc. It is hard to be innovative and successful when your mind is warped into a racist mode.
I really try not to get into these discussions, but what you are saying is akin to 'let them eat cake'.
If you had black only schools run by black people 'in those days', how well equiped do you think they would have been? Where would the black enterpreneur have gotten capital from to provide standard services in his school?
Now onto the white entreprenuer who does have the capital and cares only about providing the best service to paying customers..how would black students have been able to afford to pay for that school?
There is no such thing as a completely free (or perfect) market , governments exist to ensure that the weak don't get crushed by the strong in the society.
Your relationship between racism and prosperity does not hold ANY water either, many of the more successful businessmen in America in the early 19th century were known for their racist views and indeed some of them belonged to the KKK.
Among the most innovative people in America today, I guarantee you will find many with deep seated prejuidices.
Seriouly, your entire post reeks of intellectual dishonesty or maybe you have not had the time to really think about the issues at hand.
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>There is no such thing as a completely free (or perfect) market , governments exist to ensure that the weak don't get crushed by the strong in the society.
Exactly, this is the fundamental flaw of capitalism. Once you have power it is too easy to get more power and no one ever seems to want to share power and the ensuing resources. For now, society needs some redistribution of resources to work and elected, non-corrupt governments are a much better way of evening things out than charity.
My examples were present day examples - so no, the racist ages have not ended, and I would not be surprised if there are some very intelligent very racist people out there.
