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 absence of “supply,” whereas the truth is “demand” and
“supply”—strictly speaking—are ever constant and equal,
but shift in two distinct ways:
1. From object to object, or from one class of objects
or services to another.
2. From all objects and services to money.
Changes of the first class occur frequently and are due
largely to changes in taste, to whims, fancies. The auto-
mobile “craze” is an illustration; it has seriously affected the
vehicle industry. But while these shiftings of “demand”
depress certain industries and build up others, they have
only a remote bearing on good times and bad, on panics and
“booms.”
It is when, for some reason difficult to ascertain, the
public suddenly lessens its demand for all services and all
goods and increases its demand for money; suddenly ceases
to spend freely and begins to hoard, that “hard” times are
precipitated.
It is common to speak of the “public” as if some great
body made itself felt in the market; in reality the change
referred to has its origin in the individual, the farmer, the
laborer, the merchant, the manufacturer.
A strange wave of pessimism sweeps over the country
—induced possibly by some comparatively insignificant
. cause—and every man suddenly wishes to sell what he
has and hoard the money, accumulate credit, against some
catastrophe he fears but cannot describe.

XV
Changes in demand from this article to that, though at-
tended with loss and inconvenience, cannot be helped very
materially. Twelve years ago no one could foresee the