Page:Principles of Political Economy Vol 2.djvu/397

Rh evils. As M. Feugueray well says, "La racine la plus profonde des maux et des iniquités qui couvrent le monde industriel, n'est pas la concurrence, mais bien l'exploitation du travail par le capital, et la part énorme que les possesseurs des instruments de travail prélèvent sur les produits... Si la concurrence a beaucoup de puissance pour le mal, elle n'a pas moins de fécondité pour le bien, surtout en ce qui concerne le développement des facultés individuelles, et le succès des innovations." It is the common error of Socialists to overlook the natural indolence of mankind; their tendency to be passive, to be the slaves of habit, to persist indefinitely in a course once chosen. Let them once attain any state of existence which they consider tolerable, and the danger to be apprehended is that they will thenceforth stagnate; will not exert themselves to improve, and by letting their faculties rust, will lose even the energy required to preserve them from deterioration. Competition may not be the best conceivable stimulus, but it is at present a necessary one, and no one can foresee the time when it will not be indispensable to progress. Even confining ourselves to the industrial department, in which, more than in any other, the majority may be supposed to be competent judges of improvements; it would be difficult to induce the general assembly of an association to submit to the trouble and inconvenience of altering their habits by adopting some new and promising invention, unless their knowledge of the existence of rival associations made them apprehend that what they would not consent to do, others would, and that they would be left behind in the race.

Instead of looking upon competition as the baneful and anti-social principle which it is held to be by the generality of Socialists, I conceive that, even in the present state of society and industry, every restriction of it is an evil, and every extension of it, even if for the time injuriously affecting some class of labourers, is always an ultimate good. To be pro-