Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/551

 MONOPOLI

497

MONOPOLY

La !eltera dc Fihsseno ni Monaci di Tell Adda in Mem. deW Acad, dei Lincci (1S86); see especially Lebon, op. cil., 111-118. and pat<^im. On James of Sarug see Abbeloos, De rita et scHptis S. Jacobi (with three ancient Syriac biographies, Louvain. 1867); AssEMANi. Wright. Duval, lac. cit.; Ada S3., 29 Oct.; Barden- HEWER in KiTchenlex.; Nestle in Realencycl.; Martin, Vn eveque pohte au V" et VI' sieclea in Revue des Sciences ecct. (Oct., Nov., 1876); Idem, Correspqndance de Jacques de Sarong avec les moines de Mar Bassus in Zeitschr. der deutschen Morganlandl. Gesellsch., XXX (1876), 217; Liturgy in Latin in Renaudot. Liturg. Or. coll., II, 356; Zingerle. .Sechs homilien des h. Jacob von S. (Bonn, 1867) ; Bedjan, 70 UomilifE selects Mar Jacobi S. (Paris and Leip- zig, 1905-6) ; single homilies are found in various publications; several in CtjRETON. .Ancient Syriac Documents (1864).

Frothi.vgham, Stephen Bar Sudaili, the Syrian mystic, and the book of Hierotheos (Levden, 1886). On John of Tella, Kleyn, Het leven van Johannes van Telia (Leyden, 1882); another life in Brooks, Vita; lirorum, loc. cit.; his confession of faith is cited by Lebon, loc. cit. On George the Arahiax M-r Asskmam, Wright. Duval, a good article by Ryssel in h,>i!, n, w I. (Is'.l'.l); Idem. Ein Brief Georgs, Bischop der Ar. an '/• :i I'l, !>. .1',-^un nn^ dem Syrisrhen iibersetzt und erlautert, mit eintr K/nl, ihiu!; iihrr .■<rin Leben und seine Schriflen (Gotha. 1888) ; Idem. Georges des .Arabcr- bischofs Gediehte und Briefe (Leipzig. 1891), this work gives a Ger- man translation of all George's authentic works, apart from the commentaries: oyriac of the letter to Joshua in Lagarde, Ana- lectn: part of poem on chrism in Cardahi, Liher thesauri de arte poetica Syrorum (1875) ; the whole, with that on the monastic life, ed. by Ryssel in Alti delta R. Acad, dei Lincei, IX (Rome, 1892), 1, who edited the astronomical letters also, ibid., VIII, 1.

On the .Question of orthodoxy, see Assemani. II; Nau, Dans quelle mesure les Jacobites sont-ils Monophysitesf in Revxte de I'Orient chretien, 1905, no. 2, p. 113; Lebon. op. cit., passim.

John Chapman.

Monopoli, Diocese of (Monopolitana), in the Province of I5ari, in Apulia, southern Italy. The city has a small but good harbour on the Adriatic. It suc- ceeded the ancient Egnatia, the ruins of which are not far from the modern town. In the eighth and ninth centuries, Monopoli was often ravaged by the Saracens. After the advent of the Korman counts, it became (10-12) the seat of Hugues. During the war between France and Spain for the possession of the Kingdom of Naples Monopoli was taken twice by the Vene- tians (149.5 and 1528), and on the second occasion was sacked. In 1552 Charles V surrounded the town with walls and towers that still exist. The episcopal see was created in 1062, and its first prelate was Deodatus. The cathedral was erected by the second bishop, Uomualdus, in 107.3. In 1118 Polignano, a small town situated on a high promontory along the Adriatic, was united to this diocese. The diocese is immediately suliject to the Holy See; it has eight parishes, 65,000 inhabitants, and three educational institutes for girls.

Cappelleto, Le Chiese d' Italia, XXI (\cnice, 1887).

