10. Competition

There is not in the whole vocabulary of Political Economy a word that has aroused the fury of modern reformers so much as the word Competition, which, in order to render it the more odious, they never fail to couple with the epithet, anarchical.

What is the meaning of anarchical competition? I really don’t know. What could we substitute for it? I am equally ignorant.

I hear people, indeed, calling out Organization! Association! What does that mean? Let us come to an understanding, once for all. I desire to know what sort of authority these writers intend to exercise over me, and all other living men; for I acknowledge only one species of authority, that of reason, if indeed they have it on their side. Is it their wish, then, to deprive me of the right of exercising my judgment on what concerns my own subsistence? Is their object to take from me the power of comparing the services I render with those I receive? Do they mean that I should act under the influence of restraint, exerted over me by them and not by my own intelligence? If they leave me my liberty, Competition remains. If they deprive me of freedom, I am their slave. Association will be free and voluntary, they say. Be it so. But then each group of associates will, as regards all other groups, be just what individuals now are in relation to each other, and we shall still have Competition. The association will be integral. A good joke truly. What! Anarchical Competition is now desolating society, and we must wait for a remedy, until, by dint of your persuasion, all the nations of the earth—Frenchmen, Englishmen, Chinese, Japanese, Caffres, Hottentots, Laplanders, Cossacks, Patagonians—make up their minds to unite in one of the forms of association you have devised? Why, this is just to avow that Competition is indestructible; and will you venture to say that a phenomenon that is indestructible, and consequently providential, can be mischievous?

After all, what is Competition? Is it a thing that exists and is self-acting like the cholera? No, Competition is only the absence of constraint. In what concerns my own interest, I desire to choose for myself, not that another should choose for me, or in spite of me—that is all. And if anyone pretends to substitute his judgment for mine in what concerns me, I should ask to substitute mine for his in what concerns him. What guarantee have we that things would go on better in this way? It is evident that Competition is Liberty. To take away the liberty of acting is to destroy the possibility, and consequently the power, of choosing, of judging, of comparing; it is to annihilate intelligence, to annihilate thought, to annihilate man. From whatever quarter they set out, to this point all modern reformers tend—to ameliorate society they begin by annihilating the individual, under the pretext that all evils come from this source—as if all good did not come from it too.

We have seen that services are exchanged for services. In reality, every man comes into the world charged with the responsibility of providing for his satisfactions by his own efforts. When another man saves us an effort, we ought to save him an effort in return. He imparts to us a satisfaction resulting from his effort; we ought to do the same for him.

But who is to make the comparison? for between these efforts, these pains, these services exchanged, there is necessarily a comparison to be made, in order to arrive at equivalence, at justice—unless indeed injustice, inequality, chance, is to be our rule, which would just be another way of putting human intelligence hors de cause. We must, then, have a judge; and who is this judge to be? Is it not quite natural that in every case wants should be judged of by those who experience them, satisfactions by those who seek them, efforts by those who exchange them? And is it seriously proposed to substitute for this universal vigilance of the parties interested, a social authority (suppose that of the reformer himself), charged with determining in all parts of the world the delicate conditions of these countless acts of interchange? Do you not see that this would be to set up the most fallible, the most universal, the most arbitrary, the most inquisitorial, the most insupportable—we are fortunately able to add, the most impossible— of all despotisms ever conceived in the brain of pasha or mufti?

It is sufficient to know that Competition is nothing else than the absence of an arbitrary authority as judge of exchanges, in order to be satisfied that it is indestructible. Illegitimate force may no doubt restrain, counteract, trammel the liberty of exchanging, as it may the liberty of walking; but it can annihilate neither the one nor the other without annihilating man. This being so, it remains for us to inquire whether Competition tends to the happiness or misery of mankind; a question that amounts to this—Is the human race naturally progressive, or are its tendencies fatally retrograde?

I hesitate not to say that Competition, which, indeed, we might denominate Liberty, despite the repulsion it excites, despite the declamations to which it has given rise, is a law that is democratical in its essence. Of all the laws to which Providence has confided the progress of human society, it is the most progressive, levelling, and communautaire. It is this law which brings successively into the common domain the use and enjoyment of commodities that nature has accorded gratuitously only to certain countries. It is this law, again, that brings into the common domain all the conquests that the genius of each age bequeaths to succeeding generations, leaving them only supplementary labors to execute, which last they continue to exchange with one another, without succeeding, as they desire, in obtaining a recompense for the co-operation of natural agents; and if these labors, as happens always in the beginning, possess a value that is not proportionate to their intensity, it is still Competition that, by its incessant but unperceived action, restores an equilibrium that is sanctioned by justice, and that is more exact than any that the fallible sagacity of a human magistracy could by possibility establish. Far from Competition leading to inequality, as has been erroneously alleged, we may assert that all factitious inequality is imputable to its absence; and if the gulf between the Grand Lama and a Paria is more profound than that which separates the President from an artisan of the United States, the reason is this, that Competition (or Liberty), which is curbed and put down in Asia, is not so in America. This is the reason why, while the Socialists see in Competition the source of all that is evil, we trace to the attacks that have been made upon it the disturbance of all that is good. Although this great law has been misunderstood by the Socialists and their adepts; although it is frequently harsh in its operation, no law is more fertile in social harmonies, more beneficent in general results; no law attests more brilliantly the measureless superiority of the designs of God over the vain and powerless combinations of men.

I must here remind the reader of that singular but unquestionable result of the social order to which I have already invited his attention, and which the power of habit hides too frequently from our view. It is this, that the sum total of satisfactions that falls to each member of society is much superior to those that he could procure for himself by his own efforts. In other words, there is an evident disproportion between our consumption and our labor. This phenomenon, which all of us can easily verify, if we turn our regards upon ourselves, ought, it seems to me, to inspire some gratitude to society, to which we owe it.

We come into this world destitute of everything, tormented with numerous wants, and provided with nothing but faculties to enable us to struggle against them. A priori, it would seem that all we could expect would be to obtain satisfactions proportionate to our labor. If we obtain more, infinitely more, to what do we owe the excess? Precisely to that natural organization against which we are constantly declaiming, when we are not engaged in seeking to subvert it.

In itself the phenomenon is truly extraordinary. That certain men consume more than they produce is easily explained, if in one way or other they usurp the rights of other people—if they receive services without rendering them. But how can that be true of all men at the same time? How happens it that, after having exchanged their services without constraint, without spoliation, upon a footing of equivalence, each man can say to himself with truth, I consume in a day more than I could produce in a century?

The reader has seen that the additional element that resolves the problem is the co-operation of natural agents, constantly becoming more and more effective in the work of production; it is gratuitous utility falling continually into the domain of Community; it is the labor of heat and of cold, of light, of gravitation, of magnetism, of elasticity, coming progressively to be added to the labor of man, diminishing the value of services by rendering them more easy.

