If I could be understood by M. Reybaud, I would say to him: Take
your stand in favor of competition, you will be wrong; take your
stand against competition, still you will be wrong: which
signifies that you will always be right. After that, if,
convinced that you have not erred either in the first edition of
your book or in the fourth, you should succeed in formulating
your sentiment in an intelligible manner, I will look upon you as
an economist of as great genius as Turgot and A. Smith; but I
warn you that then you will resemble the latter, of whom you
doubtless know little; you will be a believer in equality. Do
you accept the wager?
To better prepare M. Reybaud for this sort of reconciliation with
himself, let us show him first that this versatility of judgment,
for which anybody else in my place would reproach him with
insulting bitterness, is a treason, not on the part of the
writer, but on the part of the facts of which he has made himself
the interpreter.
In March, 1844, M. Reybaud published on oleaginous seeds--a
subject which interested the city of Marseilles, his
birthplace--an article in which he took vigorous ground in favor
of free competition and the oil of sesame.
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