THE CALL OF THE LAND 



than to reduce the power of any of these by 

 taxation. It is a great error to suppose that 

 such a burden could be shifted to the pur- 

 chasers of the monopolized commodity. 

 The paper upon "The Economic Law of 

 Monopoly" presented at the session of the 

 American Social Science Association in 

 1889, proved that prices under monopoly 

 are fixed, not at all by competition, but 

 according to the "law of the tolerance of 

 the market." That is, they always tend 

 toward the point of maximum gross profits, 

 to which, should they go higher, they would 

 inevitably be brought back by such decrease 

 of sales as would cut down the aggregate in- 

 come. Tax any line of goods already selling 

 so, and the entire tax must come from the 

 producer; no part of it can be extorted from 

 consumers. The logic here is precisely the 

 same as that which proves it impossible to 

 make rent payers suffer from a tax on rent. 

 So clear is the chance to touch monopo- 

 lies through taxation that some might pro- 

 nounce such taxes no less worthy than a land 

 tax to occupy the substantive place in a 



286 



