Nevertheless this justification would seem of
little force and would end only in a more energetic rejection of
competition than ever, if monopoly could not in turn posit itself
by itself and as a principle.
In the preceding chapters we have seen that division of labor is
the specification of the workman considered especially as
intelligence; that the creation of machinery and the organization
of the workshop express his liberty; and that, by competition,
man, or intelligent liberty, enters into action. Now, monopoly
is the expression of victorious liberty, the prize of the
struggle, the glorification of genius; it is the strongest
stimulant of all the steps in progress taken since the beginning
of the world: so true is this that, as we said just now, society,
which cannot exist with it, would not have been formed without
it.
Where, then, does monopoly get this singular virtue, which the
etymology of the word and the vulgar aspect of the thing would
never lead us to suspect?
Monopoly is at bottom simply the autocracy of man over himself:
it is the dictatorial right accorded by nature to every producer
of using his faculties as he pleases, of giving free play to his
thought in whatever direction it prefers, of speculating, in such
specialty as he may please to choose, with all the power of his
resources, of disposing sovereignly of the instruments which he
has created and of the capital accumulated by his economy for any
enterprise the risks of which he may see fit to accept on the
express condition of enjoying alone the fruits of his discovery
and the profits of his venture.
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