I must have but feebly explained the theory of value if the reader imagines that value diminishes immediately and of its own accord, by the simple fact of the co-operation of natural forces, and the relief thereby afforded to human labor. It is not so; for then we might say with the English Economists that value is proportional to labor. The man who is aided by a natural and gratuitous force renders his services more easily; but he does not on that account renounce voluntarily any portion whatever of his accustomed remuneration. To induce him to do that, external coercion—pressure from without—severe but not unjust pressure—is necessary. It is Competition that exerts this pressure. As long as Competition does not intervene, as long as the man who has availed himself of a natural agent preserves his secret, that natural agent is gratuitous, but it is not yet common. The victory has been gained, but to the profit only of a single man, or a single class. It is not yet a benefit to mankind at large. No change has yet taken place, except that one description of services, although partly relieved from the pain of muscular exertion, still exacts all its former remuneration. We have, on the one hand, a man who exacts from all his fellows the same amount of labor as formerly, although he offers them a limited amount of his own labor in return. On the other, we have mankind at large, which is still obliged to make the same sacrifice of time and of labor in order to obtain a product now realized in part by nature.

Were things to remain in this state, a principle of indefinite inequality would be introduced into the world with every new invention. Not only could we not say that value is proportional to labor; we could not even say that value tends to become proportional to labor. All that we have said in the preceding chapters about gratuitous utility and progressive community would be chimerical. It would not be true that services are exchanged against services, in such a way that the gifts of God are transferred gratuitously from one man to another, down to the ultimate recipient, who is the consumer. Each would continue to be paid, not only for his labor, but for the natural forces he had once succeeded in setting to work; in a word, society would be constituted on the principle of universal Monopoly, in place of on the principle of progressive Community.

But it is not so. God, who has bestowed on all his creatures heat, light, gravitation, air, water, the soil, the marvel of vegetable life, electricity, and countless other benefits that it is beyond my power to enumerate—God, who has placed in the human breast the feeling of personal interest, which, like a magnet, attracts everything to itself—God, I say, has placed also in the bosom of society another spring of action, which he has charged with the care of preserving to his benefits their original destination, which was, that they should be gratuitous and common. This spring of action is Competition.

Thus, Personal Interest is that irrepressible force belonging to the individual that urges on to progress and discovery, that spurs us on to exertion, but leads also to monopoly. Competition is that force belonging to the species that is not less irrepressible, and that snatches progress, as it is realized, from individual hands, and makes it the common inheritance of the great family of mankind. These two forces, in each of which, considered individually, we might find something to blame, thus constitute social Harmony, by the play of their combinations when regarded in conjunction.

And we may remark in passing that we ought not to be at all surprised that the individual interests of men, considered as producers, should from the beginning have risen up against Competition, should have rebuked it, and sought to destroy it—calling in for this purpose the assistance of force, fraud, privilege, sophistry, monopoly, restriction, legislative protection, etc. The morality of the means shows us clearly enough the morality of the end. But the astonishing and melancholy thing is, that science herself—false science, it is true—propagated with so much zeal by the socialist schools, in the name of philanthropy, equality, and fraternity, should have espoused the cause of Individualism, in its narrowest and most exclusive manifestation, and should have deserted the cause of humanity.

Let us see now how Competition acts:

Man, under the influence of self-interest, is always and necessarily on the lookout for such circumstances as may give the greatest value to his services. He is not long in discovering that, as regards the gifts of God, he may be favored in three ways:

He may appropriate to his own exclusive use these gifts themselves; or,

He may alone know the process by which they can be made useful; or,

He alone may possess the instrument by means of which their co-operation in the work of production can be secured.

In any of these cases, he gives little of his own labor in exchange for much of the labor of other men. His services have a high relative value, and we are led to believe that this excess of value resides in the natural agent. If it were so, this value would not be subject to fall. Now, what proves that the value is in the service is that we find Competition diminishing both value and service simultaneously.

1. Natural agents—the gifts of God—are not distributed uniformly over the different countries of the world. What an infinite variety of vegetable productions are spread over the wide range extending from the region of the pine to the region of the palm tree! Here the soil is more productive, there the heat is more vivifying. In one quarter we meet with stone, in another with lime, in another with iron, copper, or coal. Water power is not to be found everywhere, nor can we everywhere avail ourselves to an equal extent of the power of the winds. Distance from the objects we find essential of itself makes a vast difference in the obstacles our efforts encounter. Even the human faculties vary in some measure with climate and races.

It is easy to see that but for the law of Competition, this inequality in the distribution of the gifts of God would lead to a corresponding inequality in the condition of men.

Whoever happened to have within reach a natural advantage would profit by it, but his fellow-men would not. He would not permit other men to participate in it through his instrumentality, without stipulating an excessive remuneration, the amount of which he would have the power of fixing arbitrarily. He could attach to his services any value he pleased. We have seen that the extreme limits between which it must be determined are the pains taken by the man who renders the service and the pains saved to the man who receives it. Competition alone hinders its being always raised to the maximum. The inhabitant of the tropics, for example, would say to the European, “Thanks to the sun’s rays, I can, with labor equal to ten, procure a given quantity of sugar, coffee, cocoa, or cotton, while you, obliged in your cold climate to have recourse to hot-houses, stoves, and shelter, cannot obtain the same quantity but with labor equal to a hundred. You wish to obtain my coffee, sugar, or cotton, and you would not be sorry were I to take into account in the transaction only the pains I have taken, the labor I have expended. But what I regard principally is the pains, the labor, I have saved you; for, aware that that is the limit of your resistance, I make it the limit of my exaction. As what I produce with an amount of labor equal to ten, you could produce only with labor equal to a hundred, were I to demand in exchange for my sugar a commodity that cost you labor equal to 101, you would certainly refuse; but all that I ask is labor equal to 99. You may higgle and look gruff for a little, but you will come to my terms; for at this rate you have still an advantage by the exchange. You think these terms unfair; but, after all, it is not to you but to me that God has vouchsafed the advantage of a higher temperature. I know that I am in a position to take advantage of this gift of Providence by depriving you of it, unless you pay me a tax, for I have no competitors. Here, then, are my sugar, my cocoa, my coffee, my cotton—take them on the conditions I impose—or raise them for yourself—or do without them.”

It is true that the European might hold to the inhabitant of the tropics some such language as this: “Turn over your soil, dig pits, search for iron and coal, and felicitate yourself if you find any; for if not, it is my determination to push my exactions to an extreme also. God has vouchsafed to us both precious gifts. We appropriate as much of them as we require, but we will not suffer others to touch them without paying us a tax.”

Even if things took place in this way, scientific exactness would not allow us to attribute to natural agents that Value which resides only in services. But the error would be harmless, for the result would be absolutely the same. Services would still be exchanged against services, but they would exhibit no tendency to conform to efforts, or labor, as a measure. The gifts of God would be personal privileges, not common benefits; and we might perhaps have some reason to complain that the Author of things had treated us in a way so incurably unequal. Should we, then, be brethren? Could we regard ourselves as the children of a common Father? The absence of Competition, that is to say of Liberty, would in the first instance be an insuperable bar to Equality. The absence of Equality would exclude all idea of Fraternity—and nothing of the republican motto² would then be left.

