This leaves competition from other companies. A well set up monopoly or oligopoly can readily create such significant barriers to entry (price wars) that it will take a tremendous amount of effort to break through the status quo. However, once through, the competing company will be invited to join the price-fixing strategy. It is the more profitable move for all involved.
Price-fixing is a stable and profitable strategy for companies. There is no natural mechanism that opens up a market that is dominated by a few players that fix price. In short: a laissez-faire market is not necessarily competitive.
But now the problem starts. The majority, being equally discriminatory as the minority, has a disproportionate effect on the well-being of the minority. Take sexism at the workplace as an easy example. Suppose everybody, male or female, makes one sexist remark to the opposite sex once a week. Now also suppose that the workplace consists of 10 times the number of males over the number of females. Not out of the ordinary in tech circles. Then, on average, every male will get a sexist remark every 10 weeks. Every female will get 10 sexist remarks per week. The girl is harassed 100 times more often than the boy. The same goes if the ratios are reversed.
Should we do affirmative action, and ask the guys to watch their language 10 times better than the girls? Or is that sexist?
Why is a male-dominated workplace typically sexist? Simple. Suppose that each person, regardless of sex, makes a sexist remark once every week to someone of opposite sex. Now suppose that the male-female ratio in the workplace is ten to one. Then, on average, every female in the workplace is subjected to 10 sexist remarks per week, while the average male is subject to 1 sexist remark every 10 weeks. For the males this doesn't feel sexist, the females experience a very hostile workplace, yet both are equally sexist. In order to balance this, males need to be 10 times less sexist than females. Is asking males to be more sensitive to their behavior than females in itself sexist?
This holds for any prejudice people have. The minority will be disproportionally affected by it. I'm not sure if affirmative action is the answer, but the status quo does mean that people of merit will not get where they could be.
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion