It is traditional to believe that competition is a good thing. The U.S. government, under the anti-trust laws, is empowered to achieve pro-competition and anti-monopoly goals. But what have the administrators used as their theoretical, intellectual guide for achieving increased competition? It has not been the neglected classical liberal concept of laissez-faire competition outlined in Chapter X.

I. Introductory Works

Alchian, Armen A. and Allen, William R. Exchange and Production. 2nd ed., Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1977.

Dolan, Edwin G. Basic Microeconomics. 2nd ed., Hinsdale: Dryden Press, 1980.

Greaves, Bettina B. (ed.). Free Market Economics: A Basic Reader. Irvington-on-Hudson: Foundation for Economic Education, 1975.

Abundance 9, 12, 83

AC: Average costs See: Costs

Adjustments, by firms 199–206

Administered prices 267, 331, 365–67

Agriculture 166–68, 326, 364

Alchian, A. A. 81, 103, 230n, 287

Allen, W. R. 81, 103, 230n, 287

Altruism 105–13

Annuity 262–63

Anti-trust laws 319

AP See: Administered prices

Arbitrage 43–44

Asceticism 12–13, 318

JEFFERSON

BY
ALBERT JAY NOCK

NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
OUINN a BODEN COMPANY, INC.
RAHWAY. N. J.

Illustrations

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Gilbert Stuart

Chart of the State of the Vegetable Market in Washington from 1800 to 1809

Page of Account Book

Bust of Thomas Jefferson by R. I. Aitken

Chapter I

YOUTH

I

IN the year 1760, Williamsburg was the capital of colonial Virginia. It was a winter rendezvous for the low land gentry, who set the pitch for a social life that was not without interest, but which, like the plantation-life of the period, has been the subject of an immense amount of romantic exaggeration. The town itself was unattractive, save to those who knew nothing better; and south of Philadelphia there was nothing much better.