From the March 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard
The Combines and the Unemployed.
A reader makes the suggestion that the workers should deal at the small shops and avoid the big stores because the growth of the latter stores results in an increase in the army of unemployed. He assumes that the quality and price of the goods sold is the same in both cases. This assumption is in fact not correct. The big stores crush out their small competitors because they can and do undercut them, and offer service which is superior in other respects also. If this were not so the big stores would never be successful in their efforts to crush or absorb the small ones. The workers cannot afford to buy in any but the cheapest market, and the whole idea that they can thus reverse the course of capitalist development is fantastic.
The Combines and the Unemployed.
A reader makes the suggestion that the workers should deal at the small shops and avoid the big stores because the growth of the latter stores results in an increase in the army of unemployed. He assumes that the quality and price of the goods sold is the same in both cases. This assumption is in fact not correct. The big stores crush out their small competitors because they can and do undercut them, and offer service which is superior in other respects also. If this were not so the big stores would never be successful in their efforts to crush or absorb the small ones. The workers cannot afford to buy in any but the cheapest market, and the whole idea that they can thus reverse the course of capitalist development is fantastic.
Editorial Committee
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