e., "the control by any one corporation of so large a
proportion of any industry as to make it a menace to competitive
conditions." But is it necessary to destroy this splendidly
efficient concentration of industry in order to avoid its evils? The
proposal to revert to the older competitive plan is reminiscent of
the outcry against machine production a century earlier, and the earnest
pleas then made to return to the hand-tool method. "Big business"
constitutes one of the greatest advances in human industry, and
therefore has surely come to stay. From the era of individual workers
owning their tools, mankind advanced to the age of competition between
small concerns using machines; no less marked an advance is that to
the age of large-scale production and unified industry. Its advantages
may be briefly summarized:
(1) The competitive system involves needless duplications of plant,
machinery, and workers; clerks stand idly in rival stores, waiting
for trade, drummers spend their time in getting trade away from one
another, great sums have to be spent on advertising. Monopoly means
a saving of all this wasted time, labor, and money.
(2) The competitive system means great fluctuations in industry,
constant anxiety, forced cut prices, and frequent failures, with their
financial ruin and heartbreak to employers and loss of work to
employees. Monopoly means stability, comparative freedom from anxiety,
and a saving of the economic confusion and loss of bankruptcies.
Pages:
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472