Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial preface
- List of contributors
- Introduction: Cracks in the neoclassical mirror: on the break-up of a vision
- Part I Class relations in circulation and production
- Part II The Cambridge criticisms
- Part III Microeconomics
- 6 Competition and price-taking behavior
- 7 A general model of investment and pricing
- Part IV Macroeconomics
- Part V International trade
- Part VI Property and welfare
- Part VII Marxism and modern economics
- Epilogue: The hieroglyph of production
6 - Competition and price-taking behavior
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial preface
- List of contributors
- Introduction: Cracks in the neoclassical mirror: on the break-up of a vision
- Part I Class relations in circulation and production
- Part II The Cambridge criticisms
- Part III Microeconomics
- 6 Competition and price-taking behavior
- 7 A general model of investment and pricing
- Part IV Macroeconomics
- Part V International trade
- Part VI Property and welfare
- Part VII Marxism and modern economics
- Epilogue: The hieroglyph of production
Summary
The nature of markets
Six months ago Babbitt had learned that one Archibald Purdy, a grocer in the indecisive residential district known as Linton, was talking of opening a butcher shop beside his grocery. Looking up the ownership of adjoining parcels of land, Babbitt found that Purdy owned his present shop but did not own the one available lot adjoining. He advised Conrad Lyte to purchase this lot, for eleven thousand dollars, though an appraisal on a basis of rents did not indicate its value as above nine thousand. The rents, declared Babbitt, were too low; and by waiting they could make Purdy come to their price.
Now, Purdy seemed ready to buy, and his delay was going to cost him ten thousand extra dollars – the reward paid by the community to Mr. Conrad Lyte for the virtue of employing a broker who had Vision …
Lyte came to the conference exultantly. He was fond of Babbitt this morning and called him “old hoss.” Purdy, the grocer, a long-nosed man and solemn, seemed to care less for Babbitt and Vision, but Babbitt met him at the street door to the office and guided him toward the private room with affectionate little cries of “This way, Brother Purdy!” … then leaned back in his desk chair and looked plump and jolly. But he spoke to the weakling grocer with firmness.
“Well, Brother Purdy, we have been having some pretty tempting offers … for that lot next to your store, but I persuaded Brother Lyte that we ought to give you a shot at the property first.
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- Growth, Profits and PropertyEssays in the Revival of Political Economy, pp. 99 - 117Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1980
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