The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical Problems

by Frank A. Fetter

Gains to consumers

Part of the advantages will go to the consumer whenever there is a motive on the part of the large establishment to increase supply in order to get a larger profit or to forestall new competition. As the improvements become matters of public knowledge, most of the new economic methods can and will be adopted by new enterprisers, and other large aggregations of capital will be induced to come in to reap the benefits. The effect, of course, is an increase in supply and a lowering of prices. The fiat of the trust to prices to remain fixed while supply increases is as vain as a mortal's commands to the waves to be still. The undesigned result of the economies of large production, therefore, where control is not great, is to lower the prices and to diffuse the benefits among the public.

Social burden of monopoly profits

4. If the trust succeeds in raising its prices it gains at the expense of the community. If a producer has some monopoly power, recognizes and uses it, his gain does not correspond with an increase in production. It is taken from those who buy these products, it is deducted from the psychic incomes of other members of society. This raising of prices actually reduces technical production, for the output is limited in order to secure the higher price. The probably less urgent wants of the receivers of monopoly incomes are gratified in place of the probably more urgent wants of the average purchaser. The result is a decreased social income, with an increase of the inequality of distribution. There is an analogy here with the effects of trade-unions. If the trade-union succeeds in forcing prices higher than the competitive prices, it gains at the expense of the other portion of the community. But while its gains appear to be more largely at the expense of the richer elements of society, the gains of the trust are more likely at the expense of the poorer elements. If the success of organized labor means to some extent a leveling up of income, the success of the trust means a still further inequality. Hence a difference in public sympathy in the two cases.

The praise and blame for trust prices

5. The responsibility for either the rise or the decline of trust prices cannot always be determined. Prices are changing constantly under competitive conditions. In this active, moving world, changes of demand, the exhaustion of sources of supply, new processes, expiration of patents, opening up of new lines of transportation, affect prices in a multitude of ways entirely independent of organization. Trust-controlled industries are open to all these influences. Economic forces cannot be isolated as can elements in a chemical laboratory, and, therefore, trusts claim the credit for all the reductions of price that have occurred. By such a calculation the trusts usually make a showing of progress, as, until 1896, for twenty years the tendency of prices in most lines was downward. Always getting the highest price they can under the market conditions, they yet pose as benefactors. They would claim that the economies possible only under trust organization cause even a monopoly price to be less than a competitive price would be. Critics of the trusts, on the other hand, charge them with causing all the increase that occurs, and with checking the decline in prices. The critics compare the percentages of decline in price during the decades before and after the combination was formed, and as it is impossible for a geometric rate of decrease in price, as a result of improvements, to be long maintained, this showing is very unfavorable to the trusts. A method has been found, however, of testing, in the case of a few leading industries, the effects they have had on the price of their portion of the productive process.

§ II. HOW TRUSTS HAVE AFFECTED PRICES

Trusts raise prices

The oil trust

1. Examination of the course of prices in the case of some notable trusts shows that, wherever effective, they raise prices above the competitive rate possible to smaller production. The most instructive study in the subject is that undertaken by J. W. Jenks a number of years ago, and later developed by him when working with the Industrial Commission from 1898 to 1900. Its results are embodied in a series of charts. It appears that the price of refined petroleum, in 1871, was twenty-five and seven tenths cents per gallon; in 1880, eight and six tenths cents; in 1887, seven and eight tenths cents; in 1900, seven and eight tenths cents. A writer in the "North American Review" claims that this decline was due to the economies accomplished by the Standard Oil Trust. It will be noticed, however, that prices fell most rapidly (from twenty-five and seven tenths cents to eight and six tenths cents) between 1871 to 1880, a period of intense competition, when the industry was new, and when the independent companies, fighting for their existence, introduced many improvements and began the construction of the pipe-lines that were later secured by the Standard Oil Co. Despite this rapid decline, the smaller companies still could have maintained a profitable business had it not been for the ruinous discrimination of the railroads against them. Because of this, the Standard Oil Co., in 1880, obtained almost complete control. The price twenty years later than that date was less than a cent cheaper. In the meantime the price for a time continued to fall. Competition was never quite stilled. The small competitor, wherever he saw a chance, has nibbled off a bit of the tempting profits. The rise from 1898 to 1900 was in accord with that occurring in other lines. A much lower cost of production is now possible to the great monopoly with its larger sales and more economical methods. The by-products, unknown at the beginning of the period, now yield large sums, yet the price remains much the same as a quarter of a century ago. The trust has succeeded in retaining a large part of the increasing margin of price over cost.