Competition................

       One area where all American steelmakers could maintain absolute, almost religious agreement was on the topic of British steel.  British steelmakers were more efficient, and as a result, their rails were cheaper even than Carnegie's.  As with the iron industry before, the Americans' collective strategy was equally simple: tariffs.  Congress complied.  The tariff on a ton of imported British steel started at $28 per ton.  Given that Carnegie's first-ever order was fulfilled at $68 per ton, the British would have had to sell steel at $40 per ton, with overseas shipping included, to pay the tariff and match the price in the market.  In an era without a personal income tax or corporate income taxes, the federal government relied on duties and tariff generated income for a significant portion of its revenue . . .

      Even Carnegie, with all his competitive, Darwinian pride, granted that tariff protection "has played a great part in the development of manufacturing in the United States." . . . But laissez-faire capitalism it was not.  The invisible hand of Adam Smith's free market was accompanied by the guiding hand of government policy.

-Bhu Srinivasan, Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism