Tomorrow, the NY Times will publish my letter to the editor in this debate about progress and perfect competition. They edited me down sharply but the core issue here is whether "monopoly capitalism" offered benefits as "fat cat" firms could over-pay workers and provide public goods for their local communities? In this new age of international perfect competition, firms no longer have this luxury of being "nice". This is a spin on Gary Becker's the economics of discrimination. In his work, the discriminator sacrificed profit in order to engage in his taste for being mean to a given group. In this case, the firm sacrifices profit to give away either to workers or to the town. As Becker argued, competition chips away at one's ability to engage in such activity.
To repeat my point again; "A key dynamic implication of the Becker model of discrimination (1957) is that increased product market competition will drive out costly discrimination in the long run."
My point is that international competition has driven out "reverse discrimination" in the short run!
