Thanks I was looking at the answer and thinking it didn't fit my memory. i'm sure most of mine were ACs. TBF with things like VPAM coming in the late 90s, you did have backspace and all sorts of stuff like that.
I still remember doing linear regression in a stats exam on i think a casio fx-115W something like that . Excellent calculator - but just no, it was time for some things to be on a real computer.
You're talking about free and open competition in a perfect competition marketplace. This is an ideal (similarly far-fetched as communism/socialism*) where there are low barriers to entry, and consumers have good information to make well informed choices. In this world competition bid's down excess profits in the long run - essentially to consumers benefit. not the benefit of producers. wages are low but it doesnt so much matter becauases competition keeps prices low.
Capitalism wants to increase the return to capital , so it works against competition to create market power (by many means including legal system power and regulatory capture as well tacit or explicit corruption) both over consumers and over their own supply chain (e.g. employees). It inherits its legacy from rentierism and landowners who also like to monopolize land, ration it and have tenants bid up rents.
'objective sources', on economics? Good luck. economists are so bi-assed that most of them can spew shit out of two holes simultaneously.