Competition and the Objectives of Government Policy

IN an earlier version of the programme, this paper was assigned the topic: ‘ How to make competition work ’. That is a formidable assignment; but I hope it was something besides a desire to escape from its heavy demands which caused me to raise the prior question: ‘How do we want competition to work? To what extent do we really want it, and what do we want it to do for us, and to us? ’ It seems that we — meaning American economists — have been taking the desirability of competition for granted for a considerable term of years, during which things have been happening, in the realms of theory and practice both, which have changed the perspective in which we see a number of our economic objectives; and that it may be worth-while to re-examine the rationale of our position on the subject of competition.