Prices, Segregation, and Racial Harmony

Abstract

The most significant social problem of our time is the racial problem. Three broad solutions to this problem have been suggested: maintain the status quo, move in the direction of separatism and apartheid, and move in the direction of integration. There is an abundance of evidence from recent experience that maintenance of the status quo is intolerable to the black population. Separatism, preached by the political extreme, both black and white, is not only unworkable, but is morally indefensible. The racial problem will not be solved unless we move quickly in the direction of an integrated society in the broadest sense of that term. Such integration is impossible unless we end residential segregation. Residential segregation reduces employment opportunities for Negroes. With the exodus of industry away from the center of the city and with the influx of blacks from the South into the center of the city, black employment opportunities have been reduced. John Kain (1968; also see Mooney, 1969) estimated the diminution of black employ-