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 232 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

constitute the offense against public policy, all of the laws betray a fatal weakness; and it is because of this that the monopolistic movement has gone on practically unchecked by all laws. The thing at which the laws are designed to strike is the vast accumu- lation of productive resources which renders the competition of small concerns hopeless. But none of the legislatures have yet dared to strike directly at the main fact ; and if they did, con- stitutional limitations would render the law void. Therefore, falling back upon old legal principles which have no real bear- ing upon our present problems, but which can stand the constitu- tional test, the laws are made to forbid the union of two or more concerns engaged in the same business in order to keep alive competition. Now, in reality, it is competition, not combination, which creates the monopoly. Under the anti-trust laws, no two competitors, however feeble, are permitted to unite their forces ; but no amassing of capital, however great, is forbidden to the new corporation just forming, or to the old corporation which is growing wealthier by distancing competitors, provided none of its capital comes from the absorption of other corpora- tions pursuing the same line of industry. So long as great indus- tries, as such, are not prohibited, trust promoters will doubtless have ingenuity enough to get around the laws forbidding agreements and coalitions; and if they cannot evade such laws, the competitive wars will simply be carried on a little longer, until one great cor- poration survives amidst the wreck of many small ones.

That competition, rather than combination, is the important factor in the formation of trusts is shown by the history of every one which has yet arisen in the United States. In every case the coalition has been formed either after an approximate monopoly had been realized by one concern which had distanced all com- petitors, or because the competition had become so fierce that it was evident that some would be ruined, though it did not yet appear which would survive. Under the former condition, the organization of a trust is simply the formal recognition of an accomplished fact, though the weaker competitors are not wholly crushed and the stronger avoid some of the losses of continued competition. The real danger here is that the