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What is the liberal argument for why the free market doesn’t solve the problem of “looked over” minority applicants?
If there were a number of minority business applicants who felt looked over in hiring and not adequately promoted, why wouldn’t they want to form their own business? For instance, they can simply form their own trading company. Ostensibly, if the problem is so severe as to warrant large scale national discussion and policy change, there must be hundreds of thousands of minorities capable of making way more money than they currently make if only they are hired properly and placed in the appropriate position. Importantly, they would be making money for anyone who invested in the business. As there are already exorbitantly wealthy minority investors, shouldn’t this be occurring? And if the liberal theory were correct, wouldn’t this just be free money for everyone involved? All you would have to do is establish a trading firm made up of whichever minority applicants are being discriminated against.
As a gratuitous example, if Goldman Sachs weren’t hiring Korean PhDs to work on algorithmic trading, someone could swoop in and make free money just by hiring them. Or better yet, a Korean investor could help someone start their very own Korean version of Goldman. We saw something like this with physics PhDs; someone realized they would be exceptionally good at applying their intelligence to understanding the market mathematically, and those who hired them made bank. Now everyone hires them.
So if I were a female trader, or even better, an Afro-Caribbean female trader, and I were not placed in a position which maximized company gains, I would just need to collect together a few dozen others in a similar position and start my own boutique shop with investment from African and/or female investors, of which there are thousands. This should be an obvious decision for everyone involved. It would be a day 1 decision. It’s how non-minorities often decide to start their own business, feeling like they could be better off starting a new organization. A relative of mine started his own company with some colleagues when he felt he wasn’t being optimally placed for his own economic gain (and the company’s, given that he simply left and took clients). It’s also how, for instance, Jewish Americans involved in banking were able to start their own companies — in some cases being hired by the majority who saw their value, in other cases starting their own companies having realized their own value.
Put another way, why on earth are women and Native American and Black traders who feel discriminated against not forming their own boutique firm with the investment of progressive millionaires and even billionaires? It’s free money! And half of all retail investors could invest in the enterprise (the Progressive half). The Portland school district could put their teacher’s retirement funds into their hands, knowing it’s the greatest bang for their buck. It would be like finding an undiscovered Ivy League school, churning out Yale-level talent without anyone realizing it. Why are we not hearing the success stories of all female or all-Latino or etc trading firms?
The main argument I can think of is from the "Jewish Lawyer" scene from Atlanta. The extent to which the talent is undervalued may not compensate for the extent to which they're excluded from/lack connections within important professional networks. Particularly when it comes to starting a business connections are really important and even if you're top tier at trading stocks that doesn't mean you're really good at organizing a firm.
Also, it's a big leap from, "x demographic is systematically undervalued" to "a firm composed entirely of x demographic would outcompete the field". Say you figured out that the NBA systematically undervalues players from Europe, should you attempt to compose a team entirely of European players?
Entirely? No. But if the European players really are just as good but valued less, one would be a fool to not prioritize recruiting them. You would get equally skilled players while paying less.
Yes. Black Female Caribbean traders are such a small percentage of total traders that it's completely plausible that they're systematically underrated and that there's still not enough of them in the right tail of the distribution of traders for a firm composed entirely of them to succeed. What could succeed would be a 2010s Spurs type arrangement where a player from right tail of the properly valued majority demographic (Tim Duncan) is bolstered by a bunch of players from the systematically underrated demographic the team picked up cheap (Ginobli, Parker, Diaw).
I don't think it's a mystery whey there isn't some firm of all Afro-Carribean gay disabled stock traders blowing away the competition. Even if systematically undervalued why would we expect enough of this subset of traders to be in the right tail to succeed on their own. The question is: is there some majority white male/Asian firms that happen to have figured out that x demographic is systematically undervalued and hires them and promotes them at a higher rate then everyone else and enjoys a small advantage from doing that. There could be, and there could still be a lag before everyone else catches on. It took the NBA a while to catch on to what Popovich figured out about European players and the kings still took Bagley over Luca.
There may not be a lot of female Afro-Caribbean traders, but there are ostensibly enough discriminated against female traders, black traders, and Hispanic traders for dozens of boutique investment firms, which usually have fewer than 100 employees yet see billions in review.
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