State of Business: The Economics of Steel

Always in times past and ten times since World War II, the U.S. Steel Corp., biggest company in the nation's basic industry, has been able to set prices in steel. Its crushing defeat when it attempted to do so last week had complex causes. The two most important:

> Hard economic factors, as well as political pressure, cracked steel's monolith.

> All steelmen agreed that higher prices were desirable, but many figured that slower, spaced-out boosts would have been more realistic. And many had grave doubts as to the economic feasibility of Big Steel's...