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schon aus Adam Smith’s Wealth of nations ersehen. Dort, wo er
von der künstlichen Beschränkung der Konkurrenz spricht (Book I,
Ch. X, Part II), erwähnt er mehrfach kartellartige Verabredungen,
So sagt er: „The inhabitants of a town, being collected into one place,
can easily combine together. The most insignificant trades carried
on in towns have accordingly, in some place or other, been incorpo-
rated, and even where they have never been incorporated, yet the
corporation spirit, the jealousy of strangers, the aversion to take
apprentices, or to communicate the secret of their trade, generally
prevail in them, and often teach them, by voluntary asso-
ciations and agreements, to prevent that free com-
petition which they cannot prohibit by bye-laws. The trades
which employ but a small number of hands run most easily into
such combinations.“
Einige Seiten weiter heißt es: „People of the same trade sel-
dom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the con-
versation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in
some contrivance to raise prices“ Darauf folgen dann noch
folgende Sätze: „It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings,
by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent
with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people
of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to
do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them
necessary.“ Die anschließenden Bemerkungen zeigen ein gutes Ver-
ständnis für Faktoren, die eine Kartellbildung erleichtern: „A regu-
lation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular town
to enter their names and places of abode in a public register, faci-
litates such assemblies. It connects individuals who might never
otherwise be known to one another, and gives every man of the
trade a direction where to find every other man of it. A regulation
which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves in order
to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows and orphans, by
giving them a common interest to manage, renders such assemblies
necessary. An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but
makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole. In a free
trade an effectual combination cannot be established but by the
unanimous consent of every single trader, and it cannot last longer
than every single trader continues of the same mind. The majority
of a corporation can enact a bye-law with proper penalties, which
will limit the competition more effectually and more durably than
any voluntary combination whatever.“
