The perfect competition partial equilibrium is Pareto-optimum with respect to the pre-equilibrium perfect competition. However, since the monopolist gets a better profit by being a monopolist than in perfect competition, a perfect competition partial equilibrium which starts with a pure-monopoly-then-turned-into-perfect-competition is not a Pareto-optimum. Or to put it another way, you can't use the perfect competition optimality as an argument to dismantle a monopoly. (By the way if you are trying to attack a monopoly, better use the Hayek argument on the spread of information through a free market.)
The much-trumpeted perfect competition optimality is not argument for perfect competition (whatever it is in the real world) but for not to stop the tendency through equilibrium in the particular structure of perfect competition; i. e., perfect competition optimality is a particular case of equilibrium optimality (vis-à-vis disequilibrium).
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