rker is convinced
that it is so in his own trade. Yet nearly all men are of one mind
that competition is a good thing in most industries, those that are
thought of as supplying "the general public." Monopoly is believed by
the public to be wrong in such cases, and competition to be the normal
and right condition of trade. Yet there are some men interested in
"large business" who look upon competition as bad, and upon monopoly
as having essentially the nature of friendly cooeperation. The roots
of these opinions, or prejudices, are easily discoverable in the
theoretical study of the nature of monopoly.[1] Yet often different
men or groups of men feel so strongly on this matter, viewing it from
their own standpoints, that they are quite unable to understand
how any one else can feel otherwise. There is thus a great deal of
controversy to no purpose.

Sec. 2. #Public character of private trade.# Any such general judgment as
that of the public, tho it may be mistaken in some details, is likely
to be a resultant of broad experience. There is in competitive trade a
public, a social character, which monopoly destroys. Even in a simple
auction, when the bidding is really competitive, price depends far
less on shrewd bargaining, on bluff, or on stubbornness, than is the
case in isolated trade. Each bidder is compelled by self-interest to
outbid his less eager competitors, and thus the limits within which
the price must fall are narrowly fixed. The auction-sale is less a
purely personal matter, takes on a more public aspect, has a more
socialized character than isolated trade, depends more on forces
outside the control of any one man, and results in a price fixed with
greater definiteness. The price in a more developed market results
from the play of impersonal forces, or at least from the play of
personal forces which have come under the rules of the market.[2] This
price men are ready to accept as fair. It has a democratic character,
whereas the gains of monopoly price arouse resentment as being the
work of personal, and felt to be despotic, power. Monopoly price is a
bad price to the one who pays it, not only because it is a high price
but because it bears the character of personal extortion.

The medieval notion of _justum pretium_, the just price, may have
been often misapplied, and it was often criticized and ridiculed by
economists in the period of idealized competition (from Adam Smith
to John Stuart Mill). But at the h