Last night, Greater Boston had on Patricia Aburdene, author of MegaTrends 2010. She came across as some strange cross between Suzie Orman and Hernando de Soto. At one point she said "I love the fact that Starbucks spends more on health care for its companies than it does on coffee." Which to me just indicates that their markup on coffee beans is enormous. I’ve been particularly fond of the scholarship of the "monopoly capitalism" Marxists like James O’Connor and Claus Offe, with their multi-sector graphs showing advanced economies divided into industrial, competitive and public sectors. I’m wondering if we’re heading now instead into a world of markup, competitive and public sectors. I suspect Virginia Postrel has something smart to say about this, but I don’t have the time to dive into her writings right now.
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