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24. Free Markets and Free Will
Does capitalism have an excellent track record? Yes,
on balance, and we should be very pleased to be
partakers in it. If we're not, there's really .something
basically wrong. It's almost like getting some good
news and not being happy.
One reason business people seem so vital and alive
is their daily engagement with problem-solving and
challenges. This is not to say that business people live
in a state of perpetual bliss. Rather, as a group they
have a comparatively strong sense of purpose, which
their work gives them.
Mr. Bill Waugh, founder and former chairman of the ·
board of Casa Bonita and Taco Bueno restaurants, was
kind enough to pass the following quotation to me a
few years ago:
Salute to Competition
My competitors do more for me than my
friends do; my friends are too polite to point out
my weaknesses; but my competitors go to great
expense to advertise them.
My competitors are efficient, diligent and
attentive; they make me search for ways to
improve my service and products.
My
competitors would take my business away from
me if they could: this keeps me alert to hold
what /have.
If I had no competitors, I would be lazy,
incompetent, inattentive; I need the discipline
they enforce upon me. I salute my competitors;
they have been good to me. God Bless Them
All!
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