ncomes and themselves, while we endeavor to bring about reforms that
shall give them greater comforts and more leisure to use for either
self-improvement or self-debasement.

Much more might be said of the indirect effects which result from the
taxation which monopolies inflict upon the community for their own
profit; but they are now so generally realized and understood that we
can devote our time more profitably to the investigation of other evils.

Under the ideal system of competition which we studied in Chapter X., we
found that all occupations were competing with each other; so that if,
from any cause, one calling became especially profitable, men would
flock to it and bring down the profits to a normal point. Monopolies
have seriously interfered with this important and beneficent law. How
often do we hear the complaint of the great difficulties that beset
young men on their first entrance to business or industrial life in
securing a situation. The monopolized industries shut out new
competitors by every means in their power. The trade-unions limit the
number of apprentices which shall be allowed to learn their trade each
year. The result is, first, a most deplorable tendency to idleness on
the part of young men just at the time when they should be most active;
and, second, a still larger increase of men in the professions and
non-monopolized callings, tending to still further increase the
competition in those callings, where returns are already inferior to
what they should be. Surely, we must begin to appreciate how vitally
important to every person in the land is this matter of competition and
monopoly.

The evils which we have thus far considered pertain to the distribution
of wealth. Let us now turn our attention to the production of wealth.
Our second law of competition stated that the waste due to competition
varied directly as its intensity. We have frequently referred to this
waste of competition; let us now inquire more fully concerning its
amount and effect. In the first place, however, let us settle the
question, once for all, that waste or destruction of wealth of any sort
is an economic injury to the community. We have, indeed, already
explained this in the first paragraphs of the chapter; but while all
authorities on economics agree on this point, the general public is
still seriously infected with the fallacy that waste, destruction, and
unprofitable enterprises are beneficial because they furnish