Is it legal for Wal-Mart to sell music CDs at a loss?
I can’t read this sort of question and pass it up… Welcome to Corporate Capitalism 101. Any company is free to sell any product it chooses for whatever price it wants, until it is convicted of dumping for the purpose of driving other companies out of business so as to form a monopoly. Some business folk consider anti-monopoly regulations an unwarranted intrusion by the government into free enterprise. (But then some of us would prefer a more traditional version of corporate rights: an entity granted special privileges in exchanges for meeting specific obligations to society.) Companies like Wal-Mart are already limiting competition through their low price policies, which have ramifications throughout the supply system – usually not to anyone’s long-term benefit, except major shareholders. Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and their ilk are big enough to purchase in bulk directly from manufacturers. They have the money and the clout to purchase the entire output of a factory for several months. N
