Page:Karl Marx - Wage Labor and Capital - tr. J. L. Joynes (1900).pdf/23

 to purchasers is certain to drive the other sellers off the field, and secure for himself the greatest sale. The sellers, therefore, fight for the sale and the market among themselves. Every one of them wants to sell, and does his best to sell much, and if possible to become the only seller. Therefore each outbids the other in cheapness, and a competition takes place among the sellers which lowers the price of the goods they offer.

But a competition also goes on among the purchasers, which on their side raises the price of the goods offered.

Finally competition is going on between buyers and sellers; the one set want to buy as cheap as possible, the other to sell as dear as possible. The result of this competition between buyers and sellers will depend upon the relations of the two previous aspects of the competition; that is, upon whether the competition in the ranks of the buyers or that in those of the sellers is the keener. Business thus leads two opposing armies into the field, and each of them again presents the aspect of a battle in its own ranks among its own soldiers. That army whose troops are least mauled by one another carries off the victory over the opposing host.

Let us suppose that there are a hundred bales of cotton in the market, and at the same time buyers in want of a thousand bales. In this case the demand is greater than the supply. The competition between the buyers will therefore be intense; each of them