Russell Kirk Any Economic System Requires Some Controls Is concentration of economic brand advertising, and so push virtual monopoly (control by a power and profit in the hands their competitors to the wall. single firm). of a few firms the natural, and But that, too, is a violation of perhaps beneficial, result of "free enterprise" theories. The inheritance tax, for ex- what we call the "free enter- ample, operates against the in- prise system"? That, anyway, Genuine competition is by dividual proprietor or the part- is the curious argument of an quality or price, not by brand nership; but it has virtually no assistant professor of philoso- name. When people begin to effect upon the big corpora- phy at a university in Florida, buy merely by overadvertised tion, for no one stockholder who writes to me with refer- brand, and not by price and owns enough shares to dam- ence to a previous column of quality, indeed oligopoly or age seriously that corporation mine. even monopoly can arise. So by the levying of taxes upon eminent a champion of total his death. In that column, I discussed free economy" as Dr. Lud- the concentration of book pub- wig von Mises declares that Karl Marx argues that when lishing in fewer and fewer brand advertising should be "monopolistic capitalism" has firms (nearly all of them in prohibited by law, in the pro- altogether triumphed, the Manhattan), and the domina- tection of the free market. Communist revolution will be tion of book reviewing by a at hand; for then the revolu- handful of national book-re- As - according to Gresh- tionaries can seize the means view media. My Florida corre- am's Law - bad money drives of production almost at a sin- spondent argues that this is out good money, so shoddy gle blow, and few people will natural enough, and that I products may drive out sound have sufficient stake in the must favor "socialism, control products, if the government economy to venture to resist of the free enterprise system does not secure free competi- the leaders of the proletariat. by the government.' tion. Mistaken policies in Ameri- Enforcement of competition How very much most profes- can government have contrib- - laws and measures to pre- sors of philosophy don't know! uted to the rise of oligopoiy vent the restraint of trade. is Any economic system neces- (control of the market by a means for averting that grim sarily is controlled in some de- few firms) or sometimes of day. gree by government: for the purpose of government is the checking of force and fraud. Socialism is the ownership of the means of production by the state. It was Adam Smith who re- marked that whenever a num- ber of men of business are gathered together, presently their conversation falls to the restraint of trade. It is the just and necessary function of gov- ernment to prevent or reduce combinations in restraint of trade, in the public interest. For oligopoly or monopoly means higher prices for the purchaser, inferior service and quality, and inordinate profits for oligopolists or monopolists. The "classical" economists maintain that a free economy is marked by a great multi- tude of producers or sellers, no one of whom can dominate the market or seriously affect general prices of the wares he sells. When these conditions cease to exist, the economy is not really free, though it may remain nominally "private." Some firms drive out others,