Competition
overturns all notions of equity and justice; it increases the
real cost of production by needlessly multiplying the capital
invested, causes by turns the dearness of products and their
depreciation, corrupts the public conscience by putting chance in
the place of right, and maintains terror and distrust everywhere.
But what! Without this atrocious characteristic, competition
would lose its happiest effects; without the arbitrary element in
exchange and the panics of the market, labor would not
continually build factory against factory, and, not being
maintained in such good working order, production would realize
none of its marvels. After having caused evil to arise from the
very utility of its principle, competition again finds a way to
extract good from evil; destruction engenders utility,
equilibrium is realized by agitation, and it may be said of
competition, as Samson said of the lion which he had slain: De
comedente cibus exiit, et de forti dulcedo. Is there anything,
in all the spheres of human knowledge, more surprising than
political economy?
Let us take care, nevertheless, not to yield to an impulse of
irony, which would be on our part only unjust invective.
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