PRINCIPLES OF VALUE AND PRICE 487 



155. THE ROLE OF THE CITY FOOD MARKET 1 



Chicago offers a typical illustration of the problem which every 

 growing industrial city of the United States is facing today in larger 

 or smaller measure. Here we have a large and rapidly increasing 

 population made up of consumers who create a demand for the food 

 products of the farm. On the supply side, we see Chicago in the 

 midst of a great, fertile agricultural domain and at the center of an 

 extensive and elaborate system of transportation, which puts her in 

 commercial touch with producers of the goods she needs, wherever 

 they find it advantageous to carry on such production. Adjustment 

 of these two great forces becomes the problem of the day. If 

 industrial America is to find it possible to take men from rural pur- 

 suits and gather them into town centers, in order to secure greater 

 efficiency in manufacturing, more rapid progress in culture, or a 

 richer social life, while, on the other hand, agriculturists are to be 

 enabled to distribute their efforts over the earth in response to the 

 call of natural advantages for production, there must be a system of 

 provisioning the cities, which is swift, efficient, and economical. 



It is our task to indicate the function which the market performs 

 in determining the precise circumstances under which a particular 

 demand is brought in touch with the sources of food supply all over 

 the country and even in foreign lands. Only so can we get an under- 

 standing of the effect which these arrangements have upon the prices 

 which Chicagoans pay for their purchases and that farmers receive 

 for their products. 



It is a favorite defense of the produce dealers to assert that their 

 business is controlled absolutely by laws of supply and demand and 

 that, therefore, if we are not satisfied with the results, we should get 

 the city council to "repeal the law of supply and demand," rather 

 than frame ordinances to control the commission merchant or the cold 

 storage system, or to create a municipal market. Certainly we may 

 admit, to a considerable extent, their claim as to the free operation 

 of competitive demand and supply. Where great streams of goods 

 converge upon a single market and a great concourse of buyers is 

 brought together to bid and haggle and buy, the immediate price- 

 making process is clearly that of mutual competition and an equilib- 

 rium of supply and demand. But to admit this, does not estop us 



1 Adapted from The Chicago Produce Market, an essay to be published shortly 

 in the Hart, Schaffner & Marx series. 



