I am not sure about the German source, but it seems probable. There is an extensive American literature on "excess competition" or "cutthroat competition." Some of this arose from issues relating to railroads and competition in the presence of high overheads, which may force prices below average total cost. Some of this can be found in writers such as Hadley and Jenks in the 1890s. See Parrini and Sklar 1983 "New Thinking about the Market", Journal of Economic History 43 (Sept): 559-79. This line of thinking is quite corporatist in attitude, and culminated perhaps in the suggestions of industrial control by trade associations in the 1920s, such as the Swope Plan in the US. American institutionalists also discussed this issue in the 1920s but from a less corporatist stance. See particularly J. M. Clark's papers and book on overhead costs (1923) and Walton Hamilton on the coal industry. Hamilton's views on excessive competition are interesting, particularly due to his involvement in the New Deal, both in the NRA and in antitrust. My recent paper on Hamilton and the Public Control of Business is on my web site and includes discussion of the coal industry case. http://web.uvic.ca/~rutherfo/mr_home.html Malcolm Rutherford