I mean, you could have said the same about blacks in the decades between emancipation and the civil rights movement. I think Jesse Lee Peterson might have some

I mean, you could have said the same about blacks in the decades between emancipation and the civil rights movement. I think Jesse Lee Peterson might have something to say with regards to that. I suspect that there were perceptive people who took advantage of societal conditions and hired industrious people for less money. But in the case of anti-black racism, it truly was a case of human prejudice outweighing market incentives, for a very long time. According to Thomas Sowell, with some kinds of work, some American slaves were paid additional bonuses for certain kinds of work requiring care and attention to detail. Otherwise, the proper level of motivation couldn't be maintained even through torture. Biases certainly can distort market forces, but the market forces will also bend society. Southern bus and train lines were opposing Jim Crow laws quite early on because they didn't want to spend money on extra vehicles/train cars.