Profit

[Revoltingest]

In short, to make a high profit you have to rip off your customers, your employees or your suppliers.

Wrongo pongo.
One can make a high profit in a competitive
market by delivering what the customer wants.
Think of movies, eg, Rocky, The Evil Dead.
Or software that has a large user base, which
greatly lowers the cost per item.

Moreover, if someone is making a really high
profit in some market, competition will tend to
undercut them, & profits will fall....unless
government steps in with protectionism.
(I hate that.)

 

[Nakosis]

My only "position" here that I've offered to you is that monopolies/oligopolies exist. Which is a demonstrable fact.

Ok then, if you're accepting that most consumers have the option to support a particular market or not.

 

[Left Coast]

Ok then, if you're accepting that most consumers have the option to support a particular market or not.

Depends entirely on the market. Some do, some don't.

 

[Revoltingest]

Depends entirely on the market. Some do, some don't.

Let's agree that choice & competition are good for consumers.

 

[Nakosis]

Depends entirely on the market. Some do, some don't.

Ok, like I said, variables.
I just meant it is difficult to have a universal position because of the many dynamics.

 

[Heyo]

Wrongo pongo.
One can make a high profit in a competitive
market by delivering what the customer wants.
Think of movies, eg, Rocky, The Evil Dead.

Which is the "lucky" option I mentioned. You can't be faulted for people throwing money at you.
But ...

Moreover, if someone is making a really high
profit in some market, competition will tend to
undercut them, & profits will fall....

as we seem to agree, you can't be constantly lucky.

unless government steps in with protectionism.
(I hate that.)

Which is quite common. But there is also the structural problem of high entrance costs in some markets.

 

[Nakosis]

Let's agree that choice & competition are good for consumers.

WWMS
What would Marx say about that?

Since we already know that monopoly prices are as high as possible, since the interest of the capitalists, even from the point of view commonly held by political economists, stands in hostile opposition to society, and since a rise of profit operates like compound interest on the price of the commodity (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Vol. I, pp. 87-88), it follows that the sole defence against the capitalists is competition, which according to the evidence of political economy acts beneficently by both raising wages and lowering the prices of commodities to the advantage of the consuming public.
Karl Marx, The Competition among the Capitalists (1844)

So even Marx approves of competition.

 

[danieldemol]

At what point is a business making excessive or immoral amounts of profit? Is there a profit margin businesses should be limited to? Why or why not?

I think we should start by asking, "Are we overpopulated?"
If the answer is no we should follow it with, "Does everyone have basic necessities covered?".
If the answer is still no it makes sense to start by trimming the wealth of those at the top who have benefited the most from society at least enough that the basic needs of all are met.

So my answer to your question is it depends on how much needs to be redistributed to meet basic needs of all, although I think it is important to indoctrinate people to do what they can to avoid overpopulating the place as it seems unfair on the wealthy to place an unlimited population burden on their ability to generate wealth.

In my opinion.

 

[Left Coast]

Let's agree that choice & competition are good for consumers.

As a rule, yes agreed.