We can now make some interesting comparisons. The evident effect of monopoly is, in general, to tax the community at large for the benefit of those who own the monopoly. Let us see what proportion exists between the two classes:
| Total number of persons engaged in manufacturing, mining, trade, and transportation (occupations more or less monopolized) | 5,647,368 |
| Total number of persons engaged in agriculture and in furnishing professional and personal services (occupations not monopolized) | 11,744,821 |
Thus at the greatest estimate we can make of the number benefited by monopolies, for each man who is gaining by them, two are having their income reduced. If we take the estimate previously made, that the utmost number of persons who can possibly be reaping benefit by ownership of the especially profitable monopolies, trusts, transportation lines, mines, etc., is one million, we have opposed over sixteen millions of the community who are being taxed by their operation. Let a sharp distinction be drawn at this point, however. The above comparison is to be confined to the things between which it is made, and not confused with others to which it has no reference. It is not a comparison of the sort which social agitators are fond of making between the great numbers of the working classes and the relative scarcity of the wealthy. Except so far as the operation of profitable monopolies by the few tends to bring about this unequal distribution of wealth, that is a matter with which we have nothing now to do.
There is one point in this connection, however, which it is well to make plain, as it concerns a class of people which is not included in either of the four divisions that we have already described—those who live on the income of their property.
We have before alluded to the fact that in the popular speech "capitalist" and "monopolist" are often used interchangeably. If we carefully consider the real status of the capitalist, however, we find that of the three requisites of production—labor, capital, and natural agents—capital is the requisite which is most perfectly secured from the control of monopoly. The rate of interest for the use of capital is regulated so perfectly by the law of supply and demand, that all the anti-usury laws which have ever been enacted have been able to accomplish but little in enabling the borrower to secure loans at a less rate than that prescribed by competition. The reason for this is plain on consideration. The total supply of accumulated wealth of the whole civilized world is engaged in this competition, and the millions of wealth which are added every day are new contestants in the market. Competition in other products is held in local bounds by the cost of shipment over long distances; but wealth in the form of value can be transferred quickly and easily to any part of the civilized world where a market awaits it. Every person who earns money or owns property is a potential competitor, in that he can be made to lend his capital for great enough inducements. Under the pressure of this competition, the price for the use of capital—the rate of interest—has steadily fallen; and the enormous production of wealth of which our industrial resources are now capable is such that the fall is certain to continue, and a very few years will see loans at 2 per cent. as common as those at 4 per cent. are to-day. Combination to restrict competition among those who loan capital for investment is an utter impossibility. The number of people with money to loan, or with property on which they can raise money for that purpose, if they wish, is too large a proportion of the population to be ever brought into a combination to restrict competition. The stringency which sometimes occurs in the money market need not be cited as a contradiction of this statement. That is a matter which has only to do with the currency. The broad fact, and it is a most important one, is that capital, a necessary agent of production, can never be monopolized.
X.
THE THEORY OF UNIVERSAL COMPETITION.
We have now examined all the important occupations in which men engage for the purpose of gain; and we have found that while certain large classes of men still have the returns for their industry fixed by the laws of competition, other large and important classes have been able to check and limit competition, so that their returns from their work are constantly increased; while others still, are in possession of certain agents, so necessary to the community and so rare, that a price can be exacted for their use greatly in excess of the original cost to their owners. Some of the effects of this state of affairs it is easy to perceive. We have, indeed, pointed out for each monopoly described some of the especial abuses to which it gives rise; and it is plain enough that the general tendency is, first, to greatly enrich the possessors of the strongest monopolies at the expense of all other men; second, to give a certain degree of advantage to the possessors of minor monopolies,—as, for instance, monopolies in articles which are luxuries, and can easily be dispensed with; and third, to seriously injure all those engaged in occupations in which the price of the product is still fixed by competition.
Every one will agree that this is an evil state of affairs. It is not just that my neighbor, who owns a mine or a railroad, should ask me what he pleases for coal, or for carriage of my produce to market; while I, being a farmer, must sell the products of my labor at a price determined by competition with the products of ten thousand other farms. No one can deny at this day that it is contrary to the principles of justice to give to the men in any one occupation or calling an advantage over those in any other, except in just the degree that one occupation is more beneficial to the world than another. The question then arises, how may we best remedy this state of affairs? Shall our panacea be to do away with all monopolies, and put every industry back upon the competitive system? If so, by what means are we to apply this remedy? Or shall we go to the other extreme and adopt the antipodal doctrine to the foregoing, that competition is an evil which ought to be done away with; and then proceed to abolish competition in every trade and occupation where it still exists, if we can find any possible means of accomplishing such a task.