Such enhancements of the market price are evidently the effect of natural
causes, which may hinder the effectual demand from ever being fully
supplied, and which may continue, therefore, to operate for ever.

A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company, has the
same effect as a secret in trade or manufactures. The monopolists, by
keeping the market constantly understocked by never fully supplying the
effectual demand, sell their commodities much above the natural price, and
raise their emoluments. whether they consist in wages or profit, greatly
above their natural rate.

The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got.
The natural price, or the price of free competition, on the contrary, is the
lowest which can be taken, not upon every occasion indeed, but for any
considerable time together. The one is upon every occasion the highest which
can be squeezed out of the buyers, or which it is supposed they will
consent to give; the other is the lowest which the sellers can commonly
afford to take, and at the same time continue their business.

The exclusive privileges of corporations, statutes of apprenticeship, and
all those laws which restrain in particular employments, the competition to
a smaller number than might otherwise go into them, have the same tendency,
though in a less degree. They are a sort of enlarged monopolies, and may
frequently, for ages together, and in whole classes of employments, keep up
the market price of particular commodities above the natural price, and
maintain both the wages of the labour and the profits of the stock employed
about them somewhat above their natural rate.

Such enhancements of the market price may last as long as the regulations of
policy which give occasion to them.