I have been trying to define words on an American history study guide. Two of the words, puritan (31) and mercantilist(35) began as insults. Other American buzz words began as insults: scalawag (30), carpetbagger (33), robber baron (50), and muckraker (81). The list has more than three hundred words. Could flapper (148 ) have been an insult?

Forth-Fifth Word: competition
Forty-Second Word: monopoly
Forty-Third Word: graft
Category: Urbanization

Ming's Answer

One idea of American thought says that competitors, both buyers and seller (sometimes called the bears and the bulls), will get fair prices in a market that encourages all buyers and sellers to come to the market. This is the basic idea of a stock exchange, an idea that the British borrowed from the Dutch. The exchange will be open as long as nothing excludes buyers or sellers from the market. The exchange will close if circumstances, like a storm, prevent either buyers or sellers from attending.

As long as nothing blocks buyers or sellers from a market then there is competition. Americans usually say that competition is a good thing, but if some competitors are not Americans, then sometimes the Americans think less competition is better. Modern economists sometimes refer to the idea that less competition is better as mercantilism. The more common word is graft.

Graft can work on a national scale. For example: unions who represent automobile companies support politicians who will vote to restrict imports of cars built outside the United States. The same thing happens with agricultural products and textiles. Financial support for politicians who support the elimination of competitors is technically not graft because the money flows in a way that is not illegal, but the function is the same as graft.

Graft can work on a smaller scale. Local merchants control the local city council. A city council controls building permits, access to water, that sort of thing. Some small towns have no outside merchants at all. Eighty years ago local merchants often tried to block a competitor called Atlantic and Pacific Company. Today the boogeyman is Walmart.

So what happened with the study guide? And did you complete Chauncey's list? And I've noticed that you're down on welfare, so can I ask when you think socialism began in the United States?