Abstract
It is now two centuries since a wide readership got acquainted with Adam Smith’s principle of the Invisible Hand. Social philosophy is at least ten times older. Competition as a beneficial principle of a social order then is a latecomer in social theory. It is obviously not true that a society can be organized exclusively on the principle of competition. Socially beneficial competition needs an institutional framework which itself has to be protected by (government) activities, which cannot exclusively be organized by the principle of competition. Unrestrained freedom of competition is identical to Hobbes’ state of nature before men agree to subject themselves to the rule of Leviathan. It is significant that the Leviathan was written a century before the Wealth of Nations. Only based on the principle of the state’s monopoly of physical force can the principle of the Invisible Hand be established.
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© 1980 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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von Weizsäcker, C.C. (1980). The General Theoretical Framework. In: Barriers to Entry. Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, vol 185. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-46426-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-46426-3_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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