The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical ProblemsFetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
General
The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical Problems
Fetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
Economics
2. _Monopolies may, for special purposes, be classified also as selling
and buying, producing and trading, lasting and temporary, general and
local._ The terms selling and buying monopoly explain themselves, though
the latter conflicts with the etymology. Under conditions of barter the
selling and the buying monopoly would be the same thing in two aspects.
A selling monopoly is by far the more common, but a buying monopoly may
be connected with it. A large oil-refining corporation that sells most
of the product may by various methods succeed in driving out the
competitors who would buy the crude oil. It thus becomes practically the
only outlet for the oil product, and the owners of the land thus must
share their ownership with the buying monopoly by accepting, within
certain limits, the price it fixes. The Hudson Bay Company, dealing in
furs, had practically this sort of power in North America. Many
instances can be found, yet, relatively to the selling monopolies, those
of the buying kind are rare. A producing monopoly is one controlling the
manufacture or the source of supply of an article; a trading monopoly is
one controlling the avenues of commerce between the source and the
consumers. Monopolies are lasting or temporary, according to the
duration of control. By far the larger number are of the temporary sort,
because high prices strongly stimulate efforts to develop other sources
of supply. Yet the average profits of a monopoly may be large throughout
a succession of periods of high and low prices. Monopolies are general
or local, according to the extent of territory where their power is
felt. At its maximum where transportation and other costs most
effectually shut out competition, monopoly power shades off to zero on
the border-line of competitive territory.
[Sidenote: Relativity of monopoly]
[Sidenote: The test of monopoly]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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