From: Dick.Gray@bull.com To: extropians@extropy.com Date sent: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 15:37:19 -0700 Subject: Re: Joe's Universal Corporation (tm) Send reply to: extropians@extropy.com
>
>
> Joe had written:
> > >Since business acts to maximize its profits, eventual total merger
> > >(and total "market" - read consumer, people or citizenry - control)
> > >would be a lead-pipe certainty.
>
> To which I responded:
> > This is a total _non sequitur_. How does profit maximization lead
> > inexorably to "total merger"? In a free market, the consumer is always in
> > control - where else does the profit come from?
>
> Joe's comeback:
> >If there's only one source to get what you must have, and one price
> >for it (as in monopoly), profit is maximized right along with control.
> >Citizens become businees slaves and corporate serfs. Joe
>
> <Sigh> This is going nowhere.
>
> Let me try one more time: _Why are you positing that there's only one
> source?_ How did we get to that point?
>
> Can't you see that you're trying to argue by simply assuming your
> conclusion? You've offered nothing so far but unsupported assertions.
>
> Dick
>
Reread the first three lines of this post. Joe