Introduction

Abstract

In this portion of the study attention turns to the precise mechanisms by which the prohibitions proclaimed on the paper of the statute are given effective force. It is here that the distinctively legal controls on discrimination operate in their unique environment. There are of course other means by which discrimination might conceivably be reduced. Market forces might make it uneconomic for employers to cut themselves off from the supply of black labour, or for vendors of houses to restrict their pool of potential purchasers. Given the high level of unemployment, and brisk demand for good housing, reliance on the market would only exceptionally be an effective strategy; indeed even with nearly full employment in the 1960s, blacks were largely restricted to the least desirable jobs and encountered massive discrimination in other aspects of life.¹ Other factors, notably the attenuated influence of market considerations in vital matters such as the provision of council housing and public sector employment, and the influence of collective bargaining, make the strategy even less plausible in present-day Britain. Alternatively, it might be argued that education and exhortation are the appropriate means of altering discriminatory behaviour, a tactic that would require no legal mechanisms at all.