From these two laws and a study of the examples we have given, it is easy to deduce a third. We have seen that when competition became very wasteful, monopoly arose; indeed, we have noted the working of this law all through our investigation. The principal cause assigned for the formation of the linseed-oil trust was the waste which intense competition had caused. The third law is, then: In any given industry the tendency toward the death of competition (monopoly) varies directly with the waste due to competition.
We might now combine these three laws to deduce the fourth law, which is: In any given industry the tendency toward the death of competition (monopoly) varies inversely with the number of competing units. But this law is also proved independently. Look back over all the monopolies we have studied, and it will be seen that one of the most important conditions of their success was the small number of competitors. Fifty men could be brought together and organized, and made to bury their feuds and rivalries, when with a thousand the combination would have been impossible. We have seen, in the case of the farmers, how their great number alone has prevented them from forming combinations to restrict the competition among themselves.
It should be said that these laws, like all other laws of economics, are not to be taken in a narrow mathematical sense. We cannot study causes and effects dependent on the caprice of men's desires and wills with the minute exactness with which we solve numerical problems. Taken in the broad sense, however, the study we have made in the preceding chapters is sufficient proof of their truth.
The common expressions of trade afford still further evidence. We often hear the expression: "A healthy competition." But the very existence of