Double-dealing

“ I should however be heartily glad, were plagiarism the worst kind of dishonesty that denied German literature; there are others far more mischievous, which penetrate more deeply, and to which plagiarism bears the same proportion as picking pockets in a mild way to capital crime. I allude to that mean, despicable spirit, whose lodestar is personal interest, when it ought to be truth, and in which the voice of intention makes itself heard beneath the mask of insight. Double-dealing and time-serving are the order of the day. ”

“ Either that, or he had gone mad for a while, a brief madness born of sex-hunger, of isolation, of brooding over unassuaged bitterness.
Perhaps he might have done what he set out to do if the man had not been there. But he did not think so now. The brake of his real manhood had begun to set upon those wild impulses before he drew up to the door and looked in the window. What he saw there only cleared with a brusque hand the cobwebs from his brain.
Fundamentally, Hollister hated trickery, deceit, unfairness, double-dealing. In his normal state he would neither lie, cheat, nor steal. ”

“ Precisely because Uzeda was the duke’s son was he the man in the world whom the duke most dreaded and suspected.
Whoever is acquainted with the Spanish comedy will not fail to have remarked the prodigality of intrigue and counter-intrigue upon which its interest is made to depend. In this, the Spanish comedy was the faithful mirror of the Spanish life, especially in the circles of a court. Men lived in a perfect labyrinth of plot and counter-plot. The spirit of finesse, manoeuvre, subtlety, and double-dealing pervaded every family. Not a house that was not divided against itself. ”

“ The advantage without the disadvantages of a double standard, seems to be best obtained by those nations with whom one only of the two metals is a legal tender, but the other also is coined, and allowed to pass for whatever value the market assigns to it. ”

“ This competition is properly called double, because of the difficulty to determine upon which side it stands; the same merchant may have it in his favour upon certain articles, and against him upon others; it is continually in vibration, and the arrival of every post may less or more pull down the heavy scale. ”

“ Having thus found means to draw hands from the manufacture, and confiding in the strength of a capital drawn from the public revenues, they pursue their ideas from the purchase of their manufacture to the purchase of the material in its crudest state. "We recommend you to give an increased price, if necessary, so as to take that trade out of the hands of other merchants and rival nations." A double bounty was thus given against the manufactures, both in the labor and in the materials. ”

“ If, in dealing, one of the last cards be exposed, and the dealer turn up the trump before there is reasonable time for his adversaries to decide as to a fresh deal, they do not thereby lose their privilege. ”

“ It is wholly different, however, when such changes are effected by combinations of capital whose purpose in combining is to control the production or manufacture of any particular article in the market, and by such control dictate the price at which the article shall be sold; the effect being to drive out of business all the small dealers in the commodity, and to render the public subject to the decision of the combination as to what price shall be paid for the article. ”

“ The parties to such a combination might realize more profit by the higher prices they would secure than they could earn by doing more work at a much less price. The question is as to the effect of such combination upon the trade in the article, and if that effect be to destroy competition and thus advance the price, the combination is one in restraint of trade. ”

“ Agreements were made, that they would sell all they could spare at the lowest possible prices, be lenient about pay, inculcate and practise the sternest economy, and regard speculators, in that time, as foes and oppressors of the people. ”

“ It's unfair when, simply because of greater resources and staying power, one manufacturer makes an assault on another's business, temporarily produces at a loss in order to drive his rival out of the market, and having accomplished that, pushes up the price again and recoups himself for his loss. ”

“ As to the fourth, that the longer the negotiation is delayed, the larger will be the demand; this will depend on the intermediate captures: if they are many and rich, the price may be raised; if few and poor, it will be lessened. ”

“ If, indeed, the supply could not be increased, no diminution in the cost of production would lower the value; but there is by no means any necessity that it should. The mere possibility often suffices; the dealers are aware of what would happen, and their mutual competition makes them anticipate the result by lowering the price. ”

“ As a result of this, these nations are pitted against each other. They are industrial rivals—competitors. They begin to arm themselves to open, to maintain the market and quickly dispose of their surplus. There is but the one market. All these nations are competitors for it, and sooner or later every war of trade becomes a war of blood. ”

“ Combination may enable, and, as I believe, has enabled the men in particular cases to make a fairer bargain with the masters, and to get the full market value of their labour, but neither combination nor any other mode of negotiating can raise the value of labour or of any other article to the consumer, and that which cannot raise the value cannot permanently raise the price. ”

“ To cut rates, to have a different price for each customer, to substitute one article for another, are the prevailing policies of the seller. To give uncollectible notes, to claim rebates, to make assignments and compromises, to use one shift or another in order to get possession of goods and pay less than the contract price, are the prevailing aims of the buyer. ”

“ So the growth has gone on, and each advance in carrying on production on a larger scale has resulted in lessening the cost of the finished goods. Competition, too, which at first was merely an unseen force among the scattered workshops, is now a fierce rivalry; each great firm strives for the lion's share of the market. Under these conditions it is quite natural that attempts should be made to check the reduction of profits by some form of agreement to limit competition. ”

“ If the capital of the concern that is seeking monopoly permits, the price of the article manufactured may be lowered until rivals with less financial backing are forced out of business-after which the price can be raised and losses recouped. With skill and foresight worthy of a better cause, some of the great industrial leaders of our day have eliminated one rival after another and attained that unification of a business which has, indeed, its great economic advantages, but is not to be won at such a bitter cost. ”

