nly increases and multiplies the productivity
of labour, but also compensates for the moral deficiency caused by the
division of labour, and supplies a higher unity and synthesis in place
of the division of labour. But according to Proudhon this is not the
case; with machinery begins the distinction between masters and
wage-earners, between capitalists and workmen. Thus mankind, instead
of being raised up by machinery from degradation, sinks deeper and
deeper. Man loses both his character as a man, and freedom, and
becomes only a tool. Prosperity increases for the masters, poverty for
the men; the distinction of caste begins, and a terrible struggle
becomes manifest, which consists in increasing men in order to be able
to do without them. And so the general pressure becomes more and more
severe; poverty, already heralded by the division of labour, at last
makes its appearance in the world, and henceforth becomes the soul and
sinews of society.

As opposed to its aristocratic tendencies, society places freedom or
competition. Competition emancipates the workman and produces an
incalculable growth in wealth. By competition the productions of
labour continually sink in price, or (what comes to the same thing)
continually increase in quality: and since the sources of competition,
just like mechanical improvements and combinations of the division of
labour, are infinite, it may be said that the productive force of
competition is unlimited as regards intensity and scope. At last, by
competition, the production of wealth gets definitely ahead of the
production of men, by which statement Proudhon destroys the dogma of
Malthus, which, we may remark, was no more proved than his own. But
this competition is also a new source of pauperism, because the
lowering of prices which it brings with it only benefits, on the one
hand, those who succeed, and, on the other, leaves those who fail
without work and without means of subsistence. The necessary
consequence, and, at the same time, the natural antithesis of
competition is monopoly. It is that form of social possession without
which no labour, no production, no exchange, and no wealth would be
possible. It is most intimately connected with individualism and
freedom, so that without it we can hardly imagine society, and yet it
is, quite as much as competition, anti-social and harmful. For
monopoly attracts everything to itself--land, labour, and the
implements of labour, productions an