DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42346#0157
OPEN-PRICE ASSOCIATION
i45
First of all “vicious” bidding disappears. By “vicious”
bidding is meant bids put in by competitors who know they
stand no chance of getting the work, simply to “make the
other fellow do it for nothing.” Of all competition that is
the meanest. No purchaser has the right to encourage it,
no producer the right to indulge in it; it means the sure
elimination of the weak, ultimate monopoly by the strong.
With open bidding there is the natural, the automatic
tendency for prices to approach normal levels; the wide
spreads so frequent under false competition—secret bidding
—are minimized. There is less bidding below cost at one
extreme and fewer or no arbitrarily high prices at the other.
The customer is surer of fairer treatment in the long run,
the producer of fairer prices. The open-price policy is both
a safety valve and a governor, it works toward stability.
By eliminating secret prices it eliminates secret rebates,
concessions, and graft; by bringing all dealings out into the
open it ends four-fifths of the fraud and misrepresentations
that now attend the letting of the simplest contract; the pur-
chaser will no longer be able to secure a fraudulent ad-
vantage by saying he has a lower bid when he has not. In
all their dealings both purchaser and producer will be more
nearly on a footing of equality.
The business will be placed upon a more scientific and
rational footing. Instead of competing under conditions of
jealous distrust and suspicion, wasting time and money in
doing things they either should not do at all, or should do
with a fraction of the expenditure, members will cooperate
to accomplish as a unit the things they rightfully may do.
Finally, the open price policy—the new competition, with
the friendly association it involves, tends to make business
life a little better worth living.
i45
First of all “vicious” bidding disappears. By “vicious”
bidding is meant bids put in by competitors who know they
stand no chance of getting the work, simply to “make the
other fellow do it for nothing.” Of all competition that is
the meanest. No purchaser has the right to encourage it,
no producer the right to indulge in it; it means the sure
elimination of the weak, ultimate monopoly by the strong.
With open bidding there is the natural, the automatic
tendency for prices to approach normal levels; the wide
spreads so frequent under false competition—secret bidding
—are minimized. There is less bidding below cost at one
extreme and fewer or no arbitrarily high prices at the other.
The customer is surer of fairer treatment in the long run,
the producer of fairer prices. The open-price policy is both
a safety valve and a governor, it works toward stability.
By eliminating secret prices it eliminates secret rebates,
concessions, and graft; by bringing all dealings out into the
open it ends four-fifths of the fraud and misrepresentations
that now attend the letting of the simplest contract; the pur-
chaser will no longer be able to secure a fraudulent ad-
vantage by saying he has a lower bid when he has not. In
all their dealings both purchaser and producer will be more
nearly on a footing of equality.
The business will be placed upon a more scientific and
rational footing. Instead of competing under conditions of
jealous distrust and suspicion, wasting time and money in
doing things they either should not do at all, or should do
with a fraction of the expenditure, members will cooperate
to accomplish as a unit the things they rightfully may do.
Finally, the open price policy—the new competition, with
the friendly association it involves, tends to make business
life a little better worth living.