Re: [OPE] free competition

Well, ever since there has been capitalism, competition has been subject to
some laws and regulations at least, and, competition also involves blocking
competitors from competing. So it would be wrong to equate "free
competition" with anything like the "perfect competition" of economists. The
question is then one of exactly "how free" free competition is.

In this respect, the New Marxist Exploiting Class just announces The Truth
"professorially" from the rostrum. It does no research (if you earn, say,
$100,000 you leave that to other people); research is not necessarily,
because it "knows" the truth already "at a level of abstraction" (there is
always a "level of abstraction" at which you don't have to investigate and
discover anything, and can just "authoratively" define things).

In the real world (unknown to the NMEC), things are different. There is a
global hierarchy of enterprises. In some markets, large corporations occupy
a dominant position, true, but in many others they don't. Even if they
occupy a nationally dominant position in a particular market, they are
constantly challenged internationally by other corporate competitors. The
majority of businesses, who employ the most people, aren't multinationals,
but small and medium-size businesses. And they are very much involved in
business competition, even if the large corporations are able to block
competitors "to a certain extent".

Take for example an Anglo-Dutch corporation like Unilever, globally one of
the largest suppliers of branded foodstuffs, cleaning agents and personal
care products, which owns a lot of the top brands (like Unox, Becel, Calve
etc.). Is Unilever absolved from competition, because Jerry Levy says so?
Not at all. As regards foodstuffs, it has to slog it out with Danone, Kraft,
Nestle, Heinz, Kellog, Pepsico etc. As as regards personal care products, it
competes with Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, Henkel, L'Oreal, Colgate
Palmolive Johnson etc. And its a pretty stiff competition, since raw
material prices are rising strongly right now, cutting into profit margins.
The corporates thought they'd be able to sell more to the China and India,
but while Chinese and Indian household incomes rose by about 8%, food prices
went up by 18%. And at the end of the product chain, there is also a fierce
price competition between the supermarkets.

The Marxist knowledge-bureaucrats just have no idea of what real markets
look like (they never actually study anything, but just repeat phrases from
sacred texts) and therefore they have no idea about the limited control
which corporations have over prices. These Marxists just received the "Holy
Truth of Marxism" sometime in the 1970s, and they are still "bearing
witness".

Jurriaan

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Received on Sat Apr 9 07:16:16 2011