Eddy, Arthur Jerome: The new competition: an examination of the conditions underlying the radical change that is taking place in the commercial and industrial world ; the change from a competitive to a cooperative basis (New York [u.a.], 1912)

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THE NEW COMPETITION

The medieval guilds were supremely selfish in their ob-
jects, and had very little in common with the new ideas,
but they prove the strong tendency inherent in man to co-
operate, and there is no reason why they should not be
revived in other and better forms, there is no reason why
the trades of a locality, the industries of a country, even
the industries of the world, should not be grouped each in
its special organization. There is no reason why cordial,
friendly and genuinely social cooperation should not take
the place of vicious, vindictive and unfriendly competi-
tion. There is no reason why a desire that all should pros-
per should not take the place of the present hope that all
but self shall fail. There is no reason why industrial peace
should not take the place of industrial war.

IV
It is almost needless to point out that the danger ahead
of such frank and friendly cooperation is—as the law now
stands in this country—the agreement that suppresses com-
petition.
Given an association in any trade or industry based
upon the single agreement to exchange information there
would be the temptation for groups of members to agree
upon their bids, to apportion work and so secure for the
time being arbitrarily high profits by suppressing compe-
tition—a policy that always “kills the goose that lays the
golden egg.”
But this temptation to go wrong is inherent in every
movement toward perfection; it must be recognized and re-
sisted; it is no argument against systematic effort toward
the establishment of better conditions.
At present men are possessed with the idea that the
moment they are brought together in any sort of an as-