The Mises Institute monthly, free with membership
October 1996
Volume 14, Number 10
Pizza Discrimination
Thomas DiLorenzo
Pizza deliverers have been robbed, assaulted, and killed. To
protect their employees, and hold down liability losses, pizza
chains like Domino's won't deliver pizzas in the highest crime
areas. The company has cleverly developed computer software that
allows its franchises to "flag" addresses that are unsafe. Some
are noted as green (deliver), others as yellow (curbside only),
and still others as red (no way).
Such an expression of concern for employee safety, one would
think, would earn Domino's one of Labor Secretary Robert Reich's
"corporate responsibility" awards. No such justice. Domino's
safety practices have infuriated the political left and given
rise to a new civil-rights crusade--against "pizza redlining."
You see, some of the most dangerous areas of major
cities--the ones Domino's tries to avoid--just happen to be
government housing projects occupied predominantly by blacks on
welfare. But doesn't Domino's deliver to blacks living elsewhere?
Of course. Pizza delivery is about profits, not racial
consciousness. But that's not enough to satisfy the crusaders.
The initial shot in this new war for new civil rights came
when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors decided to impose
egalitarian delivery rules. They made it illegal for Domino's, or
any other pizza company, to refrain from delivering to areas
where the company believes its employees' lives would be in
danger. For example, last year, Samuel Reyes, a 22-year-old
Domino's employee, was gunned down on his way back from a
delivery.
The new law is being promoted as "the basis of a civil suit"
by aggrieved pizza consumers, who apparently believe they have a
Constitutional right to pizza delivery, and may be the cutting
edge of a new national policy regarding what the political left
calls "service redlining."
The deep irony is this new law threatens to impose a kind of
forced labor on companies like Domino's. This may have been
banned by the 13th amendment: "Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude...shall exist within the United States." But it's a
de rigeur when it comes to civil rights.
Of course, Domino's did not become an industry leader by
refusing to sell its pizzas to blacks. Delivery to a given
address may not result in violent death. But only God can know
for sure. The rest of us must use imperfect information, while
the profit motive gives an incentive to make that information as
accurate as possible.
The issue here is not "racism," but safety, private property,
and freedom of association. In Baltimore, even the police won't
enter some government housing projects for fear of being shot.
But don't expect the city council to pass a law prohibiting
"redlining" by government employees. Government has certain
privileges.
"Universal service" is the latest euphemism for socialism, as
Murray Rothbard pointed out in his devastating 1993 analysis of
the Clinton medical plan. Thus, any "inequities," however
trivial, are decried as an affront to justice, with the
"solution" being an ever-expanding welfare state, which now even
includes universal pizza service.
But as Rothbard also pointed out, the only way to achieve
"universal access" to anything is not through government, but by
allowing more people to earn dollars which they can then spend in
a peaceful setting of economic exchange.
This can only be achieved by restoring the free market and
private property, through massive deregulation, tax cutting, and
abolition of the welfare state. Until then, retaining some right
not to associate will be crucial to preserving such
services as pizza delivery.
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Thomas DiLorenzo teaches Economics at Loyola College and is an adjunct scholar with the Mises Institute
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