Does this sound familiar?

[pandiana]

On price setting and competition:
"The theory of market economics, in contrast to free-market ideology, specifies a number of basic conditions needed for a market to set prices efficiently in the public interest. The greater the deviation from these conditions, the less socially efficient the market system becomes. Most basic is the condition that markets must be competitive. I recall the professor in my elementary economics course using the example of small wheat farmers selling to small grain millers to illustrate the idea of perfect market competition. Today, four companies--Conagra, ADM Milling, Cargill, and Pillsbury--mill nearly 60 percent of all flour produced in the United States, and two of them--Conagra and Cargill--control 50 percent of grain exports.

In the real world of unregulated markets, successful players get larger and, in many instances, use the resulting economic power to drive or buy out weaker players to gain control of even larger shares of the market. In other instances, "competitors" collude through cartels or strategic alliances to increase profits by setting market prices above the level of optimal efficiency. The larger and more collusive individual market players become, the more difficult it is for newcomers and small independent firms to survive, the more monopolisitic and less competitive the market becomes, and the more political power the biggest firms can wield to demand concessions from governments that allow them to externalize even more of their costs to the community."

David Korten The Betrayal of Adam Smith 9http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/corprule/betrayal.htm

[ianben]

It sounds like todays world to me.

Has this guy got a solution?

The only way I see to counter these forces involves using the internet to educate each other.

These corporation cannot operate without someone producing something for them to sell.

Nike have done a fantastic job of marketing a tick but they still need a product to put it on.

Trainers or beef we need to know the value of our product.

The internet in my opinion is way we can all find this value at the same time for little cost and independant of global influence.

Third world countries and farmers have much in common, battling to be the lowest cost producer, a fight with few long term winners.

What other options have we with governments sidelined and bigger and bigger corporations?

[ValueChainFX]

Interesting that you go there, and how right you are about being eaten up by the big corps. Part of the suggested solution is to move up the supply chain with your product and redirect some of the profits toward the producer.

Although I know some people have a challenge with the word Coop, the NEW Generation Coops seem to have addressed some of the challenges in the old coop system and set things up to allow for coops and value chains to merge and create a fairly balanced supply chain.

I have been working to try to do just that merge the value chain and supply chain concept and so far so good, I will be tackling legal issues here within the next week or so. It has been interesting.

[pandiana]

Ianben: I am not sure if there is an 'answer' but Korten believes fervently that smaller local markets are much fore responsive and responsible to family, neighbors and community. He believes that ones goal should be directed towards life rather than money. He says"For example, corporate libertarians fervently oppose any restraint on corporate size or power. (Adam Smith is a turn of the century, Scottish economist most often quoted in support of unrestrained free trade and unlimited growth) Smith, on the other hand, opposed any form of economic concentration on the ground that it distorts the market's natural ability to establish a price that provides a fair return on land, labor, and capital; to produce a satisfactory outcome for both buyers and sellers; and to optimally allocate society's resources.

Through trade agreements, corporate libertarians press governments to provide absolute protection for the intellectual property rights of corporations. Smith was strongly opposed to trade secrets as contrary to market principles and would have vigorously opposed governments enforcing a person or corporation's claim to the right to monopolize a lifesaving drug or device and to charge whatever the market would bear."
I believe that throughout these threads that a cooperative approach or controlled market is the best solution to our problems locally and may be the best choice we have at stemming the flow of power to multinational corporations.

[ianben]

Possibily with hindsight we would not be whe we are today regarding global corps.
There is no putting the clock back though; we have to learn to live with them.
Before they make any pricing /buying policies the do lots of research they know what each market will stand in terms of price and where products can be obtained for the least money.

Unless we too have this information about them, and each other we will always be at a disadvantage doing business with them.

The internet can provide us all with this information giving us an idea of the value of our product at home and abroard and the supply situation also.

We dont have to have meetings and agree on stratagy, form a formal coop, or get united. You can still add value and diversify. Compete on quality and sevice.

The only way to trade today is to know the value of your product to your customer.

What I am proposing is we all take the same advice on pricing. Common sence then hopfully takes over. I think we can all see who wins in a price war!!!

We all use vets,agronamists,realtors.

Why don't we need priceing advice???