right of might.
By the right of property, neither the two neighbors A and B, nor the two
merchants C and D, could harm each other. They could neither dispossess
nor destroy one another, nor gain at one another's expense. The power of
invasion lies in superior strength.

But it is superior strength also which enables the manufacturer
to reduce the wages of his employees, and the rich merchant and
well-stocked proprietor to sell their products for what they please. The
manufacturer says to the laborer, "You are as free to go elsewhere
with your services as I am to receive them. I offer you so much." The
merchant says to the customer, "Take it or leave it; you are master of
your money, as I am of my goods. I want so much." Who will yield? The
weaker.

Therefore, without force, property is powerless against property, since
without force it has no power to increase; therefore, without force,
property is null and void.

HISTORICAL COMMENT.--The struggle between colonial and native sugars
furnishes us a striking example of this impossibility of property. Leave
these two industries to themselves, and the native manufacturer will
be ruined by the colonist. To maintain the beet-root, the cane must be
taxed: to protect the property of the one, it is necessary to injure the
property of the other. The most remarkable feature of this business is
precisely that to which the least attention is paid; namely, that, in
one way or another, property has to be violated. Impose on each industry
a proportional tax, so as to preserve a balance in the market, and you
create a MAXIMUM PRICE,--you attack property in two ways. On the one
hand, your tax interferes with the liberty of trade; on the other, it
does not recognize equality of proprietors. Indemnify the beet-root, you
violate the property of the tax-payer. Cultivate the two varieties of
sugar at the nation's expense, just as different varieties of tobacco
are cultivated,--you abolish one species of property. This last course
would be the simpler and better one; but, to induce the nations to adopt
it, requires such a co-operation of able minds and generous hearts as is
at present out of the question.

Competition, sometimes called liberty of trade,--in a word, property
in exchange,--will be for a long time the basis of our commercial
legislation; which, from the economical point of view, embraces all
civil laws and all government. Now, what is competition? A duel in a
closed field, wh