The fact that A, B, and C, in the illustration above, enjoy profits, will cause them to enlarge their operations in order to increase their profits by increasing their output. The demand for this particular product can ordinarily be increased only by lowering the price. But a lower price means less profit per unit. D, let us say, will be driven from business and C will become the marginal producer. Obviously, the unit profits of all will fall and it is likely that both A and B as well as C will suffer a decline in total profits. As competition increases, prices will continue to fall until, we are safe in saying, profits will tend to disappear. To put the same thought in different language, competitive profits are always in the process of extinction. This tendency is the basis for the trite saying, "Competition is the life of trade."