U. Benigni.

Monopoly, Moral Aspects of. — According to its etymology, monopoly {iiomtnoMa) signifies ex- clusive sale, or exclusive privilege of selling. Present usage, however, extends the term to any degree of unified control over a commodity sufficient to enable the person or corporation in control to limit supply and fix price. The proportion of the supply of an article that must be controlled in order to attain these ends, depends upon many factors, and differs considerably in different industries. In the majority of monopolized liusinesses, it is .somewhere between 70 and 90 per cent, although there are cases in which the unified control of a little more than one half the supply of the commodity seems to .-^uflTice. In most of the ca.ses in which the monnpoly controls less than three-fourths of a business, the independent dealers seem to have the power to ovirtlirow the monopoly but prefer to take ailvantage of I lie higlier prices and steadier market conditions established by the domi- nant concern. They are, conseiiuenlly. passive fac- tors in the monopolized condition of the trade. No matter how great the degree of control which the monopoly enjoys, its power over supply and prices is not absolute. Many economic and [)nidenlial con- siderations will restrain a monopoly from exercising this power to the extent that it might desin^ — for example, the fear of potential competition, the dis- covery of a substitute for the monopolized article, X.— 32

or the possibility that people may get on without either the article or a substitute. But in all cases monopoly implies the ability deliberately to regulate supply and prices beforehand, and to fix both at some other point than that which would have been reached by the natural action of the market under normal competition. However inexpedient a monopoly may be, it is not in itself immoral. Its moral character depends entirely upon its actions and its effects. More specifically, its morality is determined by the prices that it establishes, and the methods that it employs toward actual or potential competitors.

I. Monopolistic Prices. — According to the older moral theologians, monopoly prices were unjust when tlicy were higher than the prices that would have l)r('vail{'d under competition (cf. Lugo, "De Justitia et de Jure", disp. xxvi, n. 72). While this rule wag substantially correct for the Middle Ages, when the competitive, or rather the customary, price wag generally fair to both producers and consumers, it is far from acceptable to-day, when the competitive price is often too low to provide a just return to the agents of production. For competitive prices, as well as for monopoly prices, the objective rule of justice is that a thing should be sold at a price suffi- ciently high to remunerate fairly all wtio have con- tributed to the production of the thing; the subjective rule of justice is the social estimate, the price ap- proved by competent and fair-minded men (cf. Tanquerey, "De Justitia", 776). If the monopoly price does not exceed these limits, it is not unjustly high, even though it be higher than the price that had obtained or would have obtained under the stress of competition. Since the difTerent classes that help to produce a socially useful commodity have a right to a fair return for their services, and since this re- turn can come only from the price at which the com- modity is sold, the latter is unjustly low unless it is sufficient for this purpose. There is no hidden force in competition by which an unjust price can be made just. On the other hand, there is no secret virtue in monopoly to justify a selling price that is more than sufficient to render fair returns to the different agents of production. These propositions are accepted by the overwhelming majority of persons, whether ex- perts or not: the practical, and the only serious dif- ficulty is to determine precisely what is a fair return to each of the different agents.

Putting the matter as briefly and as summarily as possible, we may say that a just remuneration to the agents of production comprises: (1) a living wage for all labourers, and something more than this for those workers who possess exceptional ability or skill, who i)Ut forth unusual efforts, who perform disagreeable tasks, or who turn out exceptionally large products; (2) fair profits for the business man, on account of his activities as director of industry; (3) a fair rate of interest on the actual capital in- vested in the business. Fair recompense for the captain of industry in a monopoly will generally mean the amount that he could obtain in return for the same services in a competitive business. Al- though competition is not of itself a determinant of fair wages in t he c;i,se of ordinary labour, inasmuch as it often forci^ remuneration below th(^ level of decent living, it is generally fair to the director of industry, inasmuch as it enables him not merely to obtain a decent livelihood, but to maintain him- self in accordance with that higher stiindard of living to which he has a rea.sonable claim. And it yields even more than this to those business men whose ability is exceptional. A fair rate of int(Test on monofioly capital will be the rate that prevails in competitive businesses that are subject to a like amount of risk. The capitalist or interest receiver a,s such, does not work, but is free to earn his liveli- hood by his labour frorii Other sources, Thus, since