"to return to the idea of competition as a process of endogenous change driven by the differential behaviour of the competitors. A wide variety of economists have expressed their
dissatisfaction with the equilibrium view in a number of ways, some less polite than others, (
Moi ici: Só tolinhos académicos longe da vida real podem acreditar nessa treta do equilíbrio) and it will be as well to outline several of the main contributions. Thus, Morgenstern (1972) claims that
competition as a word employed by economists has lost touch with reality simply because it has replaced struggle and rivalry with equilibrium. J.M. Clark (1961) in his major contribution to this literature began by claiming that the shift from equilibrium to process was the most challenging question in the theory of competition, and he suggested four broad elements necessary for effective competition: competent customers able to appraise accurately the competing products on offer; freedom of individuals and organizations to engage in any trade or activity; access to all the necessary means of production; and a climate of independence of attitude and strategy among firms in the industry."
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O que se segue é pura poesia, e está tão longe do que os media e a academia que faz parte dos painéis
divulgam. Encostem-se e saboreiem o que é viver em Mongo:
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"Particularly interesting in his appraisal of competition theory is Georgescu-Roegen (1967) who points to the fact that, as normally portrayed, competition is absent within the industry and only takes place between industries,
the condition commonly labelled as a ‘perfectly competitive industry’ actually involves no competition at all. (p. 32)
Firms within a perfectly competitive industry only adjust passively to prices which are externally determined. As to what is needed in order to develop a theory of the competitive process we are encouraged to recognize that,
In every domain, but especially in economics, competition means in the first place trying to do things in a slightly different manner from all other individuals. (p. 33)
Here is an important clue as to how we are to proceed. We are to recognize that,
the most general form of competition among individual concerns is differentiation of product, involving a little innovation, not cut throat pricing. (p. 34) (Moi ici: Diferenciação é a solução)
Here is a major paradox: competition only becomes active when we allow a monopoly element premised upon the fact that firms are different, and scope for competition lies not in the number of firms but in the conditions creating diverse behaviour. (Moi ici: "Conditions creating diverse behaviour"... é o truque, fugir do Grande Planeador, apostar na biodiversidade... Hamel and Valikangas rule) In a sense, all the elements above were contained in Chamberlin’s Monopolistic Competition but for him the grip of equilibrium thinking was too strong. Brenner (1987) is also a notable contributor to this literature, with the emphasis being placed on bets upon new ideas and the insistence that,
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Businessmen pursue strategies to discover a combination of customers and services (Moi ici: Qual a cadeia da procura? Quem são os clientes-alvo e o que lhes oferecer?) with respect to which they have an advantage over those who they perceive as their competitors. (p. 49)
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Among all the economists who have been critical of the equilibrium approach none has been more devastating from my perspective than Hayek (1948, 1978) with his view that an equilibrium concept of competition is a contradiction in terms. In a much quoted passage he suggests that,
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if the state of affairs assumed by the theory of perfect competition ever existed, it would not only deprive of their scope all the activities which the verb ‘to compete’ describes but would make them virtually impossible. (p. 92)
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Instead competition is a succession of events, a dynamic process, a voyage of exploration into the unknown in which successively superior products and production methods are introduced, and consumers discover who meets their particular needs and how. Neither producers nor consumers know in advance the outcome of the competitive process, for that can only be established by trial and error. Putting it another way, atomistic competitive trading implies the absence of all competitive actions. Again we begin to see a link between the process view and the emphasis on differential behaviours of rival agents, and we should note Hayek’s insistence that differentiation of this kind undermines any claim that agents can have complete knowledge of all the factors relevant to market behaviour.
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Knight, too, favoured an exploratory perspective on the economic process in which not only the capabilities of firms but the preferences of individuals become the endogenous outcome of a trial and error economic process.
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When new opportunities continually arise, one will see under competition a continuing process of change which carries with it continued opportunities for profit and growth. One cannot hope to understand the competitive nature of such a process by examining it in terms of static competitive equilibrium.(1983, p. 39)
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The driving force in competition is not the adjustment of price but innovation, the theory of which had occupied Schumpeter in two previous major works, Business Cycles and The Theory of Economic Development. For it is through innovation that firms command a decisive cost or quality advantage affecting not their marginal profits but their very existence. Thus it is a matter of comparative indifference whether atomistic price competition in the ordinary sense operates more or less promptly.
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(Moi ici: Cada cavadela cada minhoca!!!!! O trecho que se segue é um manjar dos deuses. Uma achega à minha guerra sobre a superioridade da eficácia sobre a eficiência) Capitalism is not to be judged in terms of its immediate efficiency in allocating given resources across given opportunities but in terms of its ability over time to create resources and opportunities. Hence Schumpeter’s central idea of change driven from within, brilliantly captured in his phrase ‘creative destruction’. This, it should be emphasized, is not an optional extra to the capitalist process but is the capitalist process: equilibrium capitalism is for Schumpeter a contradiction in terms.
Consequently, it would seem one cannot understand capitalistic competition in terms of a comparison of sequences of equilibria."
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Mongo por todo o lado!!!
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Trechos retirados de "Evolutionary economics and creative destruction" de J. Stanley Metcalfe
