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The free market can only take care of persisting discrimination by adjusting compensating differentials, so as to provide an incentive for hiring those who are
by zozbot123 8y ago
The free market can only take care of persisting discrimination by adjusting compensating differentials, so as to provide an incentive for hiring those who are being discriminated against. So the fact that females and minorities are both said to be discriminated in hiring and underpaid at some places is per se proof that the free market is in fact working to address discrimination in hiring. Sure, we'd like to see equal pay for equal work too, but you gotta start somewhere...
- jessaustin 8y agoThis is reasonable, but now you've given up the game entirely. Oracle and similar firms receive massive benefits from society. First, they are allowed to exist in the first place, which is not obviously a just decision. Also, so many aspects of society are tweaked to make it easier for gigantic inefficient firms to profit consistently. Because of this, Oracle and firms like it owe us something more than merely responding to market conditions. At the very least, not discriminating against employees in illegal ways is part of what they owe.
- Consultant32452 8y agoYou guys seem really interested in this topic, so I thought I'd recommend the book The Economics of Discrimination by Becker. A lot of seemingly intuitive things about wage discrimination fall apart upon closer inspection. It's a really complex problem that in some cases has counter intuitively gotten worse since the Jim Crow days.
- matt4077 8y agoIt does take some nerve to present paying women and PoC less for the same work as somehow working “against discrimination”.