Page:The Wisconsin idea (IA cu31924032449252).pdf/26

 putting a gun at your head made you give him the other nine dollars. Would the contracting parties be on equal footing? One of the parties added Force to the contract to make it favorable to him. Suppose he did not make use of the gun and yet you could not buy the food from any other man, because he had a monopoly and you would be obliged to give him the other nine dollars. Would he not be doing the same thing, adding force to contract? The only difference is that one time he used a gun and the other time monopoly. Wealth would concentrate quickly in your community, would it not—and Force also?

Suppose that this condition existed almost universally and that certain people possessed natural monopoly in oil, iron, coal and the necessities of life, and others possessed artificial monopoly in franchises, transportation facilities, patents, etc.,—is there any doubt that the problem is the same, and the cause of it—unequal conditions of contract?

The remedy? It is easy to say "equalize the conditions between these two," but how can it be done? Everything in life is unequal but it is inequality that makes men strive. Can you put a penalty on sturdiness, intelligence or efficiency? How big must be the force and how great the inequality? A herd philosophy of absolute equality is foreign to our genius.

A remedy based upon a philosophy of "the weak to live and the strong to die” obviously cannot serve our pur-