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2 THE ATTITUDE OF ANARCHISM
surdity. It is an absurdity because it proves too much. The trust is a denial of competition in no other sense than that in which competition itself is a denial of competition. The trust denies competition only by producing and selling more cheaply than those outside of the trust can produce and sell; but in that sense every successful individual competitor also denies competition. And if the trust is to be suppressed for such denial of competition, then the very competition in the name of which the trust is to be suppressed must be suppressed also. I repeat: the argument proves too much. The fact is that there is one denial of competition which is the right of all and that there is another denial of competition which is the right of none. All of us, whether out of a trust or in it, have a right to deny competition by competing, but none of us, whether in a trust of out of it, have a right to deny competition by arbitrary decree, by interference with voluntary effort, by forcible suppression of initiative.
Again: To claim that the trust should be abolished or controlled because the great resources and consequent power of endurance which it acquires by combination give it and undue advantage, and thereby enable it to crush competition, is equally an argument that proves too much. If John D. Rockefeller were to start a grocery store in his individual capacity, we should not think of superceeding or restricting or hampering his enterprise simply because, with his five hundred millions, he could afford to sell groceries at less than cost until the day when the accumulated ruins of all other grocery
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TOWARD INDUSTRIAL COMBINATIONS 3
stores should afford him a sure foundation for profitable business. But, if Rockefeller's possession of five hundred millions is not good ground for the suppression of his grocery store, no better ground is the control of still greater wealth for the suppression of his oil trust. It is true that these vast accumulations under one control are abnormal and dangerous, but the reasons for them lie outside of and behind and beneath all trusts and industrial combinations, --reasons which are all, in some form or other, an arbitrary denial of liberty; and but for these reasons, but for these denials of liberty, John D. Rockefeller never could have acquired five hundred millions, nor would any combination of men be able to control an aggregation of wealth that could not be easily and successfully met by some other combination of men.
Again: There is no warrant in reason for deriving a right to control trusts from the State grant of corporate privileges under which they are organized. In the first place, it being pure usurpation to presume to endow any body of men with rights and exemptions that are not theirs already under the social law of equal liberty, corporate privileges are in themselves a wrong; and one wrong is not to be undone by attempting to offset it with another. But, even admitting the justice of corporation charters, the avowed purpose in granting them is to encourage co-operation, and thus stimulate industry and commercial development for the benefit of the community. Now, to make the encouragement an excuse for its own nullification by a proportionate restriction of
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