To give you a level playing field on which to out-compete companies that won't hire qualified employees who happen to belong to certain groups. The proper way to correct "imbalances of power in the market place" is to use the market place to correct them--in other words, to use the market place as it is intended to be used.
A rather fragile business plan, perhaps not in 2013 USA, but certainly elsewhere in the world and historically. The libertarian argument always seems to assume rational actors playing in ideal conditions. In other words, a situation unlikely to ever arise on its own...
It seems to me you would suggest acceptance cannot be achieved without government intervention, but from where I sit that is exactly what is happening - it just takes time.
Neither did the government passing laws. What ended these things, to the extent that they are ended (try looking up the figures for racially motivated violence in inner cities sometime), was changes in people's attitudes. And those changes are mainly due to compulsory public education plus generational turnover: the old bigots died and their children were indoctrinated with a different mindset.
A: None. The market will take care of it.
The correct answer of course is: it takes one. If a light bulb burnt out, an Objectivist would simply take a new one (from inventory, because they planned for equipment failure) and replace it. What they wouldn't do is suggest it is the responsibility of someone else, ie: "the market".
There are certainly reasonable Objectivists like the one you describe, but they don't include anyone who thinks that all humanity's ills will magically vanish if we just let The Market do whatever it wants. That's why I specifically said Randian Objectivists; Ayn Rand's hypocrisy exemplifies that particular subset of Objectivists.
That's not what I said. I said that the way you fight against racism and bigotry is by using market power: as a customer, you refuse to do business with companies that are racist and bigoted, and as an employee, you refuse to work for them. Or, as an entrepreneur, you start a company that is not racist and bigoted, and out-compete the racist and bigoted companies.
How is your hypothetical world better than one with civil rights legislation?
It seems to me that the actual facts, when the civil rights movement was at its height, were that there was a minority that wanted bigotry to be the standard, and a majority who did not. In my hypothetical world, that majority would have used its market power to make the bigots unable to do business; the only role the government would have had to play would have been to make sure the bigots could not use government power to prop up their businesses.
How would such a hypothetical world be better than the one we have? Need you ask? All the effort we spend today on diversity training, enforcing EEO laws, etc., etc., would be spent on productive effort instead.
and by "correct imbalances of power in the marketplace" i specifically meant "correct for the allowance of human rights abuses by the marketplace because market forces ill-equipped to root them out". the ability of consumers to have in depth knowledge of every political stance of every business in the production chain of every product they buy means that the free market will never be the right tool for human rights cases (among many others).
Equal rights to what?
the ability of consumers to have in depth knowledge of every political stance of every business in the production chain of every product they buy
Which, in the age of the Internet, is easy. The problem is not knowledge: the problem is acting on that knowledge.
For example, Apple has been criticized for employing sweatshop labor in places like China. (Notice that Mr. Cook conveniently does not mention that in his paean to workplace equality.) If you don't think that's a good thing, will you refuse to buy Apple products? Judging by market share, most people's answer appears to be "no".
the pursuit of happiness // income // employment
> Which, in the age of the Internet, is easy
false
And that's assuming we magically know who did the damage in the first place, and that it's something other than 'everyone'.
You are misrepresenting my view. The reason for the nudge nudge wink wink is that the government, in allowing polluters to pollute, is acting against the interests of the people it's supposed to represent: it is allowing something that the people, if they were able to make the decision on their own in a free market, would not allow.
In other words, in an actual free market, a potential polluter would not be able to get any special favors from the government: they would have to get explicit permission from every person who would be affected. That's how a free market works: you want to build a factory that puts toxic chemicals in my groundwater? Sorry, no sale.
This is not reality my misrepresentation of your view was better than this one. :(
Where did I say that? You don't need perfect information; you just need the freedom to act on whatever information you have, combined with your judgment about what's important.
none of them think "climate change" is a hoax?
A free market also means we all get to exercise our own judgment, instead of having the government exercise judgment for us.