Monopoly is a species of the genus spoliation. It has many varieties, among them sinecure, privilege, and restriction upon trade. Some of the forms it assumes are simple and _naive_, like feudal rights. Under this _regime_ the masses are despoiled, and know it. Other forms are more complicated. Often the masses are plundered, and do not know it. It may even happen that they believe that they owe every thing to spoliation, not only what is left them but what is taken from them, and what is lost in the operation. I also assert that, in the course of time, thanks to the ingenious machinery of habit, many people become spoilers without knowing it or wishing it. Monopolies of this kind are begotten by fraud and nurtured by error. They vanish only before the light. I have said enough to indicate that political economy has a manifest practical use. It is the torch which, unveiling deceit and dissipating error, destroys that social disorder called spoliation. Some one, a woman I believe, has correctly defined it as "the safety-lock upon the property of the people." COMMENTARY. If this little book were destined to live three or four thousand years, to be read and re-read, pondered and studied, phrase by phrase, word by word, and letter by letter, from generation to generation, like a new Koran; if it were to fill the libraries of the world with avalanches of annotations, explanations and paraphrases, I might leave to their fate, in their rather obscure conciseness, the thoughts which precede. But since they need a commentary, it seems wise to me to furnish it myself. The true and equitable law of humanity is the _free exchange of service for service_. Spoliation consists in destroying by force or by trickery the freedom of exchange, in order to receive a service without rendering one. Forcible spoliation is exercised thus: Wait till a man has produced something; then take it from him by violence. It is solemnly condemned by the Decalogue: _Thou shalt not steal._ When practiced by one individual on another, it is called robbery, and leads to the prison; when practiced among nations, it takes the name of conquest, and leads to glory. Why this difference? It is worth while to search for the cause. It will reveal to us an irresistible power, public opinion, which, like the atmosphere, envelopes us so completely that we do not notice it. Rousseau never said a truer thing than this: "A great deal of philosophy is needed to understand the facts which are very near to us."