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Cartels: Realism or Escapism?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Goetz A. Briefs
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Extract

To European economists, cartels are old acquaintances. Beyond the Atlantic, they have been under discussion since Kleinwaechter, in 1883, made them the object of the first analysis. It was about the time when, in this country, monopolies and trusts were much debated. As early as Europe waxed cartel-conscious, this country became monopoly and trust-conscious. Not that American scholars were unaware of the cartels—no less than Europeans were unaware of the trusts; but it appeared to most that the sin of industry in this country was “monopolies,” whereas the enemies of cartels in Europe were equally inclined to call the cartel the sin of their economies.

In the short-lived days of the NRA cartel-like organizations were entrusted with the establishment of industrial codes for market regulation. They were not called cartels, but actually they functioned, or were supposed to function, like cartels.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , January 1946 , pp. 68 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1946

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References

1 Monograph No. 16, TNEC, p 4.

2 TNEC, Monograph 21, prepared by ProfWilcox, Clair, pp.5–6.Google Scholar

3 Monograph 16, p. 13.

4 TNEC, Monograph 21, p. 10.

5 Hearings, Part 5, page 1661 and passim.

6 l. c., 1662–63.

7 Compare in particularPribram, Karl, Cartel Problems (Washington: The Brook-Institue), pp. 147–150.Google Scholar

8 Pribram, Karll.c., p. 14,Google Scholar excludes this type from his cartel concept.

9 The extent to which such practices abound in this country is very well demonstrated in Burns, A. R.The Decline of Competition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937).Google Scholar “ A few industries (In the U. S. A., the Author) are clearly competitive, a few are as clearly monopolized, but in most cases it is difficult to determine the category to which an industry should be assigned.” (TNEC Monograph 21. p. 19).

10 von Beckerath, H., Modern Industrial Organization (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1933).Google Scholar

11 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1943

12 Mr. Wm. E. Weiss was the president of Sterling Corporation

13 Berge, Wendell, Cartels, Challenge to a Free World (Washington D.C., 1944).Google Scholar An example of a sensational approach to the evildoings of foreign cartels is presented by Borkin, Jos. and Welsh, Charles A., Germany's Master Plan (New York: Duell, 1943).Google Scholar As Kronstein, H. (in Commonweal, 06 11, 1943)Google Scholar remarks, these authors are the victims of the “black and white fallacy. ”. They believe “ in an historical process of secret conspiracies lasting through decades or even centuries.”. Kronstein, while defending the intra-European cartels as a means of establishing economic unity in a continent torn by political divisions, speaks of inter--continental cartels as “the modern form of world business.’

14 Statement by Rudolph Callmann, TNEC, Jan. 26, 1940.

15 loc. cit.

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17 London Economist 09. 13, 1944, pp. 452–453Google Scholar

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19 Washington Post, 03 7, 1945. p.9.Google Scholar

20 Cf.,Condliffe, I. B., The Reconstruction of World Trade (New York: Norton & Co., 1940), pp. 338–340.Google Scholar

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27 As recommended by Ben W. Lewis, in his review of Berge's, W. book on Cartels, in American Economic Review, 03 1945, p. 199.Google Scholar

28 Harpers Magazine, 11 1944, pp. 570–78.Google Scholar

29 Even a liberal like Hayek, in his Road to Serfdom, while advocating a return to free competition, qualifies his demand very carefully.

30 This standpoint has been taken, e.g., by Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno and by many Catholic (and Protestant) moral theologians.