The Dangers Of Big Business

Most of us, when we think of the dangers of big business, equate big business with monopoly. If we are Labour men of the old school, we see the evils of monopoly (we should not be mealymouthed about mere dangers) as flowing from the concentration of economic power power to exploit the consumer by charging exorbitant prices, power to exploit the worker, power to make enormous profits, and power to ensure, through control of the nation's finance, press and even Government policies, the maintenance of a capitalist system and of the privileges of big business and its capitalist owners. If we are small shopkeepers or tradesmen, we see in big business a threat to ourselves, our independent livelihood. If we are former students of economics, we remember our textbooks stressing the bad effects of monopoly on efficiency, the consequences of weakening the incentive of competition, the tendency of monopoly to restrict output and distort the allocation of productive resources. If we are to get the role, and the dangers, of big business into perspective, the first need is to appreciate that we cannot in this simple fashion equate big business with monopoly. Monopoly and monopolistic practices pervade the Australian economy, probably at least as much as the British and more so than the American.