All M. Proudhon's logic amounts to is this: competition is a social relation in which we are now developing our productive forces. To this truth, he gives no logical development, but only forms, often very well developed, when he says that competition is industrial emulation, the present-day mode of freedom, responsibility in labor, constitution of value, a condition for the advent of equality, a principle of social economy, a decree of fate, a necessity of the human soul, an inspiration of eternal justice, liberty in division, division on liberty, an economic category.
"Competition and association support each other. Far from excluding each other they are not even divergent. Whoever says competition already supposes a common aiM. Competition is therefore not egoism, and the most deplorable error com- mitted by socialism is to have regarded it as the overthrow of society."[I 223]
Whoever says competition says common aim, and that proves, on the one hand, that competition is association; on the other, that competition is not egoisM. And whoever says egoism , does he not say common aim?? Every egoism operates in society and by the fact of society. Hence it presupposes society, that is to say, common aims, common needs, common means of production, etc., etc. Is it, then, be mere chance that the competition and association which the Socialists talk about are not even divergent??
Socialists know well enough that present-day society is founded on competition. How could they accuse competition of overthrowing present-day society which they want to overthrow themselves?? And how could they accuse competition of overthrowing the society to come, in which they see, on the contrary, the overthrow of competition??
M. Proudhon says, later on, that competition is the opposite of monopoly , and consequently cannot be the opposite of association .
Feudalism was, from its origins, opposed to patriarchal monarchy;it was thus not opposed to competition, which was not yet in existence.
Does it follow that competition is not opposed to feudalism??
In actual fact, society , association are denominations which can be given to every society, to feudal society as well as to bourgeois society which is association founded on competition. How then can there be Socialists, who, by the single word association , think they can refute competition?? And how can M. Proudhon himself wish to defend competition against socialism by describing competition by the single word association ??
All we have just said makes up the beautiful side of competition as M. Proudhon sees it. Now let us pass on to the ugly side, that is the negative side, of competition, its drawbacks, its destructive, subversive elements, its injurious qualities.
There is something dismal about the picture M. Proudhon draws of it.
Competition engenders misery, it foments civil war, it "changes natural zones", mixes up nationalities, causes trouble in families, corrupts the public conscience, "subverts the notion of equity, of justice", of morality, and what is worse, it destroys free, honest trade, and does not even give in exchange synthetic value , fixed, honest price. It disillusions everyone, even economists. It pushes things so far as to destroy its very self.
After all the ill M. Proudhon says of it, can there be for the relations of bourgeois society, for its principles and its illusions, a more disintegrating, more destructive element than competition??
It must be carefully noted that competition always becomes the more destructive for bourgeois relations in proportion as it urges on a feverish creation of new productive forces, that is, of the material conditions of a new society. In this respect at least, the bad side of competition would have its good points.
"Competition as an economic position or phase, considered in its origin, is the necessary result... of the theory of the reduction of general expenses."[I 235]
For M. Proudhon, the circulation of the blood must be a consequence of Harvey's theory.
"Monopoly is the inevitable end of competition, which engen- ders it by a continual negation of itself. This generation of monopoly is in itself a justification of it....
"Monopoly is the natural opposite of competition... but as soon as competition is necessary, it implies the idea of monopoly, since monopoly is, as it were, the seat of each competing individuality."[I 236, 237]
We rejoice with M. Proudhon that he can for once at least properly apply his formula to thesis and antithesis. Everyone knows that modern monopoly is engendered by competition itself.
As for the content, M. Proudhon clings to poetic images. Competition made "of every subdivision of labor a sort of sovereignty in which each individual stood with his power and his independence". Monopoly is "the seat of every competing individuality". The sovereignty is worth at least as much as the seat.
