ble to
check and limit competition, so that their returns from their work are
constantly increased; while others still, are in possession of certain
agents, so necessary to the community and so rare, that a price can be
exacted for their use greatly in excess of the original cost to their
owners. Some of the effects of this state of affairs it is easy to
perceive. We have, indeed, pointed out for each monopoly described some
of the especial abuses to which it gives rise; and it is plain enough
that the general tendency is, first, to greatly enrich the possessors of
the strongest monopolies at the expense of all other men; second, to
give a certain degree of advantage to the possessors of minor
monopolies,--as, for instance, monopolies in articles which are
luxuries, and can easily be dispensed with; and third, to seriously
injure all those engaged in occupations in which the price of the
product is still fixed by competition.

Every one will agree that this is an evil state of affairs. It is not
just that my neighbor, who owns a mine or a railroad, should ask me
what he pleases for coal, or for carriage of my produce to market; while
I, being a farmer, must sell the products of my labor at a price
determined by competition with the products of ten thousand other farms.
No one can deny at this day that it is contrary to the principles of
justice to give to the men in any one occupation or calling an advantage
over those in any other, except in just the degree that one occupation
is more beneficial to the world than another. The question then arises,
how may we best remedy this state of affairs? Shall our panacea be to do
away with all monopolies, and put every industry back upon the
competitive system? If so, by what means are we to apply this remedy? Or
shall we go to the other extreme and adopt the antipodal doctrine to the
foregoing, that competition is an evil which ought to be done away with;
and then proceed to abolish competition in every trade and occupation
where it still exists, if we can find any possible means of
accomplishing such a task.

The investigation we have already pursued gives us no answer to these
questions. We have thus far studied facts, and made little attempt to
deduce from them general truths. We are now informed as to the
widespread growth of monopoly; and we have paid some attention to the
injustice and wrong to which it gives rise, in order that we may
understand the urgent necessity for