"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Ownership and Competitive Dynamics
"Changes in ownership titles are essential to understanding competitive dynamics and, more broadly, the market process. There is ample evidence that a crucial source of productivity growth, and hence wellbeing, is due to the reallocation of inputs and outputs from less to the more productive firms. Furthermore, ownership is essential in stimulating and shaping this reallocation process. We argue that a primary role of ownership in an economy is to supply fuel and precision to this reallocation process, as argued by Austrian economists, most notably Ludwig von Mises. Part of the economic function of ownership is that it eases entrepreneurial experimentation and provides an incentive to engage in such activities. These activities can be carried out with varying degrees of competence; in other words, “ownership competence” is unevenly distributed across entrepreneurs. As Mises recognized, the unhampered market process is required to sort among the entrepreneurial embodiments of such ownership competence."
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