Free enterprise
Sir, — Anna Fitzgerald (April 28) writes that "the purpose of production is.the satisfacton of people’s genuine needs, not profit.” What twaddle. Who decides what people’s genuine needs are, Anna Fitzgerald, or a remote planner, who has no way of’ knowing whether raincoats or umbrellas, or indeed what sizes should be made? The market economy responds .to people’s genuine needs by producing the things that people demand. Put simply, business responds to people’s free choice by producing the goods people demand the most, i.e„ where the biggest profits are. If you think the profits are excessive, start a
business in competition. The alternative of a planned economy is unworkable and the food lines in Socialist countries prove this. What happens if people do not want to work where the planner thinks they should? The answer is no doubt compulsion with tyranny the final result. Freedom is choice, not a plan to meet people’s genuine -needs. — Yours, etc., P. D. GRAINGER. April 28, 1980.
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Press, 1 May 1980, Page 20
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164Free enterprise Press, 1 May 1980, Page 20
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