1. Trusts are large combinations of capital with some degree of monopoly power. The original, legal meaning of the term trust does not include the idea of monopoly. The old legal idea of a trust is the confidence imposed in a trustee. The method that was adopted by the early combinations was the trust method, that is, they made use of this legal device: the stock of the separate companies was put into the hands of a board of trustees to whom was thus given the right to control. As it has been found possible to accomplish the same end without the use of this legal method, the popular meaning of the word trust, as applied to a monopoly, no longer agrees with the legal meaning. The word trust is popularly used of any large industry, though usually there is connected with it the idea of some evil power to raise prices to the consumers. A large number of the corporations called trusts have, however, little monopoly power, and some have none at all. They are simply large establishments.

2. A strong reason for combination of competing plants is found in the legitimate economies of large production. The economies that are possible within a single factory may be still greater in a number of combined or federated industries. The cost of management, amount of stock carried, advertising, cost of selling the product, may all be smaller per unit of product. A large aggregation can control credit better and escape loss from bad debts. By regulating and equalizing the output in the different localities, it can run more nearly full time. Being acquainted with the entire situation, it can reduce the friction. A strong combination has advantages in shipment. It can have a clearing-house for orders and ship from the nearest source of supply. The least efficient factories can be first closed when demand falls off. Factories can be specialized to produce that for which each is best fitted. The magnitude of the industry and its presence in different localities strengthens its influence with the railroads. Its political as well as its economic power is increased.

Economies of combination.

A recent phase of corporate growth is the "integration of industry," that is, the grouping under one control of a whole series of industries. One company may carry the iron ore through all the processes from the mine to the finished product. A railroad line across the continent owns its own steamers for shipping goods to Asia or Europe. Large wholesale houses own or control the output of entire factories. The possibilities in this direction have only begun to be realized.

Integration of industry.

3. The men uniting to form a trust always declare that its formation is the necessary result of excessive competition. The statement is often true in the sense that a hard fight and lower prices have preceded the formation of the trust. But as this excessive competition usually is for the very purpose of forcing the combination, this explanation is a begging of the question. It is fallacious also in that it ignores the marginal principle in the problem of profits. Profits are never homogeneous from factory to factory, and to those that are on the margin competition may appear excessive. It is generally the largest and strongest factories, in the more favored situations, that, in order to get rid of troublesome competitors, force the smaller, weaker, industries to come into the trust. When, therefore, it is said that com-petition is destructive, it may be a partial truth, but more likely it is a pleasantry reflecting the happy humor of the prosperous promoters of the combination.

Combination prevents competition.

Financial gains of combination.

4. Another strong motive for the combination is the profit to promoters and organizers. There are indirect as well as direct gains to the managers of a large business. There is the gain from the production and sale of goods to consumers, and there is the gain from the financial management, from the rise and fall in the value of stock. The promoters of a combination often expect to make from sales to the investing public far more than from sales to the consumer of the product. A season of prosperity and confidence, when trusts and their enormous profits are constantly discussed, has an effect on the public mind like that of the discovery of a new El Dorado, a California, or a Klondike. Then is the time for the wily promoter to offer shares without limit to investors.

These considerations show that the trust is not simple in its cause, nor in its nature. In a sense the most artificial of industrial arrangements, in another sense it is a natural evolution of industry. More and more it is being recognized that though it has in it something of evil, it has as well something of good, and certainly much of the inevitable.

Questions On Chapter 34. Growth Of Trusts And Combinations

1. What advantages are there to manufacturers in combination? What to the public?

2. What relation has improved transportation and other means of communication to trusts?

3. Name as many economic monopolies as you can.

4. What large trusts have recently been formed?

5. Does the public consider the growth of trusts to be good or bad? What do students of the question think of it?