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May not monopoly then force down prices? most certainly. Will it not then keep them down? By no means. If I have goods I can make no use of, and there is but one man in the world that I can sell them to, sooner than not sell them, though they cost me a hundred pounds to make, I will sell them for sixpence. Thus monopoly will beat down prices.—But shall I go on making them and selling them at that rate? Not if I am in my senses. Thus monopoly will not keep down prices.—Hence then comes all the error in favour of monopolies—from not attending to the difference between forcing down prices and keeping them down.
When an article is dear, it is by no means a matter of indifference, whether it is made so by freedom or by force. Dearth which is natural a misfortune: dearth which is created is a grievance. Suffering takes quite a different colour, when the sense of oppression is mixed with it. Even if the effect of a monopoly is nothing, its inefficiency as a remedy does not take away its malignity as a grievance.
What then do you get by the monopolizing system take it altogether? You get
the
