Market power

“ Individuals take or send their surplus products to the market for sale; individuals desiring to buy commodities likewise resort to the market. In the market commodities are said to have value, that is to say, they have power in exchange. ”

“ It is simply commodities. Each person's means of paying for the productions of other people consists of those which he himself possesses. All sellers are inevitably and ex vi termini buyers. Could we suddenly double the productive powers of the country, we should double the supply of commodities in every market; but we should, by the same stroke, double the purchasing power.
[pg 367] Everybody would bring a double demand as well as supply; everybody would be able to buy twice as much, because every one would have twice as much to offer in exchange. ”

“ At the present moment, you are secured in a monopoly for forty-two years, among a population of twenty-six millions of people, certain, at the close of twenty years more, to be fifty millions and likely, at the close of another half century, to be a hundred millions, and with facilities, for the disposal of your products, growing at a rate unequaled in the world. With this vast increase of market, and increase of power over that market, the consumer should be supplied more cheaply than in former times ”

“ You, by every means in your power, create those necessities, by buying up particular articles and holding them out of the market until the demand becomes pressing, by circulating false reports of short crops, and by other similar tricks known to the trade. ”

“ In the market he stood as owner of the commodity "labour-power" face to face with other owners of commodities, dealer against dealer. The contract by which he sold to the capitalist his labour-power proved, so to say, in black and white that he disposed of himself freely. ”

“ The manner in which the wealth created by the toiling millions, passed through the channels of trade, into the possession of a few wealthy speculators, was illustrated by pictures and printed explanations, in almost endless variety, so that even the most obtuse observers, could not fail to get a clear idea of the practical workings of a system of commercial exchange, under the operation of which, interest, profit and rent were always added to the market price of the product, every time it changed hands. ”

“ 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 [Pg 309] adventurers from entering into the trade. ”

“ They keep their fingers on the pulse of trade, know mine outputs, crop prospects, cattle productions, stability of governments, possibilities of revolutions or political unrest, the condition of business—in a word everything that has any bearing on banking or that could by any possibility reflect on the money market. ”

“ So long as there was no large-enough combination of capital to acquire knowledge of the supply and demand that determines market price or to any extent control it, no man, however intelligent, could tell when prices were going to rise and when to fall. ”

“ The flow of capital into businesses yielding the largest returns; the buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest; the introduction of more economical modes of manufacture; the development of better agencies for distribution; and all those variations in the currents of trade that are noted in our newspapers and telegrams from hour to hour; exhibit movement taking place in directions where it is met by the smallest total of opposing forces. ”

“ What, then, are the lines of business in which selling prices cannot be raised sufficiently to prevent a reduction of profits? There are certain lines in which selling prices are stereotyped by law, by public commissions, by contracts of long term, by custom, or by business policy, and in which no advance, or but meagre advances can be made. There are other lines in which prices are always subject to the incalculable chances of the harvests, and in which the market value of all accumulated stocks of materials and finished goods wavers with the crop reports. ”

“ It is the consensus of opinion of economists and of many of the most important agencies of government that the public interest is served by the gathering and dissemination, in the widest possible manner, of information with respect to the production and distribution, cost and prices in actual sales, of market commodities because the making available of such information tends to stabilize trade and industry, to produce fairer price levels and to avoid the waste which inevitably attends the unintelligent conduct of economic enterprise. ”

“ But every branch of trade in which the merchant can sell his goods for a price which replaces to him, with the ordinary profits of stock, the whole capital employed in preparing and sending them to market, can be carried on without a bounty. ”

“ Their invariable object in trade, is to acquire sudden wealth by large profit; and if that cannot be done, they abandon the pursuit for some new project. Certain of the market, and certain of the increasing supply, they will prescribe the price, both to those who cultivate, and to those who consume. ”

“ It is quite clear to my mind that the effect of our large foreign trade has been distinctly in the direction of lowering the value of money in our market, and consequently an undoubted aid to our industries. ”

“ The experience that crises are caused by blind, anarchic production, i. e., that production is carried on without a knowledge of the volume of supply, of sales and of demand of and for the several goods in the world's market, has, as indicated in previous passages, caused large manufacturers in several branches of industry to join in Trusts and rings, partly with the view of steadying prices, partly also for the purpose of regulating production by the light of previous experience and of the orders received. ”

“ This effect is much promoted by the existence of large capitals, belonging to what are called speculative merchants, whose business it is to buy goods in order to resell them at a profit. These dealers naturally buying things when they are cheapest, and storing them up to be brought again into the market when the price has become unusually high ”

