(_c_) Lastly, there is the influence of existing or potential competition of other producers upon monopoly prices. Where prices and profits are very high a Trust is liable to more effective competition on the part of any surviving independent firms, and likewise to the establishment of new competitors. This ability of outside capital to enter into competition will of course differ in different trades. Where the monopoly is protected by a tariff the possibility of new competition from outside is lessened. When the monopoly is connected with some natural advantage or the exclusive possession of some special convenience, as in mining or railways, direct competition of outsiders on equal terms is prohibited. Where the combination of large capital and capable administration is indispensable to the possibility of success in a rival producer, the power of a monopoly is stronger than where a small capital can produce upon fairly equal terms and compete. If the monopoly is linked with close personal qualities and with special opportunities of knowledge, as in banking, it is most difficult for outside capital to effectively compete.
§ 8. These considerations show that the power of a Trust or other monopoly over prices is determined by a number of intricate forces which react upon one another with varying degrees of pressure, according as the quantity of supply is increased or diminished. But a Trust is always able to charge prices in excess of competitive prices, and it is generally its interest to do so. It will commonly be to the interest of a Trust or other monopoly to maintain a lower scale of prices in those commodities which are luxuries or satisfy some less urgent and more capricious taste, and to maintain high prices where the article of monopoly is a common comfort or a prime necessary of life for which there is no easily available substitute.
[138] S.C.T. Dodd, _The Forum_, May 1892.
[139] "Trusts in the United States," _Economic Journal_, p. 86.
[140] Baker, _Monopolies and the People_, p. 85.
[142] Mr. George Gunton, in writing upon "The Economic Aspect of Trusts" (_Political Science Quarterly_, Sept. 1888), claims a rise in wages as one of the advantages of Trusts, but Mr. Gunton throughout his argument assumes that a Trust is a large competing capital and not a monopoly. If a Trust were a competing capital its formation would be an economic and social advantage, tending, as he says, "to increase production, to lower prices, and to raise wages." But as a Trust is not a competing capital it does none of these things.