Cartels : challenge to a free world by Wendell Berge
Cartels by Wendell Berge is a nonfiction economic and legal exposé written in the mid-20th century. It argues that international cartels—rooted in patent pools and technology-sharing pacts—suppress competition, slow innovation, raise prices, and ultimately threaten democratic governance and national security. Drawing on antitrust cases and congressional investigations, it shows how cartel arrangements, many centered on German industry and abetted by American and British firms, distorted markets and even hindered wartime mobilization. The
work spans sectors from chemicals, optics, and metals to pharmaceuticals and electronics, urging vigorous antitrust enforcement, de-cartelization, and broader public access to technology. The opening of the book sets the postwar promise of technological progress against what Berge calls the chief obstacle: international cartels. He traces the shift from domestic “trusts” to globe-spanning cartels, argues that they act as private governments, and ties their restrictions to wartime shortages and to totalitarian power, with Germany as the prime example. He then links cartel practice to foreign policy failures—especially in Latin America—and spotlights the 1939 Düsseldorf industry summit as a manifesto for replacing competition with private “cooperation,” warning it would imperil peace unless met by strong U.S. antitrust action and transparency. Turning to technology, he shows how monopoly agreements narrow research, delay advances, and even degrade products, citing cases involving aviation fuels, optics (Zeiss–Bausch & Lomb), plastics (Rohm & Haas), and fuel additives, alongside attempts to keep cartel ties alive during war. A chapter on patents argues they have been perverted into instruments of control, illustrating abuses in glass containers, tungsten carbide tool materials, and fluorescent lighting, and calling for enforcement and public research to aid smaller firms. He applies the critique to medicines, noting insulin price-fixing and export carve-ups that excluded U.S. producers from South America, and recalls earlier German leverage over vital drugs. Finally, in introducing synthetic hormones, he outlines a European-led cartel (Schering, Ciba, Organon, Boehringer, Chimio) with U.S. affiliates, DOJ prosecutions, and tactics such as blockade evasion and dummy firms, while briefly explaining hormone science and detailing Schering’s global distribution system centered on its New Jersey arm. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Berge, Wendell, 1903-1955 |
|---|---|
| Title | Cartels : challenge to a free world |
| Original Publication | Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1946. |
| Credits | Tim Lindell, Daniel Lowe, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | HD: Social sciences: Economic history and conditions, Production |
| Subject | Trusts, Industrial |
| Subject | Monopolies |
| Subject | Restraint of trade |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 78077 |
| Release Date | Mar 1, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 5050 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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