“ 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 anomalous state of the Money Market proceeds, we believe, from a redundancy, not of mere paper, but of capital which cannot find investment, superinduced by stagnation of trade, and the want of commercial enterprise, occasioned by the restrictive nature of our duties on imports.—Morning Chronicle.
The accounts from the United States mention that the greatest activity prevails among the manufacturers in their purchases of the raw material for the year's consumption. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the new demand offset the new supply, then, if changes of prices occurred, their cause must be sought in the influences touching the producing and marketing of goods.
4. The effective demand for goods (granting their utility) is limited by the buyer's purchasing power. This purchasing power is not identical with the quantity of the media of exchange in circulation, any more than the value of the total exchangeable wealth of the community is identical with the value of the total money in circulation. ”

“ In short, the open market is open to all; and every man has a right to sell there his labor, his skill, or his goods, of whatever sort he can produce, at such a price as he can obtain. The same is true of the buyer. I have a right to go into the open market and secure such goods as any one wishes to sell me at the lowest price for which he will part with them. ”

“ That the free and open market, in which all honest money and all honest commodities are free to be given and received in exchange for each other, is the true, final, absolute, and only test of the true and natural market value of all money, as of all the other commodities that are bought and sold for money. ”

“ Every day we hear of combinations, Farmers’ Alliances, rural co-operative movements, etc., each designed to regulate the market for eggs, butter, potatoes, and such things, and each having for its purpose the very functions which govern a Stock Exchange in its own field—namely, the establishment of a fair price under the nearest possible approach to ideal conditions. ”

“ That prima facie, the market price, that is to say, the price that is ever resulting from freedom in competition, is the right price; the one that will restrict over production and at the same time stimulate the needed production in times of scarcity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Market prices of products and of securities are hourly known in every commercial mart, and the investments of the people extend beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the earth. ”

“ Not only have these markets proved beneficial to the consumers generally, but the market men are unanimous as to their advantage, for they afford a ready and inexpensive means of doing a large business. ”

“ It frequently happens that money to a considerable amount is brought into the country, is there actually invested as capital, and again flows out, without having ever once acted upon the markets of commodities, but only upon the market of securities, or, as it is commonly though improperly called, the money market. ”

“ Buyers seek the largest market they can get in order to obtain the lowest prices; sellers, in order to obtain the highest prices; and so it was learned long ago that economy of time and labor, as well as a theoretically perfect market, could be best secured by an organization under one roof of as many dealers in a commodity as could be found.2 Bear in mind that this result, moreover, is best accomplished when the organization is so controlled by rigid rules of business morality as to insure to every one who does business there, great and small, rich and poor, an absolutely square deal. ”

“ Purchase British articles with British articles, and you create two such aggregate values, and two such markets for British industry. Whereas, on the contrary, the entire value of every foreign article imported is net income to the foreigner and sustains foreign markets. Purchase foreign articles with British articles, and you only create one value for your own benefit instead of creating two, and only one market for British industry instead of two. ”

“ When the demand is equal to the quantity of goods at market, the consumer generally pays the duty; but when the markets happen to be overstocked, a great proportion falls upon the merchant, and sometimes not only exhausts his profits, but breaks in upon his capital. ”

“ So far as I know, there is not in history record of anything so disgraceful to the human intellect as the modern idea that the commercial text, "Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest," represents, or under any circumstances could represent, an available principle of national economy. ”

“ The total supply of accumulated wealth of the whole civilized world is engaged in this competition, and the millions of wealth which are added every day are new contestants in the market. Competition in other products is held in local bounds by the cost of shipment over long distances ”

“ But it is extremely difficult for trusts adapted to the requirements of a profitable tied market at home to adjust their methods of free competition in the world markets upon a profitable basis of steady trading. ”

“ If the market price rises high above the cost of production, producers make a profit greater than the average profit made in the country. This induces them, by the appropriation of new land and the employment of new labor and capital, to increase their business. ”

“ Although a new invention or a wide expansion of market may alter so considerably the expenses of production of the several quantities of supply as to materially affect monopoly-supply and prices, it is the latter influence, that of flexibility of demand, that directly in each specific case determines whether a Trust's prices shall be high or low. ”

“ All this generously large and highly expensive and profitable field of trade and of trade-like industry, in which the businessmen in charge deal somewhat directly with a large body of customers, is always subject to limitations imposed by the condition of the market; and the condition of the market is in part not under the control of these businessmen, but is also in part controlled by large concerns in the background ”

“ In the only remaining and by far most comprehensive class of cases, in which the Supply of Commodities and Services and Credits can be readily and indefinitely increased to meet enhanced Demand, and easily withdrawn from market and stored when Demand declines, each rise and fall of market-rate tends to be speedily checked through the mere action of Supply ”

“ The stock market is filled with fancies, which the government has manufactured and continues to manufacture to order. It is the duty of government to encourage the accumulation of the savings of industry. ”