But let Competition be introduced, and we shall see it instantly present an insuperable barrier to all such leonine bargains, to all such forestalling of the gifts of God, to all such revolting pretensions in the appreciation of services, to all such inequalities with efforts exchanged.

And let us remark, first of all, that Competition acts forcibly, called forth as it is by these very inequalities. Labor betakes itself instinctively to the quarter where it is best remunerated, and never fails to put an end to this exceptional advantage, so that Inequality is only a spur that urges us on in spite of ourselves toward Equality. It is in truth one of the most beautiful final intentions observable in the social mechanism. Infinite Goodness, which manifests beneficence everywhere, would seem to have made choice of the avaricious producer in order to effect an equitable distribution among all; and truly it is a marvelous sight this, of self-interest realizing continually what it ever desires to avoid. Man, as a producer, is necessarily, inevitably, attracted by excessive returns, which he thus reduces to the ordinary rate. He pursues his own interest; and without knowing it, without wishing it, without seeking it, he promotes the general good.

Thus, to recur to our former example, the inhabitant of the tropics, trafficking in the gifts of God, realizes an excessive remuneration, and by that very means brings down upon himself Competition. Human labor exerts itself in proportion to the magnitude of the inequality if I may use the expression, and never rests until that inequality is effaced. Under the action of Competition, we see the tropical labor, which was equal to ten, exchanged successively for European labor equal to 80, 50, 40, 20, and finally to 10. Under the empire of the natural laws of society, there is no reason why this should not take place; that is to say, there is no reason why services exchanged should not be measured by the labor performed, the pains taken—the gifts of God on both sides being gratuitous and into the bargain. We have only to consider, in order to appreciate and bless the revolution that is thus effected. In the first instance, the labor undergone on both sides is equal, and this satisfies the human mind, which always desires justice.

Then what has become of the gift of God? Attend to this, reader. No one has been deprived of it. In this respect we have not allowed ourselves to be imposed upon by the clamors of the tropical producer. The Brazilian, in so far as he is himself a consumer of sugar, or cotton, or coffee, never ceases to profit by the sun’s rays—his good fortune does not cease to aid him in the work of production. What he has lost is only the unjust power of levying a tax upon the consumption of the inhabitants of Europe. The beneficence of Providence, because gratuitous, has become, as it ought to become, common; for common and gratuitous are in reality the same thing.

The gift of God has become common—and the reader will observe that I avail myself here of a special fact to elucidate a phenomenon which is universal—this gift, I say, has become common to all. This is not declamation, but the expression of a truth which is demonstrable. Why has this beautiful phenomenon been misunderstood? Because community is realized under the form of value annihilated, and the mind with difficulty lays hold of negations. But I ask, Is it not true that when, in order to obtain a certain quantity of sugar, coffee, or cotton, I give only one-tenth of the labor I should find it necessary to expend in producing the commodity myself, and this because the Brazilian sun performs the other nine-tenths of the work. Is it not true, I say, that in that case I still exchange labor for labor, and really and truly obtain, over and above the Brazilian labor, and into the bargain, the co-operation of the climate of the tropics? Can I not affirm with rigorous exactitude that I have become, that all men have become, in the same way as the Indians and Americans, that is to say gratuitously, participators in the liberality of nature, so far as the commodities in question are concerned?

England possesses productive coal mines. That is no doubt a great local advantage, more especially if we suppose, as I shall do for the sake of argument, that the Continent possesses no coal mines. Apart from the consideration of exchange, the advantage this gives to the people of England is the possession of fuel in greater abundance than other nations—fuel obtained with less labor, and at less expense of useful time. As soon as exchange comes into operation—keeping out of view Competition—the exclusive possession of these mines enables the people of England to demand a considerable remuneration, and to set a high price upon their labor. Not being in a situation to perform this labor ourselves, or procure what we want from another quarter, we have no alternative but to submit. English labor devoted to this description of work will be well remunerated; in other words, coal will be dear, and the bounty of nature may be considered as conferred on the people of one nation, and not on mankind at large.

But this state of things cannot last; for a great natural and social law is opposed to it—Competition, For the very reason that this species of labor is largely remunerated in England, it will be in great demand there, for men are always in quest of high remuneration. The number of miners will increase, both in consequence of the sons of miners devoting themselves to their fathers’ trade, and in consequence of men transferring their industry to mining from other departments. They will offer to work for a smaller recompense, and their remuneration will go on diminishing until it reach the normal rate, or the rate generally given in the country for analogous work. This means that the price of English coal will fall in France; that a given amount of French labor will procure a greater and greater quantity of English coal, or rather of English labor incorporated and worked up in coal; and, finally (and this is what I pray you to remark), that the gift that nature would appear to have bestowed upon England has in reality been conferred on the whole human race. The coal of Newcastle is brought within the reach of all men gratuitously, as far as the mere material is concerned. This is neither a paradox nor an exaggeration—it is brought within their reach like the water of the brook, on the single condition of going to fetch it, or remunerating those who undertake that labor for us. When we purchase coal, it is not the coal that we pay for, but the labor necessary to extract it and transport it. All that we do is to give a corresponding amount of labor that we have worked up or incorporated in wine or in silk. So true is it that the liberality of nature has been extended to France, that the labor we refund is not greater than that which it would have been necessary to undergo had the deposit of coal been in France. Competition has established equality between the two nations as far as coal is concerned, except as regards the inevitable and inconsiderable difference resulting from distance and carriage.

I have given two examples, and, to render the phenomenon more striking, I have selected international transactions, which are effected on a great scale. I fear I may thus have diverted the reader’s attention from the same phenomena acting incessantly around us in our every-day transactions. Let him take in his hand the most familiar objects, a glass, a nail, a loaf, a piece of cloth, a book. Let him meditate on such ordinary products, and reflect how great an amount of gratuitous utility would never but for Competition have become common for humanity at large, although remaining gratuitous for the producer. He will find that, thanks to Competition, in purchasing his loaf he pays nothing for the action of the sun, nothing for the rain, nothing for the frost, nothing for the laws of vegetable physiology, nothing even for the powers of the soil, despite all that has been said on that subject; nothing for the law of gravitation set to work by the miller; nothing for the law of combustion set to work by the baker; nothing for the horsepower set to work by the carrier—that he pays only for the services rendered, the pains taken, by human agents; and let him reflect that, but for Competition, he must have paid, over and above, a tax for the intervention of all these natural agents; that that tax would have had no other limit than the difficulty that he might himself have experienced in procuring the loaf by his own efforts, and that consequently a whole life would not have been sufficient to supply the remuneration that would have been demanded of him. Let him think farther that he does not make use of a single commodity which might not give rise to the same reflections, and that these reflections apply not to him only, but to all mankind, and he will then comprehend the radical error of those socialist theories that, looking only at the surface of things, the epidermis of society, have been set up with so much levity against Competition, in other words, against human Liberty. He will then regard Competition, which preserves to the gifts of nature, unequally distributed, their common and gratuitous character, as the principle of a just and natural equalization; he will admire it as the force which holds in check the greed of individual interest, with which at the same time it is so artfully combined as to serve both as a curb to avarice and a spur to exertion; and he will bless it as a most striking manifestation of God’s impartial solicitude for the good of all his creatures.

