Economic competition

“ The crude and commonly accepted notion that the general result of the current competitive system was to place the benefits of competition in the hands of “the consumer,” and that, since everybody is a consumer, all improvements of productivity ultimately benefited consumers as a body, was thus put into the scrap-heap, and there began to emerge the view that economic “force” was a main determinant in the distribution of wealth. ”

“ Under the present economic order land and capital (the material and instruments without which industry is impossible) are the property of a class employing a class of wage-labourers handicapped by their exclusion from land and capital. Competition is the general rule by which the share of the members of those classes in the fruits of production is determined. ”

“ Competition a Cause of Rapid Changes in the Standard Shape of Society and of a Quick Conformity of the Actual Shape to the Standard One.—The competition which is active enough to change the standard shape of society rapidly—that, for example, which spurs on mechanical invention and causes a large profit to be realized in a particular subgroup—has also the effect of calling labor and capital quickly to the point at which the profit appears, and, in the absence of any monopoly, reduces this profit to nil and restores, in so far as this cause of disturbance goes, the equilibrium of the groups. ”

“ In general industry competition tends so to adjust prices as to yield interest on capital, wages for all varieties of labor, including labor of management, and nothing more, and this is the outcome elsewhere demanded by a growth of business coupled with a theoretically normal and perfect action of competition ”

“ When his single sale of labor stands in equipoise over against his many purchases, we shall have buyers as well as sellers and our production and traffic will never cease. We have in trade-unions a first step in the adjustment of exchange. Workmen strive to escape the competition of the incompetent and shiftless, to redirect distribution in ways more just and equal, and by this means to be able to play their own part in economic life more advantageously for themselves and for all. ”

“ I saw a business system which had grown up under free competition and equality of opportunity passing into trusts and other combines derived from the acquisition of lands containing the best supplies of coal, iron, oil, and other important raw materials, supported by railroad and banking connections and by tariffs directed against outside competition. ”

“ When we know what ideally active competition will do, we can measure the effects of the obstructions that, in practice, competition actually encounters.
Competition for Capital among Different Industries.—The capitalist can invoke the aid of competition outside of the limits of one particular business. He may offer his loan to steel makers, to woolen manufacturers, cotton spinners, silk weavers, shoemakers, etc. ”

“ In the economic order, monopoly contributes to the increase of comfort, in the first place by adding to the general wealth through the perfecting of methods, and then by CAPITALIZING,—that is, by consolidating the conquests of labor obtained by division, machinery, and competition. ”

“ Farm prosperity and high employment will call for an immensely increased output of goods and services.
Growth and vitality in our economy depend on vigorous private enterprise. Free competition is the key to industrial development, full production and employment, fair prices, and an ever improving standard of living. Competition is seriously limited today in many industries by the concentration of economic power and other elements of monopoly. ”

“ Thus on the negative side competition implies that the economic interests of the persons concerned are attained neither by combination, nor by law, nor by custom. Again, it is also assumed, in making competition the principal distributing force of the national income, that every person knows what his real interests are, and that there is perfect mobility of labour both from employment to employment and from place to place. Without these assumptions the wages-fund would not be evenly distributed according to the quantity of labour. ”

“ For, as soon as it is assumed that industrial competition is the principal economic force in the distribution of the wealth of a community—and this is in reality the fundamental assumption of modern economic science,—a distinction must be drawn between the most general causes which affect all wages and the particular causes which lead to differences of wages in different employments. ”

“ The strongest objections, however, to the great aggregations are found in the possibility of oppression through a monopoly of business, and therefore almost absolute control by a few persons of the interests not only of a large body of employés, but of every competitor upon a smaller scale. A large combination practically compels all to yield to its methods. The certain economy of methods has led to the statement, “Where combination is possible, competition ceases.” The common saying, “Competition is the life of trade,” becomes untrue whenever that competition implies a costly service. ”

“ It is contended for as a means of checking unfair competition between a long established community with special advantages for factory methods, either in large accumulations of capital or low wages of laborers, and a newer country where capital is scarce and wages are high. ”

“ It is this competition which so adjusts the exchangeable value of commodities, that after paying the wages for the labour necessary to their production, and all other expenses required to put the capital employed in its original state of efficiency, the remaining value or overplus will in each trade be in proportion to the value of the capital employed. ”

“ They, even at the present time, take the place, frequently, of freedom of competition in retail business, in the book business, and in the determination of lawyers' and doctors' fees, as well as in the distribution of a nation's income among the three great branches of its general economy,671 deciding, instead of competition, how much shall go to each. ”

“ The capital thus thrown out of employment in an industry in which we had no comparative advantage (when competition became free) would necessarily be employed in the industries in which we had an advantage, and would supply—and the transferred capital would be the only means of supplying—the commodities which would be sent abroad to pay for those, which by the supposition are now imported, but were formerly produced at home. ”

“ You have the competitive system which is self-destructive and hence weak. Your producing classes can organize as consumers and take advantage of the sharp competition between dealers to sell goods, and by a wise use of their combined power to purchase, introduce an equitable system of exchange. ”

