Ethics in the Market Place

PSP 4200 Dr. Afida Week 3

Ethics in the Marketplace

What conditions must be in place for a perfectly competitive free market to exist? What is a monopoly market and why are such markets ethically questionable? When do oligopoly companies act like a monopoly? What can be done about monopolies and oligopolies?

Introduction

Our system generally follows the free market model, which is based on competition However, note that there are so many examples of anticompetitive practices today To understand the nature of market competition and the ethics of anticompetititve practices, it is helpful to examine three abstract models of the different degrees of competition in a market

Market Competition

Degrees of competition Perfect competition Pure monopoly Oligopoly

Perfect competition

A market is any forum which people come together for the purpose of exchanging ownership of goods and money. Markets can be small and very temporary (two friends trading clothes can constitute a tiny transient market) or quite large and relatively permanent (the oil market covering several states and has been operating for decades)

Perfect competition

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No buyer or seller has the power to significantly affect the price of a good. Perfectly competitive free markets are characterized by the following seven features: There are numerous buyers & sellers, none of whom has a substantial share of the market All buyers & sellers can freely & immediately enter or leave the market

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Every buyer & seller has full & perfect knowledge of what every other buyer and seller is doing, including knowledge of the prices, quantities, and quality of all goods being bought & sold The goods being sold in the market are so similar to each other that no one cares from whom each buys or sells

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The costs & benefits of producing or using the goods being exchanged are borne entirely by those buying or selling the goods & not by any other external parties All buyers and sellers are utility maximizes: Each tries to get as much as possible for as little as possible

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No external parties (such as government) regulate the price, quantity, or quality of any of the goods being bought and sold in the market The first two features are the basic characteristics of a competitive market because they ensure that buyers and sellers are roughly equal in power and none can force others to accept its terms

The seventh feature is what makes a market qualify as a free market free of any externally imposed regulations on price, quantity, or quality In this market, prices rise when supply falls, inducing greater production Thus, prices & quantities move towards equilibrium (stability) point, the amount produced exactly equals the amount buyers want to purchase

Perfect Competition: Justice, Utility, and Rights

Thus, perfectly competitive markets satisfy three of the moral values/criteria: Justice they lead buyers and sellers to exchange their goods in a way that is just Utility they maximize the utility of buyers and sellers by leading them to allocate, use, and distribute their goods with perfect efficiency Rights they bring about these achievements in a way that respects buyers and sellers right of free consent.
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In a perfectly competitive market, buyers and sellers are free to enter or leave the market as they choose. That is, individuals are neither forced into nor prevented from engaging in a certain business, provided they have the expertise and the financial resources required. In actuality, there is no real example of such a market. Market that do not have all seven features of the perfectly free market are, therefore, less moral.

In a capitalist sense of the word, justice is when the benefits and burdens of society are distributed such that a person receives the value of the contribution he or she makes to an enterprise Perfectly competitive free markets embody this sense of justice, since the equilibrium point is the only point at which both the buyer and seller receive the just price for a product Such markets also maximize the utility of buyers and sellers by leading them to use and distribute goods with maximum efficiency

Monopoly Competition

What happens when a free market (i.e., one without government intervention) ceases to be perfectly competitive? Its the opposite extreme of a perfectly competitive market It is called the monopoly market A perfectly competitive market is characterized by seven conditions. In a monopoly market, two of the 7 conditions are absent there is only one seller, and other sellers cannot enter the market
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The monopoly market has only one seller, and that single seller has a substantial (100%) share of the market No competitor could enter the market because there are barriers to entry The barriers to entry can be: Patent laws, which give only one seller the right to produce a commodity; Licenses, tariffs, quotas, grants and other means by which government keeps new firms from entering a domestic market

High entry/start up costs, high advertising costs or high research and development costs which make it too expensive for a new inexperience seller to start a business in that industry; Brand loyalty or long-term customer contracts that make it too hard for a new entrant to capture the customers of an established company Low manufacturing costs that allow the established company to threaten to lower prices and win a price war if a new firm tries to enter the market

