Unlimited competition is wrong

Reginald John Campbell on free market business competition from the sermon “Christianity and the Social Order” from City Temple Sermons (1903):

Unlimited competition is wrong. There is a place for competition, but after a certain point has been reached competition becomes tyranny. If there is any man here who is mainly responsible for the future of a small business house he will know what I mean, if I use him as illustration. You go to the promoter of a big concern that is about to crush you, and say, “I cannot hold out against you. What am I to do?” “You must make over your business to me on such and such terms.” ” But that means ruin to me!” “Can’t help it; it’s all fair; you’re competing with me, and the better will win.” Does it not seem a hollow mockery? The better does not win; the stronger does. In fact, the community will be more likely to lose if the big house wins than if the little one does. You are having to pay more today for certain commodities just because of the victory of the big concern over the little one, and yet under unlimited competition the big concern is sure to win the victory all the time. Where is the remedy? That is for you to say, member of Parliament ; it is for you to say, leader of County Council, municipal organiser; that is what you are there for, not for your own interests. But if Jesus Christ stood, and he really does, where I stand this morning, He would say to you, as He said in the days of old, under other conditions, in other terms, but with the same meaning and the same principle. Unlimited competition is wrong; you have no business to crush the weak as if he had no rights against the strong.

SOURCE: https://archive.org/stream/citytemplesermon00camp#page/102/mode/2up