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Anthracite; An Instance of Natural Resource Monopoly
Anthracite An Instance of Natural Resource Monopoly Author:Scott Nearing General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1915 Original Publisher: John C. Winston Co. Subjects: Coal trade Anthracite coal Monopolies Trusts, Industrial Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books ... more »edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT Chapter 1. Monopoly on Trial Monopoly is on trial in the United States. The early colonists established a system of property ownership under which the natural resources -- fertile land, timber, minerals, water power, and all of the gifts of nature except harbors and navigable waterways -- might be owned by private individuals. Under the system of private ownership of natural resources most of the valuable parts of the earth's surface have passed into the hands of a comparatively small number of people. The owners, by virtue of their ownership of these particularly desirable parts of the earth's surface, are enabled to collect returns for the use of their properties. The system of private ownership of natural resources may succeed or it may fail. Its fate depends, in the long run, on the effect which it has on the well-being of the masses of mankind. Three centuries of property relations, under which any man who could buy it might place a "no trespassing" sign upon as much of the earth as he could afford to buy, has made a few people the owners of the earth. Chapter $. The Anthracite Problem The anthracite coal fields present an excellent illustration of the ultimate effects of the private ownership of natural resources. The anthracite product has a broad, general market; the anthracite field is limited in extent and localized in one small area, the ownership of the field has been concentrated in a very few hands. Millions of consumers depend upon anthraci...« less