The profit motive is inherently expansionary: investors try to recoup more money than they put in, and if successful, can do it again and again on a larger scale, colliding with others doing the same. Some succeed, some just survive, and some fail altogether. This is real competition, antagonistic by nature and turbulent in operation. It is the central regulating mechanism of capitalism and is as different from so-called perfect competition as war is from ballet.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The profit motive is inherently expansionary: investors try to recoup more money than they put in, and if successful, can do it again and again on a larger scale, colliding with others doing the same. Some succeed, some just survive, and some fail altogether. This is real competition, antagonistic by nature and turbulent in operation. It is the central regulating mechanism of capitalism and is as different from so-called perfect competition as war is from ballet." in the context of "Anwar Shaikh, Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises, Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 14" to mean that wisdom is timeless.