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The Austrian Tertius Gaudens: A Revisit of Competition Theory in Light of Georg Simmel

The Austrian Tertius Gaudens: A Revisit of Competition Theory in Light of Georg Simmel Austrian market process theory stands out in assigning particular importance to the role of the customer. This is however not really salient as competition is discussed save for in a few particular instances. This is a pity since the market process discourse thereby deprives itself of a firm progressive footing concerning further elaborations of how market dynamics evolve. By drawing on the reasoning that originates some hundred years ago with the works of Georg Simmel, this paper brings forward an Austrian version of his idea on Tertius Gaudens. In a market context this is the alert buyer who benefits from the disunion that prevails between sellers to the extent that market intimacy, conceived of as supplier specificity, is low. In this manner some of the inner workings of the market process, what promotes competition subject to which institutional constraints, are discussed to the benefit of yet another important Austrian demarcation, that of competition as being geared by the customer. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Review of Austrian Economics Springer Journals

The Austrian Tertius Gaudens: A Revisit of Competition Theory in Light of Georg Simmel

Liljenberg, Anders
The Review of Austrian Economics , Volume 18 (2) – Jan 1, 2005
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References (71)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.
Subject
Economics; Public Finance; Political Science; History of Economic Thought/Methodology
ISSN
0889-3047
eISSN
1573-7128
DOI
10.1007/s11138-005-6827-0
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Austrian market process theory stands out in assigning particular importance to the role of the customer. This is however not really salient as competition is discussed save for in a few particular instances. This is a pity since the market process discourse thereby deprives itself of a firm progressive footing concerning further elaborations of how market dynamics evolve. By drawing on the reasoning that originates some hundred years ago with the works of Georg Simmel, this paper brings forward an Austrian version of his idea on Tertius Gaudens. In a market context this is the alert buyer who benefits from the disunion that prevails between sellers to the extent that market intimacy, conceived of as supplier specificity, is low. In this manner some of the inner workings of the market process, what promotes competition subject to which institutional constraints, are discussed to the benefit of yet another important Austrian demarcation, that of competition as being geared by the customer.

Journal

The Review of Austrian Economics – Springer Journals

Published: Jan 1, 2005

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