monopolies,
he calls attention to the trusts and pools and monopolies which are
taxing him at every hand for the necessaries of life, and declares that
if he, working on the same principle as the wealthy capitalists, is able
to combine his tens of thousands of fellows into an effective monopoly,
surely he should not be condemned for following the example of the men
who are, or are supposed to be, his social, moral, and intellectual
superiors.

Such is the strong case which the labor organizations present in defence
of the unions which they have formed to kill competition in the labor
market. The investigation we have pursued in the preceding chapters
enables us to add to this a statement of the case more comprehensive and
striking even, than the narrower views which have preceded. In the
chapter on the monopolies in trade, reference was made to the fact that
the competition among purchasers tends to keep prices up, just as
competition among sellers tends to keep them down. Now labor is a
commodity whose price in the market is governed by the same laws of
supply and demand that regulate the prices of all other things that are
bought and sold. But it has this peculiar difference, that the _sellers_
of labor are many, while the _purchasers_ are few, as compared with the
relative proportion of sellers and buyers of goods in general. Then,
wherever there is little competition among purchasers of labor, we shall
expect to find low wages; and where competition to secure workmen is
active, high wages will be the rule. This is so obviously true, in the
light of every one's experience, that we need not stop to prove it.
Now, in the days when manufacturing was carried on in small workshops,
there was a great number of purchasers of labor. The concentration of
manufacturing in great establishments where thousands of workmen are
employed has lessened the number of employers greatly; has it not also
lessened competition among them? It is a well-known fact that in many
great industries, as, for instance, the mining of coal or the
manufacture of iron, there is one rate of wages paid all through one
district, and the employers fix that rate through their associations.
The makers of trusts have sometimes defended them, on the ground that
they enabled the employer to pay his laborers higher wages; but it is
plain that when all the firms in a trade are united in one combination,
there can be no competition between them for the employment o