Neoclassical competition theory masks real coercive market dynamics.

Evidence

But isn’t competition supposed to be a good thing? Respected analysts and pundits tell us that the current problem is the lack of competition. According to their perspective, the market is not a place where there’s stifling compulsion to increase profits and market share and the tendency toward capital concentration; rather, it’s the key to preventing—through the noble tool of competition—lobbies and corporations from indiscriminately enjoying rents. In academic parlance, “rents” refers to the extra amount you pay for any resource beyond what it cost to make it. Free competition, if truly safeguarded, would eliminate rents and bring out the best of both firms and workers. However, this rhetoric is largely the outcome of idealized, pseudoscientific economic models, not always done in good faith. These models and their idealized notions of competition prevent us from seeing the real condition of the society we live in. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 136

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives the academic definition of rents and the standard pro-competition claim, both needed to frame the counterargument.
• XREF: connects to: Monopoly pricing and planning emerged from US capital centralization since 1900 — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 803; Neoliberalism makes competition rather than exchange the essence of the market — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 59; Antitrust law’s presumptions cannot be isolated from prevailing economic theory — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1146 (+1 more)