MONOPOLY (Greek, mono polio, single or sole selling) is an exclusive right, secured to one or more persons, to carry on some branch of trade or manufacture, in contradis tinction to a freedom of trade or manufacture enjoyed by all the world. The most frequent monopolies formerly granted were the right of trading to certain foreign countries, the right of importing or exporting certain articles, and that of exercising particular arts or trades. Such exclusive rights were very common In Great Britain previous to the accession the house of Stuart, and were carried to an op pressive and injurious extent during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The grievance at length became so insupportable that, notwithstanding the opposition of government, which looked upon the power of granting monopolies as a very valuable part of the prerogative, they were abolished by an act of 1623. FIowever, various companies for the exploitation of the colonies and possessions of Great Britain, such as the Hudson Bay and East India companies (qq.v.), of an essentially monopolistic nature, continued to exist until well on in the last century. Nevertheless this act secured the freedom of industry in Great Britain, and has done more perhaps to excite a spirit of invention and in dustry and to accelerate the progress of wealth than any other in the statute book. Govern ment monopolies, however, are common on the Continent, and constitute one of the chief' means of obtaining revenue. There is one species of monopoly sanctioned by the laws of all countries that have made any advances in the arts, namely, the exclusive right of an in vention or improvement for a limited number of years. It is in fact, a kind of created by law for the benefit of the inventor, and which he could not effectually acquire or secure without the aid of the law. The ex clusive right of an author to the publication of his own work is hardly a monopoly, but rather a right of property, resting upon the same prin ciple as the right to lands or chattels. The law,
therefore, by giving an author the exclusive right to the publication of his own work for a limited number of years makes no grant; it is only allowing him what is his own for a lim ited time. But the exclusive right to the use of an invention or improvement is a monopoly, since it deprives others, for that period, of the chance of the advantage of making the same improvement, discovery or invention them selves. Capitalists, either single or combined, may produce commodities so much better and cheaper than others cap do as practically to command the entire sale, and are in popular language called monopolists. But having no legal rights or advantages that are not open to all, they are not in the legal sense in posses sion of a monopoly. In the oldest sense of the term they are monopolists; but since the term is now used in an unfavorable sense, its dis continuance as applicable to these is only just. It may be assumed as an economical axiom that every interference with absolute freedom in acts of exchange can he defended only on the highest grounds of public policy. Any ad vantage given to a particular interest is not only a wrong to the general public, but will in time bring a just retribution to the favored class.
In the United States the only monopolies that the laws and the individual states look on with favor consist of the post office, which is a government monopoly, and the rights granted to individuals under the patent and copyright laws. Monopolies commonly known as trusts are looked on with odium, and various States have enacted laws making a trust an illegal combination of individuals. See Timm; COPYRIGHT; PATENT.
Ely, R. T., and Trusts> (New York 1900) ; Levy, H., (Monop oly and (New York 1911); 'Theorie der aussghliesseaden absatz (Tubingen 1867).