Priestley Johnson
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Competition
I thought that it was interesting that Smith touched upon competition because personally I though competition was always a good thing. I though t it made the economy flourish and the choices for consumers vast. I never really considered how this could be a real problem. I now see how this is still part of our society the way that when a franchise is started larger companies buy them out with fear of the becoming too large and taking them over. This can be applied to the store Macy's how it bout out many department stores in order to regulate the competition. I agree with Smith when he said that "retraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter them, occasions a very important inequality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock" ( 146). This regulation of competition can be detrimental because is can lead to corruption to make sure the competition stays regulated. I Don't Know .... I feel like this connects to the natural way things happen because by creating a policy like Europe that regulates the Competition, higher or lower, it reinforces that there really is no liberty in the way we function any more. I may be wayyyyyyyy off with this (...most likely) but I feel like the government shouldn't be involved with the manner in which companies compete.
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I agree. The government shouldn't take part in how companies compete. In an open competition society, each company strives to be the best so the continuously search for better products to offer to consumers. With open competition, improvement in products are bound to happen. We can take a look at cell phones nowadays -- the iPhone vs. Google phone, etc. Improvement benefits society. Smith talked about how self-interest improves society...? Can't we say that it's the same as self-improvement? If one individual's self-improvement puts a society on an even better standing... then wouldn't a company who strives for improvement because of open competition benefit the society even greater....?
ReplyDeleteConsumers definitely have the power over the producers in an open competition. I guess what we're in is the modern society now. In Smith's society with the mercantile system, the producers/ masters were the main players. Consumers didn't really have much of say. I guess that's a difference/ change from Smith's days to our days.
Thinking about it again one can argue that businesses can grow too large in modern society. They con grow and grow and buy out challengers and ELIMINATE their competition. Thats how businesses can be corrupt and entire monopolies can flourish to be so big that the government cant do anything about them . The may be able to take over a big part of the economy and rule out choices for consumers. So maybe regulation of competition can be good to a certain extent.
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