Market competition

“ When indeed the market, being that of a great city, holds out a sufficient inducement to large capitalists to engage in retail operations, it is generally found a better speculation to attract a large business by underselling others, than merely to divide the field of employment with them. This influence of competition is making itself felt more and more through the principal branches of retail trade in the large towns ”

“ While the opening up of what the economists call the 'world market,' has necessitated, as a condition of successful competition, improved methods of production for, and carriage to, the market, a third and less obvious force has effected an important change in the method of distribution in the market. ”

“ That competition we have to meet, not only in the countries mentioned, but in all countries where we meet them on equal terms; to meet such competition we must be able to produce more cheaply and a better article than others do, and we must safeguard our position as the world's bankers and carriers, as well as the position of our manufacturers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Market dominance-some power to control price and to exclude competition-is by no means the only test of whether the seller has the requisite economic power. Even absent a showing of market dominance, the crucial economic power may be inferred from the tying product's desirability to consumers or from uniqueness in its attributes. ”

“ If from investigation it appears that there is a market for one’s goods in any section or universally, that quality and prices can be such as to make competition favorable, that the market can be enlarged, or should there be none that one can be created, and a determination is therefore formed to enter export trade, the next question is how the goods shall be sold. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The competition of the different dealers obliges them all to accept of this price, but does not oblige them to accept of less.
The quantity of every commodity brought to market naturally suits itself to the effectual demand. It is the interest of all those who employ their land, labour, or stock, in bringing any commodity to market, that the quantity never should exceed the effectual demand; and it is the interest of all other people that it never should fall short of that demand. ”

“ Through the common market place provided by an exchange, on the other hand, market conditions and prices become common knowledge almost instantly over the entire country. This tends toward stabilization—a fact which, alone, helps to eliminate risks, and enables merchants to buy at lower prices than if forced to deal direct with one another. Sellers do not have to take such long chances and can thus afford to sell on a smaller margin of profit. Competition is stimulated and freed from many of its complications and uncertainties to the advantage of the seller, the buyer and the public. ”

“ These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. ”

“ In some industries the expanding size of the market or area of competition keeps pace with this movement, so that the total number of the larger competitors within the market may be as great as before. But in most of the markets the growing scale of the business is attended by an absolute diminution in the number of effective competitors, or at any rate by an increase which is very much smaller than the increase in the amount of trade that is done. ”

“ The market-in its narrow sense as transaction, and as a sign process joining structure and dynamics-focuses all that pertains to the relation between the individual and the social environment: language, customs, mores, knowledge, technology, images, sounds, odors, etc. Through the market, economies are ascertained or subjected to painful restructuring. Recent years brought with them turmoil and economic opportunity as an expression of new pragmatic characteristics. Competition, specialization, cooperation, were all intensified. ”

“ Once the area of effective competition affected by a vertical arrangement has been defined, an analysis must be made to determine if the effect of the arrangement 'may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly' in this market. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The point of greatest interest in this is the fact that combinations among this first class of middlemen are fostered and made possible by the combination of producers. Nor does the series end here necessarily. The increased price which the retail dealers are obliged to pay for the goods, with the fact that others are making larger profits, makes them eager to do the same; and by the aid and co-operation of the wholesale merchants they may be able to do much toward checking competition among themselves and increasing their profits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Increasing competition in the marketplace spurs business and industry to improve both the quality and price of their products and services. This in turn enables consumers to get more out of their buying dollar. At the same time, the demand for greater innovation and productivity helps to create jobs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You would have secured a much better bargain, no doubt, had there been twenty dealers in the room competing with each other, and a still better bargain had their number been fifty, or a hundred, or two hundred, because that would mean competition, and the more competition there is, in close contact and governed by rigid business rules, the more certain the approach to a perfect price. Everywhere in the world fairs and other gatherings of merchants are held at periodic intervals because people demand them in their effort to secure proper prices by competitive bidding and offering. ”

