[Avodah] super stores

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 20/03/17 15:12, saul newman via Avodah wrote:
>
> is there any chance that there will be a psak not to shop at large discount
> [frum] stores whose side effect is putting economic duress upon smaller
> shopping outlets?     in one sense it benefits the tzibbur to have
> cheaper prices, but disadvantages
> store owners who might otherwise be richer...

For whom does an economy exist?  For the general interest, which means 
for the consumers, for the special interest of a few producers?   The 
entire purpose of production and marketing is to benefit the consumer, 
so how can it possibly make sense to deliberately make the consumer pay 
more so as to support producers?  If the producers aren't up to 
supplying the consumer's best interests, then who needs them, and why 
should they remain in business?

Some rabbonim could do with reading _The Wealth of Nations_

Note that "hasogas gevul" in the gemara meant coming into someone else's 
community to set up shop, when one had no reason to go there and could 
easily have chosen instead one of the many communities where there was 
no existing Jewish business to compete with.  It does not apply when the 
new person also lives there, or if he has another reason why he chose 
this community rather than some other one.

-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
zev at sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all