From what has been said, we may deduce the solution of one of the problems that have been most keenly controverted, namely, that of free trade as between nation and nation. If it be true, as seems to me incontestable, that Competition leads the various countries of the globe to exchange with one another nothing else than labor, exertion more and more equalized, and to transfer at the same time reciprocally, and into the bargain, the natural advantages that each possesses; how blind and absurd must those men be who exclude foreign products by legislative measures under the pretext that they are cheap, and have little value in proportion to their aggregate utility; that is to say, precisely because they include a large proportion of gratuitous utility!

I have said, and I repeat it, that I have confidence in a theory when I find it in accordance with universal practice. Now it is certain that countries would effect many exchanges with each other were they not interdicted by force. It requires the bayonet to prevent them; and for that reason it is wrong to prevent them.

2. Another circumstance places certain men in a favorable and exceptional situation as regards remuneration—I mean the personal and exclusive knowledge of the processes by means of which natural agents can alone by appropriated. What we term invention is a conquest by human genius; and these beautiful and pacific conquests, which are, in the first instance, a source of wealth for those who achieve them, become by and by, under the action of Competition, the common and gratuitous patrimony of all.

The forces of nature belong indeed to all. Gravitation, for instance, is common property; it surrounds us, pervades us, commands us. And yet were there but one mode of making gravitation co-operate toward a useful and determinate result, and but one man acquainted with that mode, this man might set a high price upon his work, or refuse to work except in exchange for a very high remuneration. His demands would have no limit until they reached the point at which the consumers must make greater sacrifices than the old processes entailed upon them. He may have contrived, for example, to annihilate nine-tenths of the labor necessary to produce a certain commodity, x. But x has at present a current market price determined by the labor its production by the ordinary methods exacts. The inventor sells x at the market price; in other words, his labor receives a recompense ten times higher than that of his rivals. This is the first phase of the invention.

So far we discover nothing unjust or unfair. It is just and equitable that the man who makes the world acquainted with a useful process should be rewarded for it; A chacun selon sa capacite.

Observe, too, that as yet mankind, with the exception of the inventor, has gained nothing unless virtually, and in perspective, so to speak, since in order to procure the commodity x, each acquirer must make a sacrifice equal to the former cost.

Now, however, the invention enters its second phase—that of imitation. Excessive remuneration awakens covetousness. The new process is more generally adopted; the price of the commodity x continues to fall, and the remuneration goes on diminishing in proportion as the imitation becomes more distant in date from the original invention, that is to say, in proportion as it becomes more easy, and for that reason less meritorious. Surely there is nothing in all this that cannot be avowed by a legislation the most advanced and the most impartial.

At length the invention reaches its third phase, its final stage, that of universal diffusion, when it becomes common and gratuitous. The cycle has been completed when Competition has brought back the remuneration of the producers of x to the general and normal rate yielded by all analogous work. Then the nine-tenths of the labor, which by the hypothesis we supposed to be saved by the invention, becomes an acquisition to mankind at large. The utility of the commodity x remains the same; but nine-tenths of that commodity is now the product of gravitation, a force that was formerly common to all in principle, but has now become common to all in this special application. So true is this that all the consumers of that commodity throughout the world may now acquire it with one-tenth of the labor which it formerly cost. The surplus labor has been entirely annihilated by the new process.

If we consider that there is no human invention that has not traveled this circle, that x is here an algebraical sign that represents wheat, clothing, books, ships—in the production of which an incalculable amount of labor or Value has been annihilated, by the plough, the spinning jenny, the printing press, and the sail; that this observation is applicable to the humblest of tools as well as to the most complicated mechanism, to the nail, the wedge, the lever, as well as to the steam engine and the electric telegraph, we shall come, I trust, to understand the solution of this grand problem of human society, that an amount of utility and enjoyment, always greater, and more and more equally distributed, comes to remunerate each determinate quantity of human labor.

3. I have shown how Competition brings into the domain of the common and gratuitous both natural agents and the processes by which they are made operative. It remains to show that Competition executes the same function with reference to the instruments by means of which we set these agents to work. It is not enough that there should exist in nature a force such as heat, light, gravitation, electricity; it is not enough that intelligence conceives the means of making that force available—there must be instruments to realize this conception of the mind, and provisions to maintain those who devote themselves to it during the operation.

As regards remuneration, there is a third circumstance that favors a man, or a class of men, namely, the possession of Capital. The man who has in his hands the tools necessary for labor, the materials to work upon, and the provisions for his subsistence during the operation, is in a situation to determine his own remuneration. The principle of this is equitable, for capital is only anterior labor that has not yet been remunerated. The capitalist is in a good position to impose terms; but observe that, even when free from Competition, there is a limit that his demands never can exceed—this limit is the point at which his remuneration would absorb all the advantages of the service he renders. In these circumstances, it is unreasonable to talk, as is so often done, of the tyranny of capital, seeing that even in the most extreme cases neither its presence nor its absence can injure the condition of the laborer. Like the inhabitant of the tropics, who has an intensity of heat at his disposal that nature has denied to colder regions—or like the inventor, who possesses the secret of a process unknown to other men—all that the capitalist can say is: “Would you profit by my labor—I set such a price upon it; if you find it too high, do as you have done hitherto—do without it.”

But Competition takes place among capitalists. Tools, materials, and provisions contribute to the creation of utilities only when employed. There is an incentive, then, among capitalists to find employment for their capital. All that this incentive forces them to deduct from the extreme demand, of which I have just assigned the limits, resolving itself into a reduction of the price of the commodity, is so much clear profit, so much gratuitous gain, for the consumer, that is to say, for mankind.

This gain, however, can clearly never be absolutely gratuitous; for, since capital represents labor, that capital must always possess in itself the principle of remuneration.

Transactions relative to Capital are subject to the universal law of exchanges; and exchanges take place only because there is an advantage for the two contracting parties in effecting them—an advantage that has no doubt a tendency to be equalized, but which accidentally may be greater for the one than for the other. There is a limit to the remuneration of capital beyond which limit no one will consent to borrow it. This limit is the minimum of service for the borrower. In the same way, there is a limit beyond which no one will consent to lend, and this limit is the minimum of remuneration for the lender. This is self-evident. If the requirements of one of the contracting parties are pushed so far as to reduce to zero the benefit to be derived by the other from the transaction, the loan becomes impossible. The remuneration of capital oscillates between these two extreme terms, pressed toward the maximum by the Competition of borrowers, brought back toward the minimum by the Competition of lenders; so that, by a necessity that is in harmony with justice, it rises when capital is scarce, and falls when it is abundant.

