Differentiated tickets: Can't Brazilian girls choose to pay less?

You can read this text in Portuguese at: http://diariosdeharveydent.blogspot.com.br/2017/07/ingressos-diferenciados-brasileiras-nao.html

Before you ask me, no, I'm not a radical Liberal thinking that the ‘market god’ can self-regulate and that under no circumstances should the State intervene in private enterprise; ok, I believe and defend freedom, but I think freedom isn’t the mere inexistence of constraint and coercion in the relations between the State and individuals, for me the lack of job, education, health, and safety can be as harmful to freedom as compulsion and coercion. I do not label myself, in fact as part of this or that political aspect (nor philosophical), since I analyze proposals and projects on their merits, not by what current defend it. There is a friend of mine, for example, who told me not to support the CLT (Brazilian work laws) because it had been proposed by a fascist government (Getúlio Vargas, 1940’s). Wait, let’s think a little… Does it even matter who create CLT? Or does it matter whether it is positive or negative for Brazilian workers and Brazilian economy? I would take the second option, and analyze the merits of CLT, never if it was proposed and implemented by a Liberal, a Fascist, a Socialist or even a Nazi, and this analysis, I think, should not be based either “on what Marx said” nor “on what Mises talked”, but in a dispassionate analysis with the feet in facts analyzed by peer-reviewed statistical data.

After “pouring oil on troubled waters”, I found absurd the decision of the Department of Protection and Consumer Protection of the Brazilian Ministry of Justice and Public Security, determining that different ticket values for men and women in night clubs is illegal. The justification for this would be “abusive commercial practice," which uses women as "a marketing object to attract the opposite sex to events.” As Jack the Ripper would say, let's go for parts.

First, it’s obvious that the State can (and should) interfere in cases of abusive commercial practice. However, above all, what is abusive commercial practice? According Brazilian lawyer Antônio Carlos Efing “they are behaviors, both in the contractual sphere and the margin of it, that abuse the good faith or situation of economic or technical inferiority of the consumer”; the definition is enlarged by the current Minister of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), Minister of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and General Electoral Justice Corregidor Antônio Herman de Vasconcellos e Benjamin; according to him abusive commercial practice is “disconformity with the market standards of good conduct towards the consumer,” that is, we will be faced with abusive commercial practices when all conduits tend to increase consumer vulnerability¹. So, price regulation by competitors to avoid free competition, trust, non-refund of amounts paid for services or goods not delivered, ‘married sale’ of products or services of a distinct nature (for example, the obligation to buy insurance when buying a ticket) are all examples of abusive commercial practices. That is, of course the market needs to have freedom, but abusive acts take away the freedom of the customer, who must also be respected!

With this in mind, what would be the freedom of the customer that would be vetoed in the case of differentiated ticket prices? Is not the government, in this case, acting in an ideological way, determining what is or is not good for women in general following the opinion of the feminist movement (which, right or wrong is an ideological tend)? And this without even knowing what Brazilian women think of it, if they feel that what feminists preach is right or wrong? After all, as far as I know, except for the most hardened feminists, the women with whom I have contact do not see it as problematic to pay less, much earlier on the contrary! Their right should not be respected because a part of society considers this wrong? And there's more! According to the column of Mônica Bergamo in Folha Online², published on 07/27 of this year, the differentiation of prices in LGBT establishments is common practice, example in lesbian bars men pay more to avoid “customers with fetishes”; the law must be valid for all, so can lesbians no longer select clients from their establishments to avoid constraints? Gay movement agree it is absurd, and gay entities are entering with legal actions to stop the measure: “in a moment,” says Welton Trindade, editor of the Folha Gay Guide, “they will force a woman into a gay sauna”.

With the above, I think in this case govern don’t constrained an abusive commercial practice, but the government committed ideological abuse not respecting society as a whole, but imposing the convictions of a group, forbidding commercial establishments from charging different prices in an action that, at least for me, closely resembles the price table to avoid competition, abusive practice of which we spoke above.

In other words, if you are a businessman and disagree with different prices, then copper equal tickets, and who prefer in this way frequent such places. Who doesn’t see problems in differentiated prices, keep doing if you are an entrepreneur, or attending if you are a customer. You do not like? Do not go and remain free leaving the others equally free!

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1 – MENGUE, J. Das práticas abusivas na relação de consumo. Disponível em [https://jjuridicocps.jusbrasil.com.br/artigos/112072252/das-praticas-abusivas-na-relacao-de-consumo]. Acesso em 30/07/2017.

2 – Bergamo, M. Gays querem preços mais caros para mulheres em casas noturnas. Folha de São Paulo. 28/07/2017. Disponível em [http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/monicabergamo/2017/07/1905393-editores-de-guia-gay-reclamam-de-preco-igual-para-homens-e-mulheres.shtml]. Acesso em 30/07/2017.