“ These are conditions closely resembling those under which 'full-line forcing,' 'exclusive-dealing requirements' of 'shutting off materials, supplies or machines from competitors'-well-known methods of competition, have been held to be unfair, when practiced by concern holding a preponderant position in the trade. ”

“ In the meantime the negotiators are working at cross-purposes and endeavoring to put their rivals in as disadvantageous a light as may be, with the result that there is chronic derangement, duplication, and misdirected growth of the industrial equipment while the strategy is going forward, and expensive maladjustment to he overcome when the negotiations are brought to a close. ”

“ The reasoning cited in the earlier part of this paper, to show the uselessness of a mere purchaser or customer, for enriching a nation or an individual, applies only to the case of dealers who have already as much business as their capital admits of, and as rapid a sale for their commodities as is possible. To such dealers an additional purchaser is really of no use; for, if they are sure of selling all their commodities the moment those commodities are on sale, it is of no consequence whether they sell them to one person or to another. ”

“ But if, on the contrary, the seller does not know the state of the case, and only discovers it when he finds, in laying his money out, that it does not go so far, he then obtains less than the ordinary remuneration for his labour and capital; and if the other dealer's industry is encouraged, it should seem that his must, from the opposite cause, be impaired. ”

“ Accordingly, the proper focus of concern is whether the seller has the power to raise prices, or impose other burdensome terms such as a tie-in, with respect to any appreciable number of buyers within the market. ”

“ Competition, even in a single product, is not cast in a single mold. Maximum prices may be fixed too low for the dealer to furnish services essential to the value which goods have for the consumer or to furnish services and conveniences which consumers desire and for which they are willing to pay. Maximum price fixing may channel distribution through a few large or specifically advantaged dealers who otherwise would be subject to significant nonprice competition. ”

“ The power to fix prices, whether reasonably exercised or not involves power to control the market and to fix arbitrary and unreasonable prices. The reasonable price fixed today may through economic and business changes become the unreasonable price of to-morrow. Once established, it may be maintained unchanged because of the absence of competition secured by the agreement for a price reasonable when fixed. ”

“ As we read that provision, it proscribes price differences, subject to certain defined defenses, [17] where the effect of the differences 'may be substantially to lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce, or to injure, destroy, or prevent competition with any person who either grants or knowingly receives the benefit' of the price differential, 'or with customers of either of them.' See Federal Trade Comm. ”

“ While the laws of business are based upon inexorable principles of supply and demand, and the efforts of producers must be to sell to {143} consumers the best goods at the lowest prices, which stimulates rivalry and trade, yet two men cannot be successful partners in commercial affairs unless they act in perfect sympathy and accord. ”

“ Where, however, the number of competitors is small, the price of the commodities supplied by them will, by agreement, for a time at least, be maintained at a point where it affords considerable more than a reasonable profit. Here the large gain presents to the various competitors such a temptation to outstrip their rivals and increase their business at the expense of good faith, that but few, if any, of them will, in the long run, resist it. ”

“ We realize that such information, gathered and disseminated among the members of a trade or business, may be the basis of agreement or concerted action to lessen production arbitrarily or to raise prices beyond the levels of production and price which would prevail if no such agreement or concerted action ensued, and those engaged in commerce were left free to base individual initiative on full information of the essential elements of their business. ”

“ There is an agreement to fix prices and production is limited to what will sell at the fixed price. Then there are fights made against any one outside of the combination who undertakes to produce that line of goods. The trust magnate knows well that to control a market he must limit the amount of goods for sale by combining to fight competition. ”

“ If, however, you think it better for your interests to take the higher wages offered by the company, I shall not enter into competition with men who have millions to spend; it would be a folly on my part. I shall, therefore, sell them my mine, and you may then be certain of one thing, that when they have both mines in their own hands, and find that no rivalry is possible, the rate of wages will be lowered. To those who stand by me I offer a contract for life; the profits of this mine, so long as I live, shall be divided between myself and my workmen. ”

“ At length, finding that the affair was getting beyond his control, the means of his permanently concealing it being rendered more and more difficult by its magnitude, and the fact that losses in trade, perhaps the interest upon the lost capital, swelled up an awful total, he took the Newtons into his confidence, and the set devised a scheme for colourably selling his stock-in-trade, fixtures, good-will, &c., &c., for extending the premises, and so forth, and burning the place down, so as to realise a large sum in ready money—considerably more than the value of the things insured. ”

“ This is not the conduct of competitors, but is so clearly that of men united in an agreement, express or implied, to act together and pursue a common purpose under a common guide that, if it did not stand confessed a combination to restrict production and inincrease prices in interstate commerce, and as, therefore, a direct restraint upon that commerce, as we have seen that it is, that conclusion must inevitably have been inferred from the facts which were proved. ”

“ Let the protectionists say what they will, it is not the less certain that the principle of restriction is the very same as the principle of gaps; the sacrifice of the consumer's interest to that of the producer,—in other words, the sacrifice of the end to the means. ”

“ In such a case that power may be established if as a result of market conditions, the resources available to the combinations, the timing and the strategic placement of orders and the like, effective means are at hand to accomplish the desired objective. But there may be effective influence over the market though the group in question does not control it. Price-fixing agreements may have utility to members of the group though the power possessed or exerted falls far short of domination and control. ”