can, in so far competition is limited. Whenever any one is deterred by
fear of, or by affection for, some other trader, from getting all he
can, in so far competition is limited. Whenever any one conspires with
another trader to act together with him to withdraw or to alter his
bid, in so far competition is limited. Private property and economic
competition do not merely happen to exist side by side, forming more
or less favored conditions each for the other; they are essentially
connected.[7]

It is not our task at this point to present the advantages and
disadvantages of competition, but merely to indicate its important
place in the actual economic world. Like private property, competition
is not the universal feature of our present system, but it is the most
general and characteristic method of valuation, of price fixing, and
of trade.

§ 11. #Limitation of competition by custom.#[8] The relatively large
influence of competition in present society appears more plainly in
comparing the present system with that of an earlier state of society
or with that of a present savage tribe. A member of the lowest human
societies is subject to law; tho he is a savage he is not "untutored."
On the contrary he is bound in many ways to follow customary lines
of conduct, and a large part of his time is given to learning the
traditions and then to observing the ceremonials of the tribe.
Primitive customs always take on a religious sanction, and every
member of the tribe is piously bound to do as his fathers have done
and as his neighbors are doing. This limitation applies to the choice
of food to eat, clothes to wear, time to hunt, plant, and harvest,
weapons and tools to use, where and how to trade, how much to give or
take, and to countless other details of economic choice. So, in early