Principles of western civilisation

XI TOWARDS THE FUTURE 419

In the United States in our own time we see combinations in industry and commerce at last attaining to a phase, which seems to openly challenge all the ideas of the adherents of the policy of uncontrolled competition as advocated in an earlier period of the competitive era.

The first large combination of capital to come within sight of the conditions of actual monopoly, after a period of competition in which it practically destroyed all its competitors, and in which the inherent tendency of the struggle always to be maintained at the level of its lowest denominator was well exemplified, has been the Standard Oil Trust of the United States, organised as such in 1882. The record of the long struggle in which the end of practical monopoly was attained by this organisation; the account of the practices which have been charged to it, and of the methods which have been employed by it in obedience to the ruling maxim of the modern competitive era, namely, that every such organisation is in business to make all the pecuniary profit it can within the rules of its own interests and within the limits of an uncontrolled competitive conflict ; forms one of the most striking and remarkable chapters in the history of modern industry,' the real significance of which can hardly be said, as yet, to have reached the general consciousness.

Within two decades of the successful organisation of this combination of capital, we have clearly in view what is undoubtedly the most remarkable economic phenomenon of the modern world; namely, the general tendency for all the highest activities

' Cf. Wealth against Commonwealth, by H. D. Lloyd.