The liberalism of the eighteenth century set the individual on his own two feet, and he could go quite as far as they would carry him. The theory left it up to the natural order of things to see to it that unlimited competition among individuals would yield a harmony of all interests, that the whole would fare best in the setting of ruthless individual strivings for advantage. That is the metaphysic with which eighteenth-century optimism about nature socially justified free competition.

DEFINE: This distinguishes the classical liberal metaphysic that unrestricted competition naturally produces social harmony from later interventions.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 542