5.6 
secondary transactions with its fringe benefits into the bargain. The fact 
that a larger part of the public continues to buy the package and its fringe 
benefits reveals their preference for those benefits and proves that they 
consider the attractions of a buyers* market well worth their cost. 
One usually thinks of a buyers* market as the consequence of the sellers* 
having an excess supply of goods they want to get rid of. The buyers* market 
I am talking about is the consequence of the sellers' being price makers and 
as such creating a gap between price and MC. The two kinds of buyers' markets 
are almost identical, because — price policy apart — price makers on the 
selling side always behave as if they had an excess supply to get rid of. 
The mutual benefit price makers and price takers derive from their 
asymmetrical market relationship should perhaps warn us to guard our language. 
Monopolistic exploitation is standard terminology; but when it creates mutual 
benefits, it may be better to speak of the price maker's monopoly profit and 
the price takers' monopoly benefit, leaving it open whether the latter exists 
and vrhether it is worth its cost. For the fringe benefits are not a standard 
feature of the asymmetrical market. They can be few or many; they are more 
evident in times of depression than in times of prosperity; . they are 
not always separable from the primary transaction; and they can be completely 
absent. The last-mentioned eventuality is the most important; and it is 
explained by the fact that the seller can have cheaper ways of finding an 
outlet for his excess supplies than nonprice competition.