han it is worth, there
will ensue a competition among employers who desire to
realize, each for himself, the margin of profit which can be
made by getting additional labor, and this will either raise
the pay of the men already in this subgroup or call new men
into it, or do both. In any case it will, in the absence of
all trace of monopoly on the side of the employers, end by
giving to the men what they are worth. It is, in fact, such a
bidding for new labor by employers in any branch of business
that moves labor from point to point in the industrial
system. The _entrepreneur_ is the agent in the case, profits
are the lure, and competition--rivalry in buying--is the
means; and competition is, as we use terms, absolutely free
whenever it is certain that the smallest margin of net profit
will set it working and draw labor or capital to the
profit-yielding point.

There is competition among the _entrepreneurs_ at A''' in
selling this finished product to the consuming public, and
among different purchasers in buying it. Whenever the price
of A''' is so high that the whole output of it cannot be
sold, each vender tries to supplant others and insure a sale
of his own product rather than that of any one else.
Competition here is overt and active. When all can be sold at
the current price, finding a market for one vender's supply
does not require that he win away another's customers, and
although the different sellers continue to be rivals and each
would welcome an increase of patronage made at others' cost,
no one is forced to underbid others in order to continue to
sell his accustomed output. Competition is here quiescent,
since actual underbidding and the luring away of rivals'
customers do not take place. When _entrepreneurs_ who are not
now in the subgroup A''' are ready to enter it and to become
rivals of those already there whenever any profit is to be
had by such a course, their competition is not actual but
potential; and yet it is a real influence and serves to deter
producers already in the field from establishing such a price
for their product that the possible competitors will become
real and active ones. These three influences may conceivably
act without obstruction or may be hindered and deprived of
much of their power. In actual life they are subjected to