Chapter II, The Metaphysics of Political Economy, 3. Competition and Monopoly - Part 3 of 8

But, Proudhon's idealist and moralist method, instead, views competition in terms of its “good” and “bad” sides. As its “good” side, Proudhon notes,

““Competition is as essential to labour as division.... It is necessary ... for the advent of equality.” [I 186, 188]” (p 133)

The “bad” side is,

““The principle is the negation of itself. Its most certain result is to ruin those whom it drags in its train.” [I 185]” (p 133)

Marx notes a general reflection cited by Proudhon from this,

““The drawbacks which follow in its wake, just as the good it provides... both flow logically from the principle.” [I 185-86]” (p 133)

Marx cites two variants of the problem to be solved, according to Proudhon.

““To seek the principle of accommodation, which must be derived from a law superior to liberty itself.” [I 185]” (p 134)

And,

““There can, therefore, be no question here of destroying competition, a thing as impossible to destroy as liberty; we have only to find its equilibrium, I would be ready to say its police.” [I 223]” (p 134)

Of course, bourgeois competition is not at all an eternal necessity. Competition, in some form, is, indeed, eternal, and coexists with cooperation. In a football match, two teams compete, against each other, but, inside each team, there must be cooperation. Indeed, the two teams cooperate in establishing the rules of the game, and adherence to them, as well as promoting football, in general, in competition with other sports and activities, and so on. Competition, in the bourgeois sense, is, however, specific to bourgeois society. In other forms of society, there may still be a desire to be efficient, and to do things better, but this does not necessitate competition in the bourgeois sense. Indeed, such ambitions may stimulate bench-marking, the use of best-practice, and emulation as a means, not of destroying the losers, but of enabling them to improve their own performance.

“M. Proudhon begins by defending the eternal necessity of competition against those who wish to replace it by emulation” (p 134)

Engels, in a footnote, points out that those referred to are the Fourierists.

Marx quotes Proudhon's statement,

“There is no “purposeless emulation,” and as “the object of every passion is necessarily analogous to the passion itself – a woman for the lover, power for the ambitious, gold for the miser, a garland for the poet – the object of industrial emulation is necessarily profit. Emulation is nothing but competition itself.” (p 134)

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