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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

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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?

Let's invert the argument.

Why doesn't the free market solve the problem of “looked over” white applicants?

Firstly, we know it's happening. Per this survey, for example. Also, common sense indicates that if they're asking to know race on the application, then it's something that affects hiring.

So why don't the underappreciated whites go off and form their own companies? Firstly, they do. But in the US, there are preferential loans and grants for non-whites and women. There were also requirements that boards of directors must have non-whites or LGBT on them in California. A court later ruled against this law, yet it is clear that there's a tendency in the US government apparatus to favor women, non-whites and sexual minorities. For example, government contractors get preferential terms if the business is run by women or 'economically disadvantaged' people which I checked through and discovered to be just about everyone except whites and north-east Asians.

How 'Subcontinent Asian Americans' can be 'economically disadvantaged' in the US is unclear to me, since Indian household incomes are very high and even Bangladeshi incomes are higher than White Americans.

And finally, we have Blackrock in the private/public sector, the fourth arm of the US government and largest shareholder in many large companies. They too are keen on diversity within companies and corporate boards and have immense soft power to wield. When talking about the labor market, soft power is paramount. Everyone is agreed that discrimination mostly happens in informal ways - I posit that informal anti-white discrimination is much more important than the formal stuff linked above. Yet I can't source that. But if we can see the top of the iceberg, there's plenty more that we can't see.

My conclusion is that the free market is not really free. People want more than money, they often have strong political views. If all Gillette wanted was money, why would they pay for ads that harassed their core customers - men? Nobody could seriously think that was the most efficient way to increase profits in a free market. Either they were seeking some progressive brownie points that would pay off later, or they were acting on their own political views.

Another obvious example is various companies voluntarily divesting from Russia. Some have and some haven't. But those who have are taking a major hit, it's a big market. Apple's market share will be taken by their Chinese equivalents, presumably. The European economies took a huge hit in abandoning Russian energy. They did this for political reasons. Markets are innately political, they are avenues to obtain and wield power.

AB 979 requires that by the end of 2021 California-headquartered public companies have at least one director on their boards who is from an underrepresented community, defined as “an individual who self‑identifies as Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native, or who self‑identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.”

... gay or bisexual? Can't a white board member just declare they're gay or bisexual, and pass the requirement? Not like they can check

Didn't ZeroHP Lovecraft have a story about that? Or was it one of the others in his crowd? "We're really hoping to promote you, but we have to promote a woman. Do you understand?"