One example of the twisted logic of business in the "market" has to do with the PC. When PCs first appeared in the 1980's, Intel made all the processor chips used in "IBM compatible PCs". Most PCs only came with a processor chip that was not designed to do a lot of mathematical work. People who did need to do a lot of math could buy a "math co-processor chip" to be added to their PCs. After a number of years and several generations of Intel chips, starting with the 486 processor chip, Intel changed this. Instead, Intel offered two versions of the 486 processor chip - one with a math processor included (at a higher price) and one without a math processor (at a lower price).
Or at least that's kind of what it was, and that was how it was generally presented to the public. But in reality, Intel had concluded it would cost the company too much money to have two separate manufacturing areas for making two types of processor chips that had so much in common. What Intel chose to do was to have one manufacturing line which made 486 chips with math processors. Of course, Intel didn't want to sell this chip for the price of one of it's previous processor-without-math-processing. However, most PC buyers didn't want a math processor enough to pay extra for it.
Intel took care of this by taking most of the 486 processors (manufactured with math processing) and put them through an additional step at the manufacturing plant. The additional work they did on most of the chips disabled the math processor. Consumers who wanted to pay less would get a chip with a disabled math processor. Buyers willing to pay more would get a chip with a functioning math processor.
From a rational society's point of view, it was wasteful to take good chips and invest resources to damage one of their parts. But it's stranger than that. The chips that would be sold for a lower price went through additional work at the plant (disabling the math). It actually cost Intel more money to make the chips it sold for less. The chips (with math processing) Intel charged more for actually cost Intel less to make.
Certainly, in the last 20 years, businesses using market logic have made socially harmful choices - most notably those that crashed the world economy. I can't say how many examples are out there like the 486 chip. Feel free to add other examples. This is how they think. The common good is not part of their equation. No matter how many times they say "invisible hand", the economic crisis, Bernie Madoff, Enron, the late-1980s collapse of the savings and loan industry, business contributions to climate change, examples like the 486, and such won't disappear.
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Please note: Added material / modification below.
After discussion in the comments section, I found the following at Wikipedia [not as an only source, but as a source that gave some clarification that others did not. Also note: in the above diary for the convenience of non-tech people I referred to "math processors". As much of the discussion has been among techies, below you'll see these referred to as FPU's.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
486SX (P23) : "An i486DX with the FPU part disabled or missing. Early variants were parts with disabled (defective) FPUs.[5] Later versions had the FPU removed from the die to reduce area and hence cost."
486SX2: "i486DX2 with the FPU disabled"
It sounds like several viewpoints in the diary & comments are at least partly right. Some later 486SX's were made with no FPU (math processor). Some 486SX's had had defective FPU's. (An Intel webpage also shows the introduction date of the 486DX as 2 years before the 486SX. This probably reflects the early DX as a chip with an FPU, however Intel's 386DX chip didn't have an FPU.) The 486SX2 had a disabled FPU that had not been defective.
Regarding marketing, Intel sold a "487 chip" as as an add-on FPU to a 486SX. In reality, the 487 was a 486DX chip with an extra pin which shut down the PC's 486SX and took over all its work.