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Quotation of the Day…

… is from page 132 of the 2016 Mercatus Center re-issue of my late colleague Don Lavoie’s 1985 volume National Economic Planning: What Is Left? (original emphasis):

consumer-as-king-cartoonBut there is a big difference between admitting that corporate rivals exert influence over prices and asserting that they thereby fix or control prices, or that corporations are “in charge.”  Indeed, except where control over the reins of government has legally protected them from their competitors … corporate leaders are no more in charge of our economy than anybody else.  They vie with one another for the favor of consumer dollars.  Who wins control over investment funds depends on the outcome of their competitive struggle with one another, a struggle that no one agent controls.  To say that there are less than an infinite number of competitors is not to say that there is no competition, and to argue that each rival exerts some influence over prices is not to argue that any one rival firm can fix its prices at will.

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