Sec. 3. #Natural agents as sources of monopoly.# “Economic” monopoly, so-called, arises when the ownership of scarce natural agents, as mines, land, water-power, comes under the control of one man or one group of men who agree on a price.  Economic monopoly is a result of private property that is undesigned by the government or by society.  It is exceptional, considering the whole range of private property, but it is important.  The oil-wells embracing the main sources of the world’s supply have largely come under one control.  One corporation may control so many of the richest iron mines of the country as to be able to fix a price different from that which would result under competition.  Coal mines, especially those of some peculiar and limited kind, such as anthracite, appear to become easily an object of monopolization.  Economic monopoly merges into political monopolies, such as patents and franchises.  Private property is a political institution designed to further social welfare, and only rarely is property in any particular business a monopoly.  Private control of great natural resources might have been prevented in many cases had it been foreseen.

Sec. 4. #Capitalistic monopoly; aspects of the problem.# Capitalistic monopoly, variously called contractual, organized, commercial or industrial monopoly, arises when men unite their wealth to control a market, to overpower or intimidate opposition, and to keep out or limit competition by the mere magnitude of their wealth.  These various kinds so merge into each other that they cannot always be distinguished in practice.  A patent may help a capitalistic monopoly in getting control of a market; great wealth may enable a company to get control of rare natural resources.

In the discussion of industrial monopoly, the problem now before us, there is a good deal of vagueness and misunderstanding because of lack of definiteness in the use of words which have rapidly shifted in meaning.  The word “trust” originally applied, and still in legal usage applies, to a particular form of organization, that of a board of trustees holding the stock, and thus unifying the control, of two or more formerly separate enterprises.  The Standard Oil Company at one time had this form of organization, which was declared by the courts to be illegal (ultra vires) for corporations.  Now “trust” often is used in the sense of a corporation having monopoly power in some degree; either broadly, of any monopolistic corporation (including railways and local public utilities), or, oftener, limited to manufacturing and commercial monopolies, otherwise called “industrial trusts” in contrast with franchise trusts and railroads.[2] The word “combination” referred originally to a more or less thoro “merger,” with a view to attaining monopolistic power, of a number of formerly separate organizations, as in the case of the United States Steel Corporation.  But the word is often used as if it were a synonym for trust