 This can include discrimination against workers, consumers, and minority-owned businesses.It is not the same as price discrimination, the practice by which monopolists (and to a lesser extent oligopolists and monopolistic competitors) charge different buyers different prices based on their willingness to pay.A recognition of economic discrimination began in the British Railway Clauses Consolidation Act of 1845, which prohibited a common carrier from charging one person more for carrying freight than was charged to another customer for the same service.