Page:Shop Talks on Economics.djvu/43

 A few of these are engaged in the production of food, clothing or houses.

Now it does not mean because a monopolist holds temporary control of a commodity that he will raise the price of that commodity. He will surely seek to lower its value by closing down unnecessary factories and installing improved machinery that will lessen the labor contained in his product. Many "monopoly" owned commodities sell at a lower price than they did before they were monopoly produced.

If a monopoly produced commodity exchanges at its value, under the new method of production, its prices would be lower. Many friends assure me that oil is much cheaper today than it was twenty or thirty years ago, before John D. began to build the Octopus. If a monopolist continues to sell a commodity at the same price it exchanged for formerly, he will be able to appropriate greatly increased profits, for its value will have decreased—perhaps 50 per cent.

But we will take an extreme case to illustrate who pays the increased price where an imaginary Octopus doubles the price of the necessities of life.

Let us suppose that 500 miners are receiving $5 a day working a copper mine in Alaska. Five dollars just affords them a comfortable or tolerable living in Alaska. The man who owns the food and clothing supply in Alaska at this time has a temporary monopoly—an absolute, temporary monopoly of these necessities.

This man finds he actually can double the prices