“ It is not exactly clear how a rise in the prices both of what one producer sells another, and of what he in return buys from that other, can somehow make both of them rich, and relax the strain of competition. ”

“ The mainspring that impels all buyers and sellers to quicken their movements and to improve their methods and thus and otherwise to cheapen their costs of production, is the natural press of competition. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When companies are not established, and when trade is open, our merchants, by their eagerness to profit of the new trade, betray the secrets of it, they enter into competition for the purchase of the foreign produce, and this raises prices and favours the commerce of the most ignorant savages. ”

“ The price at which the manufacturer sells his goods is regulated on the one hand by the amount of competition with other manufacturers with which he has to contend, and on the other hand, by the larger or smaller supply of labor. ”

“ If, then, the supply of a commodity is less than the demand for it, competition among the sellers is very slight, or there may be none at all among them. In the same proportion in which this competition decreases, the competition among the buyers increases. ”

“ It may be answered, that it cannot be said of companies as of private dealers, that they profit of every little circumstance of competition, to raise their price. Those have a fixed standard, and all the world buys from them at the same rate; so that retailers, who supply the consumption, have in one respect this notable advantage, that all buying at the same price, no one can undersell another; and the competition between them secures the public from exorbitant prices. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those industries in which the competition becomes a matter of cutting of prices can by combination remove rivals from the field, and then put prices up to a remunerative rate. Competitors in industries of the second class by combination can save many of the costs of selling, and thus without any increase in the price of the product may save enough of the cost to make the business profitable. ”

“ Every one was honestly busy in learning either how to make or how to sell, and in conquering the difficulties that beset traders as they strove to push their way into the world’s market on equal or, if possible, more than equal terms with competitors who had long held unquestioned supremacy. ”

“ The salient facts for us to note are, that among the manufacturers of this country there has arisen a widespread movement to partially or wholly avoid competition in the production and sale of their goods; that in a very great number of manufacturing industries these combinations have progressed so far that their managers have been able to advance prices and check production ”

“ The whole raison d'être of monopolistic combinations is to control prices, and prevent active competition. As every economist knows, in the conditions under which many industries are to-day organized, expenses of production have no direct relation to prices. ”

“ In the early eighteenth century, when that formula of Adam Smith was written, competition was observed to keep down prices and provide stimulus to enterprise, and so to further abundant production. But the time came when the machinery for producing goods was in excess, not merely of the needs of the country, but of the available foreign markets, and then suddenly the large-scale manufacturers made the discovery that competition was the death of trade to them. ”

“ Competition takes place on the side of the buyers, and the value rises: but how much? In the ratio (some may suppose) of the deficiency: if the demand exceeds the supply by one-third, the value rises one-third. By no means: for when the value has risen one-third, the demand may still exceed the supply; there may, even at that higher value, be a greater quantity wanted than is to be had; and the competition of buyers may still continue. ”

“ If the phenomena of production and prices were as easily resolved as the witness implied, much discussion and much literature have been wasted, and some of the problems that are now distracting the world would have been given composing solution. Of course, competition affects prices, but it is only one among other influences, and does not more than they register itself in definite and legible effect. ”

“ We need to distinguish the different species of competition. That competition which is in daily operation in most [158] branches of industry we may call actual competition. That competition which would spring up in any industry in case an increase in profits called it out, we may call potential competition. The third class is instanced in the letting to the highest bidder a franchise for city water or gas-works, or street-car lines. Here competition acts at a single time to fix the price for perhaps twenty years. ”

“ The common expressions of trade afford still further evidence. We often hear the expression: "A healthy competition." But the very existence of the phrase implies that there may be an unhealthy competition, and if so, what is it? ”

“ From this it appears that demand and supply govern the fluctuations of values and prices in all cases, and the permanent values and prices of all things of which the supply is determined by any agency other than that of free competition: but that, under the régime of competition, things are, on the average, exchanged for each other at such values, and sold at such prices, as afford equal expectation of advantage to all classes of producers; which can only be when things [pg 373] exchange for one another in the ratio of their cost of production. ”