Many Economists imagine that the number of borrowers increases more rapidly than it is possible to create capital to lend to them, whence it would follow that the natural tendency of interest is to rise. The fact is decidedly the other way, and on all sides accordingly we perceive civilization lowering the return for capital. This return, it is said, is 30 or 40 percent at Rome, 20 percent in Brazil, 10 percent in Algeria, 8 percent in Spain, 6 percent in Italy, 5 percent in Germany, 4 percent in France, 3 percent in England, and still less in Holland. Now all that part of the return for capital which is annihilated by progress, although lost to the capitalist, is not lost to mankind. If interest, originally at 40 percent, is reduced to 2 percent, all commodities will be freed from 38 parts in 40 of this element of cost. They will reach the consumer freed from this charge to the extent of nineteen-twentieths. This is a force that, like natural agents, like expeditive processes, resolves itself into abundance, equalization, and, finally, into an elevation of the general level of the human race.

I have still to say a few words on the Competition of laborer with laborer—a subject that in these days has given rise to so much sentimental declamation. But have we not already exhausted this subject? I have shown that, owing to the action of Competition, men cannot long receive an exceptional remuneration for the co-operation of natural forces, for their acquaintance with new processes, or for the possession of instruments by means of which they avail themselves of these forces. This proves that efforts have a tendency to be exchanged on a footing of equality, or, in other words, that value tends to become proportionate to labor. Then I do not see what can justly be termed the Competition of laborers; still less do I see how it can injure their condition, since in this point of view workmen are themselves the consumers. The working class means everybody, and it is precisely this vast community that reaps ultimately the benefits of Competition, and all the advantage of values successively annihilated by progress.

The evolution is this: Services are exchanged against services, values against values. When a man (or a class) appropriates a natural agent, or a new process, his demands are regulated, not by the labor he undergoes, but by the labor which he saves to others. He presses his exactions to the extreme limit without ever being able to injure the condition of others. He sets the greatest possible value on his services. But gradually, by the operation of Competition, this value tends to become proportioned to the labor performed; so that the evolution is brought to a conclusion when equal labor is exchanged for equal labor, both serving as the vehicle of an ever increasing amount of gratuitous utility, to the benefit of the community at large. In such circumstances, to assert that Competition can be injurious to the laborer would be to fall into a palpable contradiction.

And yet this is constantly asserted, and constantly believed; and why? Because by the word laborer is understood not the great laboring community, but a particular class. You divide the community into two classes. On one side, you place all those who are possessed of capital, who live wholly or partly on anterior labor, or by intellectual labor, or the proceeds of taxation; on the other, you place those who have nothing but their hands, who live by wages, or—to use the consecrated expression—the proletaires. You look to the relative position of these two classes, and you ask if, in that relative position, the Competition that takes place among those who live by wages is not fatal to them?

The situation of men of this last class, it is said, is essentially precarious. As they receive their wages from day to day, they live from hand to mouth. In the discussion that, under a free regime, precedes every bargain, they cannot wait; they must find work for tomorrow on any terms, under pain of death. If this be not strictly true of them all, it is at least true of many of them, and that is enough to depress the entire class; for those who are the most pressed and the poorest capitulate first, and establish the general rate of wages. The result is that wages tend to fall to the lowest rate that is compatible with bare subsistence—and in this state of things, the occurrence of the least excess of Competition among the laborers is a veritable calamity; for, as regards them, the question is not one of diminished prosperity, but of simple existence.

Undoubtedly there is much that is true, much that is too true, in fact, in this description. To deny the sufferings and wretchedness of that class of men who bear so material a part in the business of production would be to shut our eyes to the light of day. It is, in fact, this deplorable condition of a great number of our brethren that forms the subject of what has been justly called the social problem; for although other classes of society are visited also with disquietudes, sufferings, sudden changes of fortune, commercial crises, and economic convulsions, it may nevertheless be said with truth that liberty would be accepted as a solution of the problem, mere liberty did not appear powerless to cure that rankling sore that we denominate Pauperism.

And although it is here, pre-eminently, that the social problem lies, the reader will not expect that I should enter upon it in this place. Its solution, please God, may be the result of the entire work, but it clearly cannot be the result of a single chapter.

I am at present engaged in the exposition of general laws, which I believe to be harmonious; and I trust the reader will now begin to be convinced that these laws exist, and that their action tends toward community, and consequently towards equality. But I have not denied that the action of these laws is profoundly troubled by disturbing causes. If, then, we now encounter inequality as stubborn fact, how can we be in circumstances to form a judgment regarding it until we have first of all investigated the regular laws of the social order, and the causes that disturb the action of these laws?

On the other hand, I have ignored neither the existence of evil nor its mission. I have ventured to assert that, free will having been vouchsafed to man, it is not necessary to confine the term harmony to an aggregate from which evil should be excluded; for free will implies error, at least possible error, and error is evil. Social harmony, like everything that concerns man, is relative. Evil is a necessary part of the machinery destined to overcome error, ignorance, injustice, by bringing into play two great laws of our nature—responsibility and solidarity.

Now, taking pauperism as an existing fact, are we to impute it to the natural laws that govern the social order—or to human institutions that act in a sense contrary to these laws—or, finally, to the people themselves, who are the victims, and who, by their errors and their faults, have brought down this severe chastisement on their own heads?

In other words, does pauperism exist by providential destination—or, on the contrary, by what remains of the artificial in our political organization—or as a personal retribution? Bad luck, Exploitation, Irresponsibility—to which of these three causes must we attribute this frightful sore?

I hesitate not to assert that it cannot be the result of the natural laws that have hitherto been the subject of our investigation, seeing that these laws all tend to equalization by amelioration; that is to say, to bring all men to one and the same level, which level is continually rising. This, then, is not the place to seek a solution of the problem of pauperism.

At present, if we would consider specially that class of laborers who execute the most material portion of the work of production, and who, in general, having no interest in the profits, live upon a fixed remuneration called wages, the question we have to investigate is this: Apart from the consideration of good or bad economic institutions—apart from the consideration of the evils that the men who live by wages (the proletaires) bring upon themselves by their faults—what is, as regards them, the proper effect of Competition?

For this class, as for all, the operation of Competition is twofold. They feel it both as buyers and as sellers of services. The error of those who write upon these subjects is never to look but at one side of the question, like natural philosophers, who, if they took into account only centrifugal force, would never cease to believe and to prophesy that all was over with us. Grant their false datum, and you will see with what irrefutable logic they conduct you to this sinister conclusion. The same may be said of the lamentations that the Socialists found upon the exclusive consideration of centrifugal Competition, if I may be allowed the expression. They forget to take into account centripetal Competition, and that is sufficient to reduce their doctrines to puerile cant. They forget that the workman, when he presents himself in the market with the wages he has earned, becomes a center toward which innumerable branches of industry tend, and that he profits then by that universal Competition of which all trades complain in their turn.

