A few years ago I happened upon a used bookstore and found a series of books titled "Essays On Liberty." Put out by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) Published in the 50's and 60's these collections are fantastic primers for Libertarian thought and economic policy.
On Pink Kitty's blog Elena posted If that means that insulin gets to be cheaper and that I'm not paying outrageous co-pays, I'm all for a free-for-all in the marketplace. But supposedly the price wars aren't good for the airlines and their employees, so I'm not sure if the pharmeceutical industry would suffer the same ramifications.
Which is why I brought up the FEE. An article in Volume 3 written by W.M. Curtiss titled The Topsy-Turvy Tariff Tangle addresses the issue of competition well. The article includes a portion of testimony given to Congress by Charles H. Percy, the president of the Bell & Howell Company of Chicago. B&H Co. manufactured photographic products and were competing against other countries where the wage was 1/8th of the going wage here in America. (Japan paid $0.27 an hour, the US paid $2.00)
Mr. Percy's testimony "The highly paid American worker has become the most efficient in the world—two to ten times as productive as his European counterpart . . . . In the final analysis, the combined effect of foreign competition and high American wage rates has been fortunate—it has forced us to find new and better ways of doing things . . . . Without the spur of foreign competition, it is doubtful whether these techniques would ever have been developed. ... America’s industry did not become great by being sheltered. It achieved greatness because of the intelligence and pioneering spirit of its people. It became great through huge expenditures for research and development, new ideas in manufacturing and merchandising. It is great because it firmly believes that there is one way to succeed—to give the consumer the best possible product for best possible value. This, and this alone, will keep American industry vigorous and healthy in the years to come."
"Without the spur of foreign competition" could be better written by simply taking out the word foreign.