Page:Social Justice without Socialism.djvu/41

 which has, in the main, afforded reasonable prices, and has also guaranteed that progress which is indispensable for maintaining a human life that is worth living. It is to-day the only means of insuring a constantly increasing power over nature—an ability to turn out, in greater and greater abundance, the things which make life comfortable.

These combinations now possess a power which it is highly perilous to let them keep. They can disable their rivals by foul play, which would be impossible under proper rules of the ring. By securing control of raw materials, by selling goods below cost in the territory where a small rival is operating and keeping up the prices everywhere else, by forcing