It is true that the laborer, when he regards himself as a producer, as the person who supplies labor or services, complains also of Competition. Grant, then, that Competition benefits him on one side, while it pinches him on the other, the question comes to be, Is the balance favorable or unfavorable—or is there cancellation?

I must have explained myself very obscurely if the reader does not see that in the play of this marvelous mechanism, the action of Competition, apparently antagonistic, tends to the singular and consoling result that there is a balance that is favorable to all at the same time; caused by gratuitous Utility continually enlarging the circle of production, and falling continually into the domain of Community. Now, that which becomes common is profitable to all without hurting anyone; we may even say—for this is mathematically certain—it is profitable to each in proportion to his previous poverty. It is this portion of gratuitous utility, forced by Competition to become common, that causes the tendency of value to become proportioned to labor, to the evident benefit of the laborer. This, too, renders evident the social solution I have pressed so much on the attention of the reader, and that is only concealed by the illusions of habit—for a determinate amount of labor each receives an amount of satisfactions that tends to be increased and equalized.

Moreover, the condition of the laborer does not depend upon one economic law, but upon all. To become acquainted with that condition, to discover the prospects and the future of the laborer, this is Political Economy; for what other object could that science have in view? . . . But I am wrong—we have still spoliators. What causes the equivalence of services? Liberty. What impairs that equivalence? Oppression. Such is the circle we have still to traverse.

As regards the condition of that class of laborers who execute the more immediate work of production, it cannot be appreciated until we are in a situation to discover in what manner the law of Competition is combined with that of Wages and Population, and also with the distorting effects of unequal taxes and monopolies.

I shall add but a few words on the subject of Competition. It is very clear that it has no natural tendency to diminish the amount of the enjoyments that are distributed over society. Does Competition tend to make this distribution unequal? If there be anything evident in the world, it is that after having, if I may so express myself, attached to each service, to each value, a larger proportion of utility, Competition labors incessantly to level the services themselves, to render them proportional to efforts. Is Competition not the spur that urges men into profitable branches of industry, and urges them out of those that are unprofitable? Its proper action, then, is to realize equality more and more, by elevating the social level.

Let us not misunderstand each other, however, on this word equality. It does not imply that all men are to have the same remuneration, but that they are to have remuneration proportioned to the quantity, and even to the quality of their efforts.

A multitude of circumstances contribute to render the remuneration of labor unequal (I speak here only of unhampered labor, subject to Competition); but if we look at it more narrowly, we shall find that this fancied inequality, almost always just and necessary, is in reality nothing else than substantial equality.

Ceteris paribus, there are larger profits in those trades which are attended with danger than in those which are not so; in those which require a lengthened apprenticeship, and expensive training long unremunerated—which imply the patient exercise of certain domestic virtues—than in those where mere muscular exertion is sufficient; in professions that demand a cultivated mind and refined taste, than in trades which require mere brute force. Is not all this just? Now, Competition establishes necessarily these distinctions—and society has no need of the assistance of Fourier or Louis Blanc in the matter.

Of all these circumstances, that which operates in the greatest number of cases is the inequality of instruction. Now here, as everywhere else, we find Competition exerting its twofold action, levelling classes, and elevating society.

If we suppose society to be composed of two layers or strata, placed one above another, in one of which the intelligent principle prevails, and in the other the principle of brute force; and if we study the natural relations of these two layers, we shall easily discover a force of attraction in the one, and a force of aspiration in the other, which co-operate toward their fusion. The very inequality of profits breathes into the inferior ranks an inextinguishable ardor to mount to the region of ease and leisure; and this ardor is seconded by the superior knowledge that distinguishes the higher classes. The methods of teaching are improved; books fall in price; instruction is acquired in less time, and at a smaller cost; science, formerly monopolized by a class or a caste, and veiled in a dead language, or sealed up in hieroglyphics, is written and printed in the common tongue; it pervades the atmosphere, if I may use the expression, and is breathed as freely as the air of heaven.

Nor is this all. At the same time that an education more universal and more equal brings the two classes of society into closer approximation, some very important economic phenomena, which are connected with the great law of Competition, come to aid and accelerate their fusion. The progress of the mechanical arts diminishes continually the proportion of manual labor. The division of labor, by simplifying and separating each of the operations that combine in a productive result, brings within the reach of all branches of industry that could formerly be engaged in only by a few. Moreover, a great many employments that required at the outset much knowledge and varied acquirements, fall, by the mere lapse of time, into routine, and come within the sphere of action of classes generally the least instructed, as has happened in the case of agriculture. Agricultural processes, that in ancient times procured to their discoverers the honors of an apotheosis, are now inherited and almost monopolized by the rudest of men; and to such a degree that this important branch of human industry is, so to speak, entirely withdrawn from the well educated classes.

From the preceding observations it is possible that a false conclusion may be drawn. It may be said—“We perceive, indeed, that Competition lowers remuneration in all countries, in all departments of industry, in all ranks; and levels, by reducing, it; but in that case the wages of unskilled labor, of physical exertion, must become the type, the standard, of all remuneration.”

I must have been misunderstood if you have not perceived that Competition, which labors to bring down all excessive remuneration toward an average more and more uniform, raises necessarily this average. I grant that it pinches men in their capacity of producers, but in so doing it ameliorates the condition of the human race in the only way in which it can reasonably be elevated, namely, by an increase of material prosperity, ease, leisure, moral and intellectual improvement, in a word, by enlarging consumption.

Will it be said that, in point of fact, mankind has not made the progress that this theory seems to imply?

I answer in the first place that in modern society Competition is far from occupying the sphere of its natural action. Our laws run counter to it, at least in as great a degree as they favor its action; and when it is asked whether the inequality of conditions is owing to its presence or its absence, it is sufficient to look at the men who make the greatest figure among us, and dazzle us by the display of their scandalous wealth in order to assure ourselves that inequality, so far as it is artificial and unjust, has for foundation conquests, monopolies, restrictions, privileged offices, functions, and places, ministerial trafficking, public borrowing—all things with which Competition has nothing to do.

