Government monopoly

“ It is to elude the discovery of its enmity to civil and religious liberty, that monopoly confesses the change in its old forms, hoping under the candour of this confession, to get into operation in a new form. Admitted in the stupendous form of a paper currency, it becomes irrstantly connected with civil government, and civil and religious liberty is settled by experience, to be uniformly the victim of a connexion between a lucrative monopoly, and government in any form. ”

“ These are always, in a great degree, practical monopolies; and a government which concedes such monopoly unreservedly to a private company, does much the same thing as if it allowed an individual or an association to levy any tax they chose, for their own benefit, on all the malt produced in the country, or on all the cotton imported into it. ”

“ One party will hold that when it is necessary for the government to interfere to protect those whom it represents from the oppression of monopoly, it should assume at once the whole ownership and management of the monopoly. Their opponents will argue that government should interfere only to the extent needful to maintain the rights of the public; and that it is far better that industry should be directed by the private individuals whose interests are at stake than by government officials. ”

“ As credit can produce revenue, it is property, and will be considered, whether as such, it can under our policy be thrown into a state of monopoly, or disposed of by ex elusive charter, as districts and inhabitants are in Russia, or branches of commerce in England. If a monopoly of the wine trade, cannot be chartered to a corporation, will credit, which covers every branch of commerce, admit of a state of monopoly?
The value of credit, us property, appears evidently in the price it sells for. A nation, by giving away its credit, loses what Pennsylvania sold at six per centum. ”

“ Wherever monopoly attains a foothold, it is sure to be a source of danger, discord, and trouble. We shall but fulfill our duties as legislators by according "equal and exact justice to all men," special privileges to none. The Government is subordinate to the people; but, as the agent and representative of the people, it must be held superior to monopolies, which in themselves ought never to be granted, and which, where they exist, must be subordinate and yield to the Government.
The Constitution confers on Congress the right to regulate commerce among the several States. ”

“ We have now found that monopoly is the inevitable result of the concentration of competition in any industry in a few hands, if events are allowed to take their natural course; that the only agent which has either the right or the power to interfere in the case is the government,—National, State, or Municipal; that government cannot punish directly those who form combinations to restrict competition, without exercising to an unprecedented [210] degree its right to interference with private affairs ”

“ Evidently this result can only be prevented by some interference outside the industry itself. If we allow it to take its own course, a monopoly is certain, sooner or later, to be formed. But the only agency which has the right and power to interfere is government. ”

“ The ultimate remedy for the evils of monopoly, therefore, lies with the people. When they will choose to control their affairs the men of greatest wisdom and honor; when each man will exercise the same care in choosing men to care for the public business that he [263] does in caring for his own private interests, then we can safely trust far greater responsibilities to our government than is now prudent.
There is no more important lesson to impress on the minds of the toiling millions who are growing restless under the burdens of monopoly than this: The only remedy for monopoly is control ”

“ If the monopoly of banking will rob a nation of its liberty, by corrupting or usurping the government, it is almost superfluous to prove, that it will rob it of its property also; because every separate interest acquiring one, has uniformly gotten the other. ”

“ In this way, the Administrator thought the evil of pools and trust agreements could be eradicated, and a healthful competition, content with reasonable profits, established. If a single corporation, by its extreme efficiency, or from unusual conditions, should constitute a monopoly so that there was practically no competition, then it would be necessary, he thought, for the Government to fix a price reasonable to all interests involved. ”

“ While local considerations and local conditions have much to do in the determination of each case, there is one general principle which is becoming more and more clearly outlined as the question of government ownership is discussed, namely, that when a monopoly becomes necessary it must be a government monopoly and not a monopoly in private hands. In other words, the principle now most familiarly applied is, "competition where competition is possible; government monopoly where competition is impossible." ”

“ If, in any great department of production, it creates a true monopoly which cannot be otherwise controlled, the demand that the business be taken over by the government and worked for the benefit of the public will become irresistible. If it does not become a true monopoly, the business may remain in private hands. Inevitable consolidation with a choice between governmental production and private production is offered to us. We are at liberty to select the latter only if potential competition shall be made to be a satisfactory regulator of the action of the great corporations. ”

“ How shall government exercise its control, so as to protect the people without infringing vested property rights and discouraging private enterprise? It may be objected, too, that, while our preceding discussion has fully proved the weakness of other methods of dealing with monopoly, compared with that by the direct action of government, it has not been shown that the latter is practicable, or that it would not be likely to result in more harm than good to the people at large. ”

“ Thus: "Monopolies are odious, contrary to the spirit of a free government and the principles of commerce, and ought not to be suffered." I venture the prediction that the time will come when the citizens of industrially freer America will regard these omnibus denunciations of monopolies as equally naïve with the colonial proscription of attorneys at law. We shall learn that monopoly is like fire—a good servant but a bad master. ”

“ The dread of monopoly as an emanation of governmental power, while it passed at an early date out of mind in this country as a result of the structure of our Government, did not serve to assuage the fear as to the evil consequences which might arise from the acts of individuals producing or tending to produce the consequences of monopoly. ”

