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Under the rule of individual property, the division of the produce is the result of... Competition and Custom. ...Political economists generally... lay almost exclusive stress upon the first... to exaggerate the effect of competition, and to take little account of the other... conflicting principle. ...nly through the principle of competition has political economy any pretension to the character of a science. So far as rents, profits, wages, prices, are determined by competition, laws may be assigned to them. ...But it would be a great misconception of the actual course of human affairs, to suppose that competition exercises in fact this unlimited sway. I am not speaking of monopolies, either natural or artificial, or of any interferences of authority with the liberty of production or exchange. Such disturbing causes have always been allowed for by political economists. ...Competition ...has only become in any considerable degree the governing principle of contracts, at a comparatively modern period. The farther back we look back into history, the more we see all transactions and engagements under the influence of fixed customs. ...To the industrious population, in a turbulent military community, freedom of competition is a vain phrase... there is always a master who throws his sword into the scale, and the terms are such as he imposes. But though the law of strongest decides... every relaxation of it has a tendency to become a custom, and every custom to become a right. Rights... and not competition... determine, in a rude state of society, the share of the produce enjoyed by those who produce it. (en) |
