Widening of the market and the transition from scarcity to abundance

The widening of markets which occurred with the expansion of the transportation network of railroads, the movement of populations away from the coastal states and the development of steam power led to the transformation from handicraft production to large-scale industrial production and abundance. Abundance was accompanied by an extended period of deflation and efforts to reduce cutthroat price competition through price-fixing agreements. With the failure of such agreements to stabilize revenues, business enterprises endeavored to consolidate competitors through trusts. Corporations provided the organizational form to do so but were limited by the ultra vires doctrine associated with special charters and were subject to the power of state attorneys general to dissolve corporations acting beyond the scope of their charters. The menace of competition made restriction of output of the industrial process critical to the preservation of financial values. Ultra vires was to become irrelevant.