106

POLITICAL  ECONOMY

the  home  price,  but  at  a  price  beneath  cost
of  production,  whatever  that  may  mean.
A  dense  obscurity  enshrouds  popular  conceptions ­
  of  the  problem  of  dumping,  and
rough-and-ready  explanations  of  the  matter
have  rather  added  to  than  detracted  from  the
obscurity.  In  order  properly  to  understand
dumping  it  is  well  to  distinguish  at  the  outset
between  different  kinds  of  dumping.
There  is,  firstly,  the  dumping  of  surpluses.
By  a  surplus  we  must  understand  a  quantity
of  output  which  would  never  have  been
produced  had  the  price  for  which  it  was
necessary  to  sacrifice  it  been  foreseen.  In
view  of  our  inevitable  ignorance  of  future
demand,  it  is  unavoidable  that  production
should  repeatedly  exceed  or  fall  short  of  the
amount  which  would  have  been  aimed  at  had
coming  conditions  been  accurately  anticipated, ­
  and  it  is  evident  that  the  monopolist
will  so  frame  his  decisions  that  at  least  he
will  not  be  short  of  the  amount  which  would
maximise  his  net  gains.  Consequently,  surpluses ­
  arise  frequently,  and  are  more  likely
than  not.  A  few  moments’  thought  should
convince  the  reader  that,  given  such  a  surplus,
the  monopolist  who  is  simply  pursuing  his
self-interest  would  probably  be  well  advised
not  to  lower  his  home  price  and  sell  the  whole