You would have to ignore capital's tendency to concentrate. Then, egregiously, you'd have to pretend like playing dirty doesn't confer an advantage. Substituting lower quality ingredients in name brand products cuts costs just as surely as eye pokes make MMA fights unpleasant. And presumably the more you want the market to deal with it, the less you want a referee. So they could make a higher quality snack cake, but they're not going to, because of the implication. And besides, who's going to buy that shit when you fully separate the haves and the have nots when the haves could hire private chefs and the moderately well off account for some 5% of all consumer spending because they are so few and far between.

And that's before you even consider your other point about nepo babies and wanting to work around your friends as opposed to someone more qualified. When you're the only show in town and it's prohibitively expensive and there's a horrible aura around competing with you ゴゴゴゴゴゴ you can squeeze the expertise for a dwarfed salary