"Art is either plagiarism or revolution." - Paul Gauguin

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Amusing letters (16th December issue):


SIR – Although I am now retired, I always made sure that I exposed my students to the ideas of Mr Friedman when I was a college professor of economics. Unfortunately, he had a narrow view of how monopolies come about and seemed to argue that they are only created by governments that hand out licences or quotas or some other type of market-entry restriction. Nothing could be further from the truth. As demand thresholds increase and firms enlarge through mergers and acquisitions to enjoy economies of scale and dominate global markets, the monopolisation of markets is obvious. Indeed, the real test for 21st century capitalism will be what to do with the global phenomenon of giant corporations with vast profits, higher executive compensation and the ever-increasing unequal distribution of income. In this regard, there will be a role for government and one that Professor Friedman missed.

David Enns
Cornwall, Canada


SIR – I found your article on the fashion for purity in America to be, well, quaint (“In praise of chastity”, November 18th). As an evangelical Christian man who, in keeping with his religious convictions, has remained chaste before marriage into his 40s, my experience with women, including Christian women, has been that they care not one jot about pairing with a spouse who is chaste. In fact, I have had a few instances where a chaste woman actually preferred a fellow to have a résumé, especially if he was a little older. It does not mean that an otherwise attractive buck-a-roo is taken out of the rodeo, but being chaste does not appear to move one from the runner-up category to the leader board. Christian guys go down in flames in the proverbial dating dogfight. Until women really care about their partner being chaste and use it as a criterion to select a spouse, the concept of chastity will remain drivel, fantasy and wishful thinking.

Scott
Fairfax, Virginia