“ A great central banking institution, a government agent, enjoying valuable privileges, will always have the flavor of monopoly about it — and there is nothing more hateful than the idea of monopoly among a democratic people. ”

“ Some people protest against the corporations and monopolies in the United States at the present day, not one of which has the sanction or support of the government, but every one of which is under the ban of the law. But here was a monopoly of all the trade in a region a thousand times greater in size than the country whose king created the monopoly, to which was given the right over the lives and liberties of the natives and subordinates of the chartered corporation. ”

“ The powers that private monopoly gives, through control of market and governmental policies, to rob the consumer.
Socialists contend that the good can be saved and the bad destroyed by converting the private monopolies into public monopolies—in other words, by letting the government own the trusts and the people own the government. ”

“ Even supposing the principle of monopoly can The introduced by banking, without its infecting the civil government; the wisdom of planting some parts of our policy in a monopoly of civil rights, and others in their freedom, is still questionable. ”

“ The distribution of wealth produced by commerce and alienation, is equal to that of knowledge and virtue, produced by printing; but as the first distribution might be artificially counteracted, with a better prospect of success than the latter, aristocracy has abandoned a reliance on a monopoly of virtue, renown and abilities, and resorted wholly to a monopoly of wealth, by the system of paper and patronage. Modern taxes and frauds to collect money, and not ancient authors, will therefore afford the best evidence of its present character. ”

“ The construction of publick faith by monopoly, avarice and ambition, is precisely the reverse of this. They confine it to a fulfilment of every species of contract made by a government with individuals, especially if entered into for the purpose of gratifying themselves at the expense of a nation ”

“ And yet correct reasoning must conclude, that if one nation, by means of a monopoly, can impoverish another; a combination or corporate body, may also impoverish the rest of a nation, by the same means. That a monopoly which enriches, will correspondently impoverish, unless it produces or creates; that if Britain possessed the privilege of furnishing America with bank paper, at the annual profit of eight per centum, it would have constituted a tax, enriching Britain and impoverishing America—co-extensively with her former commercial monopoly ”

“ It was to aid that company in its purposes and in carrying out its object that the contract in this case was made between those parties, and which we are now asked to ald in enforcing. Monopoly in trade, or in any kind of business in this country, is odious to our form of government. It is sometimes permitted to aid the government in carrying on a great public enterprise or public work under governmental control in the interest of the public. ”

“ The pecuniary sufferings of nations from banking may be exhibited with some accuracy by figures, and though figures cannot exhibit its drafts upon their political principles, we may conclude with almost equal certainty, that a separate factitious interest, will not preserve a free government in America, because it has never done so in any other country. Monopoly, like other evils, takes refuge under some good. It attempts to include within its scope, the acquisitions of talents and industry, and to confound them with those of legal fraud ”

“ A political monopoly derives its power of control from a special grant from the government, forbidding others to engage in that business. The typical political monopoly is that conferred by a crown patent bestowing the exclusive right to carry on a certain business. ”

“ It has been a general opinion that monopoly was a principle, unfavourable to commercial prosperity. Commerce struggled to destroy perpetuities, and monopoly to prevent alienations. In the distribution of wealth, commerce is active, unwearied and useful ”

“ The ideas annexed to the words "publick faith, national credit and private property" in England, may be correct in reference to the English civil policy, and erroneous in relation to the civil policy of the United States. Monopoly is the leading principle of their political, religious, and mercantile systems; every thing the reverse of monopoly, constitutes our political, religious and mercantile systems. The king, with his annual million, his prerogatives, and his patronage, made up of fleets, armies, offices, and corruption ”

“ That any corporations properly subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal government will attain to the condition of being a "natural" monopoly may be disputed; but according to the present outlook, if such is not the case, the only reason will be that the government by means of official and officious interference "regulates" them into inefficiency, and consequent inability to hold their own against smaller and less "regulated" competitors. ”

“ What with us is competition, with them is monopoly. That which we effect by private companies, they effect by public boards. They cannot cut a canal, or lay down a railroad, without appealing to the government for aid. ”

“ This policy, be it remembered, does not ask, as the socialists do, for all forests, all mines, or all the water-power. It asks that the hand of government control be kept firmly upon such portions of these resources as are susceptible to vicious monopoly. All this is possible along the lines of state regulation, without even raising the question of universal ownership. We have a chief executive who sees what the evils are and dares to face them. ”

“ The question then is, can government successfully interfere to prevent intense competition from bringing about monopoly? In order to do this it must of course keep competition in action; but it cannot do this directly. Competition is essentially a strife. No law was ever enacted which could force two men to fight if they were really determined to be at peace. No law was ever enacted which could force two manufacturers or merchants to compete with each other in price, if they really were agreed to sell at the same price. ”

“ That she would diminish her own prosperity, is an insufficient security against the abuse of such a monopoly. The landed interest diminished its own prosperity, by the oppression of commerce and labour. By justice, as to all three, a nation will prosper; by enabling either to draw wealth from the otiier two, by law, without industry, the common good or general interest is invariably wounded. ”