The Montaigne Dogma

Légal Trap

The shortest essay in Montaigne’s Essays is “That the profit of one man is the damage of another” (Book I-22; in some editions, like the Gutenberg translation that I use here, I-21). It’s only 232 words long and it states that everybody’s gains are based on the misery of others. It’s not only the shortest essay in Montaigne’s book but maybe also the most criticized one. I don’t want to say that it is brilliant, but is the critique right? Since most criticisms go back to and follow what the Austrian economist and philosopher Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) has written about it, in this blog I’ll discuss his view.
Von Mises formulated his criticism of Montaigne’s essay especially in his book Human Action, chapter 24 (first section) (HA, for short). Since I don’t have an English version of this book at my disposal, I follow the Dutch text, and von Mises’s words quoted here may not be what he literally has written. But, of course, the essence is right. In HA, von Mises says that an old economic idea is that “the gain of one is the loss of the other; one makes profit only through the loss of others”. It’s an old dogma, so von Mises, and since Montaigne was the first modern author to reformulate it, he calls it the “Montaigne dogma”. And he continues: “It was the centrepiece of the doctrines of mercantilism, old and new. It underlies all modern doctrines that teach that within the framework of the market economy there is an irreconcilable conflict between the interests of different social classes within a country and, moreover, between the interests of several countries.” There are circumstances, so von Mises, that the Montaigne dogma is right, but generally it isn’t: “What causes the profit of a few in the course of a free market community is not the misfortune of his fellow man, but the fact that he alleviates or completely removes that which gives his fellow man a feeling of unease.” And then von Mises gives some counterexamples that apparently are meant as rejections of what Montaigne says in essay I-22, since they are based on and sometimes literally follow what Montaigne says there. “What causes the profit of a few in the course of a free market community”, so von Mises, “is not the misfortune of his fellow man, but the fact that he alleviates or completely removes that which gives his fellow man a feeling of unease. What harms the sick is the plague, not the doctor who treats the disease. The doctor’s profit is not the result of epidemics, but of the help he offers to those affected.” (my italics) Leaving aside that Montaigne doesn’t talk about a free market community, of course, but about human behaviour and how man gains a profit, does Montaigne really say that the doctor harms the patient so that he can treat the patient? Does Montaigne really say that the one who gains does so by harming the other? So, is it right to talk here of a Montaigne dogma?
Let’s look at Montaigne’s essay I-22. Its original title is  “Le Profit de l’Un Est Dommage de l’Autre” (see here), translated in the Gutenberg version of the Essays as “That the profit of one man is the damage of another”. This title is neutral in its meaning: If one person has damage, another profits by it. But let’s quote Montaigne’s examples:
“The merchant only thrives by the debauchery of youth, the husband man by the dearness of grain, the architect by the ruin of buildings, lawyers and officers of justice by the suits and contentions of men: nay, even the honour and office of divines are derived from our death and vices. A physician takes no pleasure in the health even of his friends, says the ancient Greek comic writer, nor a soldier in the peace of his country, and so of the rest.” (Essays I-22)
The examples used here by Montaigne only say that making profit by one person goes together with the damage of another person and that the former takes advantage of the latter’s damage. Montaigne doesn’t say that the one who makes profit caused the damage of the other. So, Montaigne doesn’t say, for instance, that the doctor makes the patient sick, but only that the doctor gets his income because the patient is sick. However, von Mises apparently has read the quoted passage as a kind of “post hoc propter hoc”, so as a kind of “after it so because of it”: The gains come because who gains does so by causing a damage to another. I must admit that the next sentence after the quotation from I-22, might suggest this: “[L]et every one but dive into his own bosom, and he will find his private wishes spring and his secret hopes grow up at another’s expense.” But the title and the tenor of this essay make clear that Montaigne wants to say only that everyone hopes to profit from another’s misery, not that he causes this misery. Maybe there is a dogma that says that “the gain of one is the loss of the other; one makes profit only through the loss of others” but it is not Montaigne’s dogma, anyway not in the way the statement is interpreted by von Mises.
But even if there is no Montaigne dogma in von Mises’s sense, one can ask whether Montaigne is right in saying that the profit of one man is the damage of another. Although it may happen, I think that, generally speaking, it’s not true. There are many ways a man can make a profit. Profiting from the damage or misery of others is only one way.