Let us see what we can learn by a study of three typical examples of the force of competition. Let us take first the business of growing corn. There are perhaps three million farmers in the United States engaged in producing corn, and each one of these competes with all the others. Is this doubted? We have defined competition as a rivalry that tends to make the sellers offer better goods for a less price. Now at first sight it may seem that there is no rivalry at all. Neighboring farmers work together in all harmony; and no man thinks that because his neighbors have raised a large crop of corn, he is in any way injured. And yet this tendency to give better goods and lower prices exists and is plainly felt. Suppose a new and superior variety of corn were introduced, which buyers preferred. Some farmers would at once begin to raise it, so that they might be more sure of a market and perhaps of a better price, and other farmers would be obliged to follow suit to meet the competition. Again, consider that the supply and demand adjust themselves to each other through competition. For suppose, at the ruling price, the demand to be less than the supply; then to increase the demand, the price must fall; and the cause of the fall in price is simply that the farmers compete with each other for the market, and lower their prices in order to secure a sale for their crops. Note, however, that the rivalry in this case never becomes a personal one. Each farmer recognizes that an increased supply lessens the price for his goods; but his neighbor's extra acreage is such a drop in the bucket, that he never thinks of it as being really a rival of his own crop.
Take as a second example, the wholesale paper trade. Here are perhaps three hundred men, each knowing personally many of his competitors and probably hating some of them cordially. Each striving to secure for himself all the trade possible, and to gain, if he can, his rivals' customers. He sends out his salesmen with instructions to, "Sell goods! For the best prices you can get, but sell them, anyhow." These "drummers" are sharp, active business men, they might well be employed in directing some productive process; but they go out and spend their time in inducing