If competition
was displaced by combinations of a genuinely
cooperative character in which the whole gain of improved
economies passed, either to the workers in wages,
or to large bodies of investors in dividends, the expansion
of demand in the home markets would be so great
as to give full employment to the productive powers of
concentrated capital, and there would be no self-accumulating
masses of profit expressing themselves in new
credit and demanding external employment. It is the
``monopoly'' profits of trusts and combines, taken either
in construction, financial operation, or industrial working,
that form a gathering fund of self-accumulating credit
whose possession by the financial class implies a contracted
demand for commodities and a correspondingly
restricted employment for capital in American industries.
Within certain limits relief can be found by stimulation
of the export trade under cover of a high protective
tariff which forbids all interference with monopoly of
the home markets. But it is extremely difficult for
trusts adapted to the requirements of a profitable tied
market at home to adjust their methods of free competition
in the world markets upon a profitable basis of
steady trading.
Pages:
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184