A television commercial was extolling the superior grade of cotton in a product being advertised. It showed two men in a raw cotton wareroom - a seller and a buyer. The seller demonstrated the quality of the various samples-long staple, freedom from dirt, etc. After some haggling back and forth as to price and number of bales available, the buyer said okay-and the deal was closed. But the whole business was built around the point where two men strike a bargain for X bales of cotton.
Business is more than a store, or an office, or a bank, or a stock exchange.
It is the whole, vast, infinitely complicated yet essentially simple matter of exchanging the excess goods and services provided by a million John Does, for the similar excess of other goods and services produced by a million Richard Roesto the benefit of all. These men are capitalists. Mr. Bradford was a noted poet, writer, speaker and business organization consultant. He returned corrected galleys of this article a few days before his death on October 17,1982, In Ocala, Florida. Reprinted with permission from The Freeman, a publication of The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., December 1982, Vol.