Why are there firms? Why do we not buy some things from folks who are not in our firm? Klein, Craw, and Al say, some folks might break their word. They might say things that are not true, and then ask for more stuff. And who are you to claim they are wrong?
When you make stuff which is good for one thing, but not more than one or two things, you might find that the gap of what you can make here, and what you could make there, go to a man who is not you. When things have but one use — such as a press to print news sheets — the firm forms, for one man on top means that the group who would have bought and the group who would have sold have the same goals, and so they don’t cheat. When things can be used in more than a few things — like a truck, or a book press — the things are bought and sold out of a firm. In the best world, folks would say the truth, and let the terms change when there are bad things, to keep the flow of dough the same in all points in time. When you can’t make folks tell the truth, though, the best you can do is have all the folks in one big firm.
Some people don’t think so. Some people say, if you can see who gets what at the end, you don’t have to care about how you got there. I say, this is so — but it is hard, far more hard than you would think, to tell who gets what at the end. KCA 1978 is still full of use.
A great man wrote a thing like this: “Why we should not make mean log of wealth big, though years to act are long”. Thanks!