That seemed to be exactly what pdonis was suggesting when I replied, though: that we don't need to fight against racism and bigotry, because The Market would fix them if we just let it be.
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.
we don't need to fight against racism and bigotry, because The Market would fix them if we just let it be.
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.
And how do you do all those things, when you're operating in a society where bigotry is the standard? Where refusing to do business with bigots means you can't do business at all?
How is your hypothetical world better than one with civil rights legislation?
If bigotry is the standard in the society you're in, so that refusing to do business with bigots means not doing business at all, your best bet is to move to another society, because you and others like you who are not bigots are obviously hopelessly outnumbered. Are you saying that was the case in the US in the 1950's and 1960's when the civil rights movement was at its height? If so, how did the movement get so much popular support?
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.
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.