Miloslav Trmač

More competition brings consumers better products for lower prices – but be careful who the customers are. Aneace Haddad points out that the competition in payment cards schemes is not for merchants, who will accept all major schemes anyway, and not for customers, who know their card will be accepted, but for banks – and banks prefer the highest interchange fee, not lowest.

One more fact about interchange fees that should have been obvious – will merchants pass lower interchange fee to customers if their lobbying succeeds?:

If merchants pass along reductions to consumers, then their margins would be the same – so why all the cost and effort of lobbying the government to cut interchange? It doesn’t make sense. Of course they will keep the savings.

I must be the last Internet user to notice, but Marginal Revolution rocks.

Wow, this must be the most direct criticism of Marxism and its focus on the “proletarian class” I have seen in a long time. Let me quote the closing paragraph of the chapter:

The essence of Marxian philosophy is this: We are right because we are the spokesmen of the rising proletarian class. Discursive reasoning cannot invalidate our teachings, for they are inspired by the supreme power that determines the destiny of mankind. Our adversaries are wrong because they lack the intuition that guides our minds. It is, of course, not their fault that on account of their class affiliation they are not equipped with the genuine proletarian logic and are blinded by ideologies. The unfathomable decrees of history that have elected us have doomed them. The future is ours.

You can read the rest in Human Action (a 3MB PDF is available), pages 76–82.