“ We have discovered that a great industrial revolution is in progress, by which manufacturing, mining, and transportation to a very great extent, and other industries to a considerable extent, have been and are being concentrated in the hands of a very few competitors. We have found that by the laws of competition this reduction in the number of competitors greatly increases the intensity of competition and the resulting waste and instability of price, and finally brings monopoly into existence. ”

“ The products of all quarters of the globe are placed at our disposal, and we have only to choose which is the best and the cheapest for our purposes, and the powers of production are intrusted to the stimulus of competition and capital. ”

“ But even when monopolized, a thing which is the gift of nature, and requires no labour or outlay as the condition of its existence, will, if there be competition among the holders of it, command a price, only if it exists in less quantity than the demand. ”

“ American competition is less effective than it might be, owing to our absurd tariffs and vicious currency, but its tendency has undoubtedly been in the direction indicated. I suspect, however, that the process will be less simple. Within the last twenty years the operations of production and distribution have been assuming colossal proportions. ”

“ If the supply is either more or less than this, it is so accidentally, and affords either more or less than the ordinary rate of profit, which, under free and active competition, can not long continue to be the case. ”

“ It must not however be forgotten, that even in the countries of most active competition, custom also has a considerable share in determining the profits of trade. There is sometimes an idea afloat as to what the profit of an employment should be, which though not adhered to by all the dealers, nor perhaps rigidly by any, still exercises a certain influence over their operations. ”

“ When a great nation has equipped itself to produce far more than it can, under the present division of the product, consume, it seeks other markets for its surplus products. When a second nation finds itself similarly circumstanced, competition for these other markets naturally follows. ”

“ The constant view of such companies is always to raise the rate of their own profit as high as they can; to keep the market, both for the goods which they export, and for those which they import, as much understocked as they can: which can be done only by restraining the competition, or by discouraging new adventurers from entering into the trade. ”

“ Out of the same fund, that is, the difference in a specie value, between the price of exported labour here and abroad, the whole amount of mercantile profit is to be taken; because competition cannot be so excited by banking, as to destroy this prolit, without destroying commerce ”

“ This brings me to consider what I apprehend to have been the most efficient of all the causes in the reduction of the prices of manufactured articles—and that is COMPETITION. By competition, the total amount of the supply is increased, and by increase of the supply, a competition in the sale ensues, and this enables the consumer to buy at lower rates. Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition. ”

“ If the mass at one pole should, through any form of industrial vice, fall into misery, they would offer to the few wise an opportunity to become rich by taking advantage of them. They would offer a large supply of labor at low wages, a high demand for capital at high rates of interest, and a fierce demand for land at high rent.
It is often affirmed, and it is true, that competition tends to disperse society over a wide range of unequal conditions. Competition develops all powers that exist according to their measure and degree. ”

“ Just as the cheap-for-cash stores have a similar effect upon prices as the co-operative supply associations, so does competition in production lead to a similar adjustment of forces and division of proceeds as would co-operative production. ”

“ With a view merely to production, and to the greatest efficiency of labor, this change is wholly beneficial.
A single large company very often, instead of being a monopoly, is generally better than two large companies; for there is little likelihood of competition and lower prices when the competitors are so few as to be able to agree not to compete. ”

“ If this custom were universal, and strictly adhered to, competition indeed would still operate, but the consumer would not derive any benefit from it, at least as to price; the way in which it would diminish the advantages of those engaged in the retail trade, would be by a greater subdivision of the business. ”

“ In commerce, also, the largest banks, mercantile firms, and factories, grow continually larger by virtue of the less expense attending the management of extensive groups. The costly competition of many small manufactories and merchants is passing away before the more economical methods of a few strong concerns. Coöperation in labor, and in the supply of a community with goods, has succeeded to an encouraging extent in Europe, and in some degree on this continent. ”

“ That the constant tendency of the system, by creating competition among ourselves, and between American and European industry, reciprocally acting upon each other, is to reduce prices of manufactured objects. ”

“ The result of all this has been to produce a state of affairs in which competition, so long considered the life of trade, is practically eliminated from many branches of industry, while the opportunities for individual enterprise, which have been active for so many centuries, have in great part vanished. ”

“ Many lean and hungry peoples are being integrated into the global economy. Competition is particularly fierce for trade and investments. And the countries most likely to capture these investments are those that set out the appropriate policies. ”

“ The forces which are operating to drive capital to group itself in larger and larger masses, and the consequent growth of the business-unit, require special study in relation to changes effected in the character of competition in the market and the establishment of monopolies. The economies which give to the large business an advantage over the small business may be divided into two classes—economies of productive power, and economies of competitive power. ”

“ On the contrary, the number of manufactories and the amount of capital invested in them is steadily and rapidly increasing, affording gratifying proofs that American enterprise and skill employed in this branch of domestic industry, with no other advantages than those fairly and incidentally accruing from a just system of revenue duties, are abundantly able to meet successfully all competition from abroad and still derive fair and remunerating profits. ”