ABSTRACT
Competition as a discovery procedure must rely on the self-interest of the producers that are it must allow them to use their knowledge for their purposes, because nobody else possesses the information on which they must base their decision. Where the conditions of ‘perfect’ competition are absent, some will find it profitable to sell their products at prices their marginal costs, though they could still make an adequate profit by selling at lower prices. The immediate danger which led to the demand for an ‘incomes policy’ was, however, the process of inflation which the competitive pressure for an increase of all incomes produced. As a means of curbing this upward movement of all money incomes, these ‘incomes policies’ were bound to fail. Olson’s demonstration that, first, only relatively small groups will in general spontaneously form an organization and second, that the organizations of the great economic interests which today dominate government.
