UNFAIR COMPETITION-FIXING RESALE PRICE

Authors

Abstract

With the development of our economic structure new problems have constantly arisen to harass the governmental agencies which have sought to protect the public from being dominated by successful traders. Apprehension of the dangers of monopolistic control have lead both courts and legislative bodies to place a ban upon attempts to create monopolies by artificial combinations. The purpose was to give the people a market in which prices would be controlled by the relation of supply to demand, by forcing independent tradesmen into competition with each other. The effect of this plan was to delay the coming of a time when a more rigid policy would become necessary, but it did not offer a permanent solution of the problem, for in economic theory even perfect freedom of competition will operate to create a monopoly of this market in the hands of the most efficient person in the field. It is this latter development which has made it necessary to find new means of curbing abuses which full control of any field makes possible. The attempt is made to restrain those who dominate a market from securing an absolute monopoly which cannot be broken by new competitors, from using their powers in unfair ways to exclude competitors, and thus to keep market conditions normal by preserving potential competition. The Federal Trade Commission Act seeks to do this by declaring "unfair methods of competition" to be unlawful, and by creating a Commission empowered to order those guilty of violating the act to desist from their unfair practices.

Recommended Citation

UNFAIR COMPETITION-FIXING RESALE PRICE, 24 Mich. L. Rev. 709 (1926).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol24/iss7/8