ABSTRACT
the consumers of the goods they produce are the real, though indirect, employers both of workpeople and of managers, technicians, enterprisers, and suppliers of capital. By their purchases they pay wages, salaries, interest, and dividends. This is recognized more clearly by firms than by workpeople, and firms compete strongly against one another to win customers and gain a larger share of the market. In periods when labour is scarce they also compete for workpeople by offering higher wages or other inducements. It follows that this rivalry tends to keep firms, who are the direct employers of labour, from joining together in associations until they find it in their interest to unite so as to face the attacks of trade unions.
