ompetition, as a universal phenomenon, was first clearly conceived and
adequately described by the biologists. As defined in the evolutionary
formula "the struggle for existence" the notion captured the popular
imagination and became a commonplace of familiar discourse. Prior to
that time competition had been regarded as an economic rather than a
biological phenomenon.

It was in the eighteenth century and in England that we first find any
general recognition of the new role that commerce and the middleman were
to play in the modern world. "Competition is the life of trade" is a
trader's maxim, and the sort of qualified approval that it gives to the
conception of competition contains the germ of the whole philosophy of
modern industrial society as that doctrine was formulated by Adam Smith
and the physiocrats.

The economists of the eighteenth century were the first to attempt to
rationalize and justify the social order that is based on competition
and individual freedom. They taught that there was a natural harmony in
the interests of men, which once liberated would inevitably bring about,
in the best of all possible worlds, the greatest good to the greatest
number.

The individual man, in seeking his own profit, will necessarily seek to
produce and sell that which has most value for the community, and so "he
is in this, as in many other cases," as Adam Smith puts it, "led by an
invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."

The conception has been stated with even greater unction by the French
writer, Frederic Bastiat.

Since goods which seem at first to be the exclusive property of
individuals become by the estimable decrees of a wise
providence [competition] the common possession of all; since
the natural advantages of situation, the fertility,
temperature, mineral richness of the soil and even industrial
skill do not accrue to the producers, because of competition
among themselves, but contribute so much the more to the profit
of the consumer; it follows that there is no country that is
not interested in the advancement of all the others.[180]

The freedom which commerce sought and gained upon the principle of
laissez faire has enormously extended the area of competition and in
doing so has created a world-economy where previously there were only
local markets. It has created at the same time a division of labor that
includes all the nation