CHAPTER V.
Prices Cannot Be Made Fair by Governmental Regulation.
The present inquiry necessarily leads to an ascertainment of whether experience has not already demonstrated not merely the dangers, but the fallacy of believing that the only effective way of fixing a fair price for commodities is by an usurpation of the fundamental right and liberty of the whole community, through barter, to fix such reasonable prices,—to determine what are proper prices through the "higglings of the market"; whether, the traditions of our race have not been wisely followed in excluding an arbitrary monopolistic price, as against the people's price, whether determined by a small or even as great a combination as the Government itself.
Men enter that form of "the pursuit of happiness" called "business" for the purpose of profit. Their exertions are stimulated in proportion to their hopes. This lies at the foundation of the law of supply and demand. The initial fallacy, which the law has so far exposed, is in assuming that high prices are necessarily excessive prices; for high prices are under a state of freedom and in the absence of restraints, whether by Government or anyone else, the sole permanent cure for scarcity. Competition is as automatic as the thermometer. Where free, by fluctuation in price resulting from it, it brings about both the necessary reduction in consumption, and in turn supplies the vital stimulant to production. Why is it that, notwithstanding
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