Moreover, I believe we have overlooked the real progress mankind has made since the very recent epoch to which we must assign the partial enfranchisement of labor. It has been justly said that much philosophy is needed in order to discern facts that are continually passing before us. We are not astonished at what an honest and laborious family of the working class daily consumes, because habit has made us familiar with this strange phenomenon. If, however, we compare the comfortable circumstances in which such a family finds itself, with the condition in which it would be placed under a social order that excluded Competition—if statisticians, armed with an instrument of sufficient precision, could measure, as with a dynamometer, the relation of a working man’s labor to his enjoyments at two different periods, we should acknowledge that liberty, restrained as it still is, has accomplished in his favor a prodigy that its very permanency hinders us from detecting. The contingent of human efforts which, in relation to a given result, has been annihilated, is truly incalculable. Time was when the artisan’s day’s labor would not have sufficed to procure him the most perfunctory broadsheet. At the present day, for a halfpenny, or the fiftieth part of his day’s wages, he can obtain a gazette containing the matter of a volume. The same might be said of clothing, locomotion, carriage, lighting, and a multitude of other satisfactions. To what is this result owing? To this, that an enormous proportion of human labor, which had formerly to be paid for, has been handed over to be performed by the gratuitous forces of nature. It is a value annihilated, and to be no longer recompensed. Under the action of Competition, it has been replaced by common and gratuitous utility. And it is worthy of note, that when, in consequence of progress, the price of any commodity comes to fall, the labor saved to the poor purchaser in obtaining it is always proportionally greater than the labor saved to the rich purchaser. That is demonstrable.

In fine, this constantly increasing current of utilities that labor pours into all the veins of the body politic, and that Competition distributes, is not all summed up in an accession of wealth. It is absorbed, in great part, by the stream of advancing numbers. It resolves itself into an increase of population, according to laws that have an intimate affinity with the subject that now engages us, and that will be explained in another chapter.

Let us now stop for a moment, and take a rapid glance at the ground over which we have just travelled.

Man has wants that are unlimited—desires that are insatiable. In order to provide for them, he has materials and agents that are furnished to him by nature—faculties, instruments, all things that labor sets in motion. Labor is the resource that has been most equally distributed to all. Each man seeks instinctively and of necessity to avail himself to the utmost of the co-operation of natural forces, of talents natural and acquired, and of capital, in order that the result of this cooperation may be a greater amount of utilities produced or, what comes to the same thing, a greater amount of satisfactions acquired. Thus, the more active co-operation of natural agents, the indefinite development of intelligence, the progressive increase of capital, give rise to this phenomenon (which at first sight seems strange)—that a given quantity of labor furnishes an always increasing amount of utilities, and that each man can, without despoiling anyone, obtain a mass of consumable commodities out of all proportion to what his own efforts could have realized.

But this phenomenon, which is the result of the divine harmony that Providence has established in the mechanism of society, would have been detrimental to society, by introducing the germ of indefinite inequality, had there not been combined with it a harmony no less admirable, namely, Competition, which is one of the branches of the great law of human solidarity.

In fact, were it possible for an individual, a family, a class, a nation possessed of certain natural advantages, of an important discovery in manufactures, or of the instruments of production in the shape of accumulated capital, to be set permanently free from the law of Competition, it is evident that this individual, this family, this nation, would have forever the monopoly of an exceptionally high remuneration, at the expense of mankind at large. In what situation should we be, if the inhabitants of the tropical regions, set free from all rivalry with each other, could exact from us, in exchange for their sugar, their coffee, their cotton, their spices, not the equivalent of labor equal to their own, but an amount of labor equal to what we must ourselves undergo in order to produce these commodities under our inclement skies? What an incalculable distance would separate the various conditions of men, if the race of Cadmus alone could read, if the direct descendants of Triptolemus alone could handle the plough, if printing were confined to the family of Gutenberg, cotton-spinning to the children of Arkwright, and if the posterity of Watt could alone work the steam engine! Providence has not ordered things thus, but, on the contrary, has placed in the social machine a spring whose power is only less surprising than its simplicity— a spring by the operation of which all productive power, all superiority in manufacturing processes, in a word, all exclusive advantages, slip from the hands of the producer, having remained there, in the shape of exceptional remuneration, only long enough to excite his zeal, and come at length to enlarge the common and gratuitous patrimony of mankind, and resolve themselves into individual enjoyments always progressive, and more and more equally distributed—this spring is Competition. We have already seen its economical effects—and it now remains for us to take a rapid survey of its moral and political consequences. I shall confine myself to the more important of these.

Superficial thinkers have accused Competition of introducing antagonism among men. This is true and inevitable, if we consider men only in the capacity of producers, but regarded from another point of view, as consumers, the matter appears in a very different light. You then see this very Competition binding together individuals, families, classes, nations, and races, in the bonds of universal fraternity.

Seeing that the advantages that appear at first to be the property of certain individuals become, by an admirable law of Divine beneficence, the common patrimony of all; seeing that the natural advantages of situation, of fertility, of temperature, of mineral riches, and even of manufacturing aptitude, slip in a short time from the hands of producers, by reason of their competition with each other, and turn exclusively to the profit of consumers, it follows that there is no country that is not interested in the advancement and prosperity of all other countries. Every step of progress made in the East is wealth in perspective for the West. Fuel discovered in the South warms the men of the North. Great Britain makes progress in her spinning mills; but her capitalists do not alone reap the profit, for the interest of money does not rise; nor do her operatives, for the wages of labor remain the same. In the long run, it is the Russian, the Frenchman, the Spaniard; in a word, it is the human race, who obtain equal satisfactions at a less expense of labor or, what comes to the same thing, superior satisfactions with equal labor.

I have spoken only of the advantages—I might say as much of the disadvantages—which affect certain nations and certain regions. The peculiar action of Competition is to render general what was before exclusive. It acts exactly on the principle of Insurance. A scourge visits the fields of the agriculturist, and the consumers of the bread are the sufferers. An unjust tax is laid upon the vines of France, and this means dear wine for all wine-drinkers. Thus, advantages and disadvantages, that have any permanence only glance upon individuals, classes, or nations. Their providential destination in the long run is to affect humanity at large, and elevate or lower the condition of mankind. Hence to envy a certain people the fertility of their soil, or the beauty of their harbors and rivers, or the warmth of their sun, is to overlook the advantages in which we are called to participate. It is to disdain the abundance that is offered to us. It is to regret the labor that is saved to us. Hence national jealousies are not only perverse feelings—they are absurd. To hurt others is to injure ourselves. To place obstacles in the way of others—tariffs, coalitions, or wars— is to obstruct our own progress. Hence bad passions have their chastisement just as generous sentiments have their reward. The inevitable sanction of an exact distributive justice addresses itself to men’s interests, enlightens opinion, proclaims and establishes among men these maxims of eternal truth: that the useful is one of the aspects of the just; that Liberty is the fairest of social Harmonies; and that Honesty is the best Policy.

Christianity has introduced into the world the grand principle of human fraternity. It addresses itself to our hearts, our feelings, our noble instincts. Political Economy recommends the same principle to our cool judgment; and, exhibiting the connection of effects with their causes, reconciles in consoling harmony the vigilant calculations of interest with the inspirations of the sublimest morality.

