Several of the great industrial combinations of the United States have obtained profits which are commonly stigmatised as "excessive." For example, the Standard Oil Company paid, from 1882 to 1906, an average annual dividend of 24.15 per cent. on the capital stock, and had profits in addition at the rate of about 8 per cent. annually;[165] from 1904 to 1908 the American Tobacco Company averaged 19 per cent. on its actual investment;[166] and the United States Steel Corporation obtained an average annual return of 12 per cent. on its investment from 1901 to 1910.[167] A complete list of the American monopolies that have reaped more than the competitive rate of return on their capital would undoubtedly be a very long one. Is it possible to justify such returns? Has a monopoly a right to take surplus gains? Let us suppose a concern which is getting 15 per cent. on its investment. Inasmuch as the risks are smaller than in competitive enterprises, six per cent. is an ample allowance for interest. Of the remaining 9 per cent., 4 per cent., we shall assume, is derived from economies of production as compared with the great majority of competitive concerns. This portion of the surplus, being the reward of superior efficiency, may be retained by the owners of the monopoly quite as justly as similar gains are taken by the exceptionally efficient corporation in conditions of competition. The objection that the monopoly ought to share these gains with the public, since it limits individual opportunity in a socially undesirable way, has some merit, but it can scarcely be urged on grounds of strict justice. At most it points only to an obligation in equity.