Intent is not magical, and does not make things retroactively okay.
If one can look at the results, see the net effects, and then not do anything to fix it, one's intent doesn't matter.
If one can look at the results, see the net effects, and then not do anything to fix it, one's intent doesn't matter.
I believe jerf's point is that motivations do matter, at least a bit, in understanding how a state of affairs came to be. If it's racism, then we might be able to dismantle it and let it be. If it's about keeping out competition, then taking away barriers is very likely to provoke a backlash as the people whose incomes drop look for a way to avoid that.
Again, you're 100% correct. Intent is not magical. It's just that motivations matter at least a little bit for predicting human behavior.