This concept may relate to some American concepts of competition which = were seen as being excessive, without necessarily using the same term. = These ideas were developed between 1885 and 1905 in the context of = evolutionary thinking in economics, but there may also be German = connections given links between American economics and German economics = at this time (for example, in the work on competition by Henry Carter = Adams). If you want to check out these American ideas for comparison = and intellectual parallels - see my article in HOPE (History of = Political Economy) "Competing Notions of Competition in Late-Nineteenth = Century American Economics (1993, Vol 25:4) and in the special issue of = HOPE for 1995 called Higgling: Transactors and Their Markets in the = History of Economics edited with Neil De Marchi. Mary Morgan