That assumes that there aren't strong psychological/cultural forces acting against rationality.

Like not wanting to hire non-white people.

Like not wanting to hire people who are "too old"/"too young" for the field.

Like not wanting to punish men who harass women.

Like not wanting to make sure that your employees are well-treated, satisfied with their jobs, and healthy enough mentally and physically to concentrate on the job regularly.

The idea that The Almighty Market will solve all problems and be perfectly rational is notably unsupported by evidence.

the market might not solve all problems, but it does follow the dictates of greed.

But greed is not always the strongest motivating force.

It is demonstrably often overpowered by classism, racism, sexism, queerphobia, etc.

You'd think new companies would form and employ all women and end up undercutting the sexist ones who pay men more?

Huh. It's almost like these bigotries are structural, embedded throughout the system and making it much harder for anyone subject to them to get into the "owner class"...

it implies an unlikely homogeneity of thought process. it only takes one person to think different and they would end up making bank.

....That's what "systemic" means.

It doesn't "only take one person" to try something like that. It takes one person who is already part of the capital class—ie, someone who is already wealthy, a category correlated, if somewhat loosely, with the exact bigotries listed here. It takes someone who has, statistically speaking, made their money by being ruthless about it deciding they want to take a huge risk with it rather than do the sure thing (hire from the privileged classes). It also takes them having an idea for an actual business that's not merely viable, but highly lucrative. It also takes enough people in the marginalized classes who are within the target industry, who actually hear about the business, who are looking for a job, who are qualified, who can prove to the hirers' satisfaction that they are qualified.

This is not an exhaustive list.

You are oversimplifying in service of justifying an irrational ideology.

> It also takes enough people in the marginalized classes who are within the target industry, who actually hear about the business, who are looking for a job, who are qualified, who can prove to the hirers' satisfaction that they are qualified.

I thought the assumption was that they were already present in order to get a lower wage. if they are just not present, then I don't understand the argument. your belief that there is absolutely nobody greedy enough to make it happen seems unrealistic.

> I thought the assumption was that they were already present in order to get a lower wage.

OK, congratulations. You have satisfied one of the conditions I said were necessary.

Just in my line that you quote there are 5.

You want a pat on the back for solving bigotry forever?

Begging you to stop holding onto your thought experiment and look at the actual data. There’s a lot of it. There’s literally an academic consensus on the question. They’re not all wrong because it never occurred to them to apply an arbitrage argument.