Of all the economists M.Dunoyer has most energetically embraced the positive side of competition, and consequently, as might have been expected, most ineffectually grasped the negative side.M.Dunoyer, with whom nothing can be done when what he calls principles are under discussion, is very far from believing that in matters of political economy yes and no may be true at the same moment and to the same extent; let it be said even to his credit, such a conception is the more repugnant to him because of the frankness and honesty with which he holds his doctrines.What would I not give to gain an entrance into this pure but so obstinate soul for this truth as certain to me as the existence of the sun, -- that all the categories of political economy are contradictions! Instead of uselessly exhausting himself in reconciling practice and theory; instead of contenting himself with the ridiculous excuse that everything here below has its advantages and its inconveniences, -- M.Dunoyer would seek the synthetic idea which solves all the antinomies, and, instead of the paradoxical conservative which he now is, he would become with us an inexorable and logical revolutionist.
"If competition is a false principle," says M.Dunoyer, "it follows that for two thousand years humanity has been pursuing the wrong road."
No, what you say does not follow, and your prejudicial remark is refuted by the very theory of progress.Humanity posits its principles by turns, and sometimes at long intervals: never does it give them up in substance, although it destroys successively their expressions and formulas.This destruction is called negation; because the general reason, ever progressive, continually denies the completeness and sufficiency of its prior ideas.
Thus it is that, competition being one of the periods in the constitution of value, one of the elements of the social synthesis, it is true to say at the same time that it is indestructible in its principle, and that nevertheless in its present form it should be abolished, denied.If, then, there is any one here who is in opposition to history, it is you.
I have several remarks to make upon the accusations of which competition has been the object.The first is that this regime, good or bad, ruinous or fruitful, does not really exist as yet; that it is established nowhere except in a partial and most incomplete manner.
This first observation has no sense.Competition kills competition, as we said at the outset; this aphorism may be taken for a definition.
How, then, could competition ever be complete? Moreover, though it should be admitted that competition does not yet exist in its integrity, that would simply prove that competition does not act with all the power of elimination that there is in it; but that will not change at all its contradictory nature.What need have we to wait thirty centuries longer to find out that, the more competition develops, the more it tends to reduce the number of competitors?
The second is that the picture drawn of it is unfaithful; and that sufficient heed is not paid to the extension which the general welfare has undergone, including even that of the laboring classes.
If some socialists fail to recognize the useful side of competition, you on your side make no mention of its pernicious effects.The testimony of your opponents coming to complete your own, competition is shown in the fullest light, and from a double falsehood we get the truth as a result.
As for the gravity of the evil, we shall see directly what to think about that.
The third is that the evil experienced by the laboring classes is not referred to its real causes.
If there are other causes of poverty than competition, does that prevent it from contributing its share? Though only one manufacturer a year were ruined by competition, if it were admitted that this ruin is the necessary effect of the principle, competition, as a principle, would have to be rejected.
The fourth is that the principal means proposed for obviating it would be inexpedient in the extreme.
Possibly: but from this I conclude that the inadequacy of the remedies proposed imposes a new duty upon you, -- precisely that of seeking the most expedient means of preventing the evil of competition.
The fifth, finally, is that the real remedies, in so far as it is possible to remedy the evil by legislation, would be found precisely in the regime which is accused of having produced it, -- that is, in a more and more real regime of liberty and competition.
Well! I am willing.The remedy for competition, in your opinion, is to make competition universal.But, in order that competition may be universal, it is necessary to procure for all the means of competing; it is necessary to destroy or modify the predominance of capital over labor, to change the relations between employer and workman, to solve, in a word, the antinomy of division and that of machinery; it is necessary to ORGANIZE LABOR: can you give this solution?
M.Dunoyer then develops, with a courage worthy of a better cause, his own utopia of universal competition: it is a labyrinth in which the author stumbles and contradicts himself at every step.
"Competition," says M.Dunoyer, "meets a multitude of obstacles."
In fact, it meets so many and such powerful ones that it becomes impossible itself.For how is triumph possible over obstacles inherent in the constitution of society and consequently inseparable from competition itself?
