ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the circumstances which have kept social inefficiency, private power, government intervention and unemployment from ruining people in the recent present. The competition of the competitive model almost completely precludes technical development. Technical development has long since become the preserve of scientist and engineer. In the industry that is shared by a relatively small number of large firms, convention that excludes price competition does not restrain technical innovation. This remains one of the important weapons of market rivalry. In a community which sets great store by progress, technical advance is an important source of business prestige. The reductions in cost, and consequent increases in efficiency from technical change, can be of a wholly different order of magnitude from those sacrificed as the result of the exercise of market power. The market concentration of American industry that is affirmed by the statistics and condemned by competitive model turns out on closer examination to be favorable to technical change.