Examples of Monopoly
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Aluminum market Alcoa (Aluminum Company of America) held the patents for the production of virgin aluminum in the US until 1909, by which time it was firmly entrenched as the sole domestic producer of aluminum. Although its patent ran out in 1909, other manufacturers were never able to enter successfully into the production of aluminum as their start-up costs would have been too high and they lacked Alcoas experience, trade connections, and trained personnel

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Alcoa remained the sole domestic producer of virgin aluminum until the 1940s, when it was successfully prosecuted under the antitrust law. Exxon monopoly created by mergers of leading oil refineries. The monopoly was broken into 34 separate companies when the Supreme Court charged the company with monopolization in 1911. American Tobacco Company - absorb all major cigarette manufacturing companies in the US by a forced merger. In 1911, the company was also ordered to break up into several smaller firms

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Pharmaceutical industry a 2004 study of drug costs showed that prescription drugs have markups of 5,000%, 30,000% and 500,000% over cost of their ingredients.

E.g. Prozac which sells for $247, cost only 11 cents, Xanax, which sells for $136, costs only 3 cents.

Monopoly markets are those in which a single firm is the only seller in the market and which new sellers are barred from entering A seller in a monopoly market, therefore, can control the prices of the available goods Demand so high, excess profits Monopolistic markets & their high prices & profits violate capitalist justice because the seller charges more than the goods are worth Thus, the prices the buyer must pay are unjust The American Tobacco Company for example, was making profits equal to about 56 percent of its sales 20

If the entry into the market were open, these excess profits would draw other producers into the market, resulting in an increased supply of goods and a drop in prices until equilibrium was attained. In a monopoly market, where barriers to entry make it impossible or too costly for other firms to enter the market, thus, prices will remain high if the monopolist chooses to keep them high

Monopoly Competition: Justice, Utility, and Rights

The monopoly market does not succeed in achieving the three moral values Justice unjustly high prices on the buyer and generates unjustly high profit for the seller; this practice violates capital justice Utility decline in the efficiency with which it allocates and distributes goods Allows shortage of products & cause them to be sold at higher prices High profits indicate shortage of goods

Rights restrictions on the rights that perfectly free market respect In monopoly market, other sellers are not free to enter Dominated by a single seller whose decisions determine the prices and quantities of the goods for sale The monopoly firms power over the market is absolute

Oligopolistic Competition

In the middle between perfect competition & monopoly oligopoly Two of the seven conditions not present 1. Instead of many sellers, there are only a few significant ones 2. Other sellers not free to enter the market The market is shared by a relatively small number of large firms that together can exercise some influence on prices Other sellers are not able to freely enter the market
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The common causes of an oligopolistic market is the merger of two companies that formerly competed in the same line of business Moral values of this market? Like monopolies, can fail to set just profits, respect basic economic freedoms, and protect social utility

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Dominant Brands and Companies in Oligopoly Markets, 2000

Market Share Canned Soup 70% Toaster Pastry 72% Sports Drinks 82% Jeans 52% Chlorine Bleach 59% Laser Printers 61% Digital Camcorders 68% Video Games 64%

Market

Unethical practices in Oligopoly Market

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Price fixing companies set very high prices In 2002, the managers of six companies that controlled over 80% of the worlds vitamin market, paid $225 million to settle a suit alleging that they had fixed worldwide prices for vitamins Manipulation supply a company agree to limit production

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3.

Exclusive Dealing Arrangements a company sells to a retailer only on condition that the retailer will not purchase products from other companies

During the 1940s American Can Company would lease its can closing machines (at a very low price) only to those customers who agreed not to purchase any cans from Continental Can Company, its major competitor

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Tying Arrangements a company sells a buyer certain goods only on condition that the buyer also purchases other goods from the firm

In 1970, Chicken Delight would sell a franchise license to a person only if the person also agreed to purchase a certain number of cookers, fryers, and other supplies from the company

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Retail Price Maintenance Agreements when a company sells to a retailer only on condition that they agree to charge the same set retail prices
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Price Discrimination when a company charges different prices to different buyers for the same goods or services

In 1960s Continental Pie Company had used this tactic to undersell Utah Pie Company since it had manage to take away much of sales from Continental Pie in Salt Lake City. Thus, for several years, Continental sold its pies to Salt Lake City customers at prices substantially lower than those it charged for the same goods sold to customers in other areas
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