A second consequence that flows from this doctrine is that society is truly a Community. Misters Owen and Cabet may save themselves the trouble of seeking the solution of the great Communist problem—it is found already—it results not from their arbitrary combinations, but from the organization given by God to man, and to society. Natural forces, expeditive processes, instruments of production, everything is common among men, or has a tendency to become so, everything except pains, labor, individual effort. There is, and there can be, but one inequality—an inequality that Communists the most absolute must admit—that which results from the inequality of efforts. These efforts are what are exchanged for one another at a price bargained for. All the utility that nature, and the genius of ages, and human foresight, have implanted in the commodities exchanged, we obtain into the bargain. Reciprocal remunerations have reference only to reciprocal efforts, whether actual under the name of labor, or preparatory under the name of Capital. Here then is Community in the strictest sense of the word, unless we are to pretend that the personal share of enjoyment should be equal, although the quota of labor furnished is not so, which indeed would be the most iniquitous, the most monstrous, of inequalities—I will add, the most fatal; for it would not destroy Competition—it would only give it a retrograde action. We should still compete, but the Competition would be rivalry of idleness, stupidity, and improvidence.

In fine, the doctrine—so simple, and, as we think, so true— that we have just developed, takes the great principle of human perfectibility out of the domain of empty boasting, and transfers it to that of rigorous demonstration. This internal motive, which is never at rest in the bosom of the individual, but stirs him up to improve his condition, gives rise to the progress of art, which is nothing else than the progressive cooperation of forces, which from their nature call for no remuneration. To Competition is owing the concession to the community of advantages at first individually obtained. The intensity of the labor required for the production of each given result goes on continually diminishing, to the advantage of the human race, which thus sees the circle of its enjoyments and its leisure enlarging from one generation to another, while the level of its physical, intellectual, and moral improvement is raised; and by this arrangement, so worthy of our study and of our profound admiration, we behold mankind recovering the position it had lost.

Let me not be misunderstood, however. I do not say that all fraternity, all community, all perfectibility, are comprised and included in Competition. I say only that Competition is allied and combined with these three great social dogmas—that it forms part of them, that it exhibits them, that it is one of the most powerful agents of their realization.

I have endeavored to describe the general effects of Competition, and consequently its benefits, for it would be impious to suppose that any great law of nature should be at once hurtful and permanent; but I am far from denying that the action of Competition is accompanied with many hardships and sufferings. It appears to me that the theory that has just been developed explains at once those sufferings, and the inevitable complaints to which they give rise. Since the work of Competition consists in levelling, it must necessarily run counter to all who proudly attempt to rise above the general level. Each producer, in order to obtain the highest price for his labor, endeavors, as we have seen, to retain as long as possible the exclusive use of an agent, a process, or an instrument, of production. Now the proper mission and result of Competition being to withdraw this exclusive use from the individual in order to make it common property, it is natural that all men, in their capacity of producers, should unite in a concert of maledictions against Competition. They cannot reconcile themselves to Competition otherwise than by taking into account their interests as consumers, and regarding themselves, not as members of a coterie or a corporation, but as men.

Political Economy, we must say, has not yet exerted herself sufficiently to dissipate this fatal illusion, which has been the source of so much heartache, calamity, and irritation, and of so many wars. This science, from a preference that is narrowminded, has exhausted her efforts in analyzing the phenomena of production. The very nomenclature of the science, in fact, convenient as it is, is not in harmony with its object. Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, may be an excellent classification, when the object is to describe the processes of art; but that description, however essential in technology, has little connection with social economy—I should even say that it is positively dangerous. When we have classed men as agriculturists, manufacturers, and merchants, of what can we speak but of their class interests, of those special interests to which Competition is antagonistic, and which are placed in opposition to the general good? It is not for the sake of agriculturists that agriculture exists, of manufacturers that we have manufactures, or of merchants that we have exchanges, but in order that men should have at their disposal the greatest amount of commodities of every kind. Consumption, its laws, what favors it, and renders it equitable and moral—that is the interest that is truly social, and that truly affects the human race. It is the interest of the consumer that constitutes the real object of Political Economy, and upon which the science should concentrate its cleverest lights. This, in truth, forms the bond that unites classes, nations, races—it is the principle and explanation of human fraternity. It is with regret, then, that we see Economists expending their talents and sagacity on the anatomy of production, and throwing into the twisted conclusions of their books, or into supplementary chapters, a few common-places on the phenomena of consumption. Have we not even seen a justly celebrated professor suppressing entirely that branch of the science, confining himself to the means, without ever speaking of the result, and banishing from his course everything in connection with the consumption of wealth, as pertaining, in his opinion, to morals rather than to Political Economy? Can we be surprised that men are more struck with the inconveniences of Competition than with its advantages, since the former affect them specially as producers—in which character they are constantly considered and talked of; while the latter affect them only in their capacity of consumers—a capacity that is altogether disregarded and overlooked?

I repeat that I do not deny or ignore, on the contrary, I deplore as much anyone can, the sufferings attendant on Competition; but is this any reason for shutting our eyes to its advantages? And it is all the more consoling to observe these advantages, inasmuch as I believe Competition, like all the great laws of nature, to be indestructible. Had it been otherwise, it would assuredly have succumbed to the universal resistance that all the men who have ever co-operated in the production of commodities since the beginning of the world have offered to it, and more especially it would have perished under the combined assault of our modern reformers. But if they have been foolish enough to attempt its destruction, they have not been strong enough to effect it.

And what progressive principle, I would ask, is to be found in the world, the beneficent action of which is not mingled, especially in the beginning, with suffering and misery? The massing together of human beings in vast agglomerations is favorable to boldness and independence of thought, but it frequently sets private life free from the wholesome restraint of public opinion, and gives shelter to debauchery and crime. Wealth and leisure united give birth to mental cultivation, but they also give birth to pride and luxury among the rich, and to irritation and covetousness among the poor. The art of printing brings home knowledge and truth to all ranks of society; but it has brought also afflicting doubt and subversive error. Political liberty has unchained tempests and revolutions, and has modified the simple manners of primitive nations, to such a degree as to induce thinking men to ask themselves whether they would not have preferred tranquillity under the cold shade of despotism. Christianity herself has cast the noble seed of love and charity into a soil saturated with the blood of martyrs.

Why has it entered into the designs of Infinite Goodness and Justice that the happiness of one region or of one era should be purchased at the expense of the sufferings of another region or of another era? What is the Divine purpose that is concealed under this great law of solidarity, of which Competition is only one of the mysterious aspects? Human science cannot answer. What we do know is this, that good always goes on increasing, and that evil goes on diminishing. From the beginning of the social state, such as conquest had made it, when there existed only masters and slaves, and the inequality of conditions was extreme, the work of Competition in approximating ranks, fortunes, intelligences, could not be accomplished without inflicting individual hardships, the intensity of which, however, as the work proceeded, has gone on diminishing, like the vibrations of sound and the oscillations of the pendulum. To the sufferings yet in reserve for them, men learn every day to oppose two powerful remedies—namely, foresight, which is the fruit of knowledge and experience; and association, which is organized foresight.