The question now arises, "Will not the same forces, which, in order to avoid the waste and destruction of ever keener competition, compelled the private capitalists to suspension of hostility and to combination, act upon the larger masses of associated capital ?" The answer is already working itself clearly out in industrial history.

The concentrative adhesive forces are everywhere driving the competing masses of capital to seek safety, and escape waste and destruction, by welding themselves into still larger masses, renouncing the competition with one another in order to compete more successfully with other large bodies.

Thus, wherever these forces are in free operation, the number of competing firms is continually growing less; the surviving competitors have crushed or absorbed their weaker rivals, and have grown big by feeding on their carcases.
But the struggle between these few big survivors becomes more fierce than ever.

Fitted out with enormous capital, provided with the latest, most complex, and most expensive machinery, producing with a reckless disregard for one another or the wants of the consuming public, advertising on a prodigious scale in order to force new markets, or steal the markets of one another, they are constantly driven to lower their prices in order to effect sales; profits are driven to a minimum; all the business energy at their command is absorbed by the strain of the fight; any unforeseen fluctuations in the market brings on a crisis, ruins the weaker combatants, and causes heavy losses all round.

In trades where the concentrative process has proceeded furthest this warfare is naturally fiercest.