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3
Old Stores – Selling
It would be strange indeed if it were otherwise: since
the causes are so powerful there are such powerful causes that by their operation had
to promote the abuse, and some of the same texture
and equal strength that operate on restraint of it.
Upon a simple statement of the matter and
unless unlike the circumstances above noted were taken
into consideration, it would seem that the mode pursued
is the very mode of all others in which
the base adapted to the obtaining the highest price disposing of the articles to him gives
advantage: the goods being sold by auction,
and the auction a public one, they are sold to the
best bidder, and consequently for the highest price.
But the advantage, when examined into a little
more narrowly, will be found to be delusive.
1. In the first place the consumers the consumer as we have
seen are is excluded – hence the fair dealer's profit
is lost to government – say 12 per cent.
2. In the next place, the honest dealers are
excluded – this confines the competition to the
dishonest class of dealers – and consequently encreases
the rate of profit to that the rate customary
among dishonest dealers – say to 40 or 45 per
Cent. Not that this is all real profit, since out
of it must be paid the bribe to the dishonest
officer his confederate.
3. When the number of competitors, or apparent competitors of them are reduced
in number, and that number composed exclusively
of the dishonest class, the competition, it is easy
to see easily and frequently may be no more than nominal: all agree
together, and each has his lots at his own price.
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Identifier: | JB/149/038/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 149.
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jeremy bentham |
g&ep 1794 |
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1794 |
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49892 |
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