THE METAPHYSICS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 165
Thesis: Feudal monopoly anterior to competition.
Antithesis : Competition.
Synthesis: Modern monopoly, which is the negation of feudal monopoly in so far as it supposes the régime of competition, and which is the negation of competition in so far as it is monopoly.
Thus modern monopoly, bourgeois monopoly, is syn- thetic monopoly, the negation of the negation, the unity of contraries. It is monopoly in its pure, normal, ra- tional state. M. Proudhon is in contradiction with his own philosophy when he makes of bourgeois monopoly, monopoly in the crude, simple, contradictory, spasmodic state. M. Rossi, whom M. Proudhon often quotes on the subject of monopoly, appears to have more clearly grasped the synthetic character of bourgeois monopoly. In his “Cours d’Economie Politique,” he distinguishes between artificial monopolies and natural monopolies. Feudal monopolies, he says, are artificial, that is to say arbitrary; bourgeois monopolies are natural, that is to say rational.
Monopoly is a good thing, reasons M. Proudhon, since it is an economic category, an emanation “from the impersonal reason of humanity.” Competition is another good thing since it also is an economic category. But what is not good is the reality of monopoly and the reality of competition. What is worse still is that com- petition and monopoly devour each other mutually. What is to be done? Seek the synthesis of these two eternal thoughts, drag it from the bosom of God, where it has been deposited from time immemorial.
In practical life we find not only competition, monop- oly, and their antagonism, but also their synthesis, which is not a formula but a movement. Monopoly produces competition, competition produces monopoly. The
