finding the right remedies, and
finding them at once. Our study is henceforth to be devoted to this end.
How shall we go about it? In the first place, it is evident that we
might make a far wider and more detailed investigation of existing
monopolies, and still be no nearer our desired end. We might study the
facts concerning each especial railroad monopoly in the country, for
instance, without reaching any valuable conclusion with regard to the
proper method of restricting railroad monopolies in general. But if we
were to take the monopoly exercised by a single railroad company, and
study the principles on which it is founded and the laws by which it is
governed, we might then be able to state something of value in reference
to proper methods for its control. Evidently, then, principles rather
than facts are to be the chief subjects of our future discussion,
although, of course, we can only discover these principles by
investigating the facts already found, together with others which may
come to our notice.

Our very first and most obvious generalization from the facts which we
have studied is, that in all the monopolies we have considered, the
inherent principle is the same, and the effect on the community is of
the same sort. Therefore, instead of hunting for separate remedies for
railroad monopolies and trusts and labor monopolies, we will see what
the general problem of monopoly is, and what is the general nature of
the remedy that should be applied; the details applicable to each case
will, of course, be different; but the underlying principle must be the
same.

But if we examine our problem a little more closely we see that the word
_monopoly_ seems to be only a negative, expressing the fact that
_competition_ is absent. We will therefore direct our studies to
competition itself, and will consider first its action as the basis of
our social system.

In the most primitive condition of man which we can imagine, each person
provided for his or her own need. The competition which then existed was
not competition, in the sense which we use the word in this volume, but
was a struggle for existence and a gratification of the baser desires,
of the same sort as that which now prevails in the brute creation,
resulting in a "survival of the fittest." With the introduction of the
family relation, the principle of the "division of labor" was utilized,
the female doing the hard and menial work, while the male devoted
hims