I liked Eric Bohlman's discussion of "competition" and his
citation of MEGA versus different sorts of markets, very much. The issues
of what precisely we mean by competition are too often muddied because
we're captured by our intellectual simplifications, the so-called
"economic rationality" models and their reductions-for-computing
convenience. People aren't simple, nor are real world markets; and the
simplified models can (do!) woefully mislead us.
Now, if we can find a better way to describe all this, and get it
into our textbooks, our models and our "received wisdom," so that people
grow up thinking that "finding/creating a market" is the route to success,
then we will jump-start economic activity indeed!
-- Sam MXJELI@MAIL.WM.EDU Mariann Jelinek Richard C. Kraemer Professor of Business Graduate School of Business, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23185Tel. (804) 221-2882 FAX: (804) 229-6135