The leading economic resultant of the evolution of centralized policy-forming power in business might simply be termed: Promotion of Monopoly. The influence of the purse has long been recognized in the management of corporate affairs. A useful illustration is the growing monopoly of patents. This is employed as a springboard for enhancing market, price, production, capacity, and numerous other controls which greatly transcend the normal limits and cut in a thousand ways athwart the lines of ordinary corporate power. British writers use the terms "trade associations" and "cartels" more or less interchangeably. The Spitzenverbande endeavor to see only that the basic laws and the mass of administrative decisions flowing from them generalize the gains and even cut the losses. The rule, as in early mercantilistic times, becomes one of concession, grant, honoraria, "special privilege". The governance of the resulting system of intertrade compacts, agreements, negotiations and relationships then comes to be one of the principal activities of the Spitzenverbande.