Karl Marx

The Poverty of Philosophy Karl Marx

To THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION THE present work was -produced in the winter of 1846-47, at a time when Marx had cleared up for himself the basic features of his new historical and economic outlook. Proudhon s Sjsteme des Contradictions economiqu.es ou Philosophic de la Misere, which had just appeared, gave him the opportunity to develop these basic features in opposing them to the views of a man who. from then on, was to occupy the chief place among living French So cialists. From the time when the two of them in Paris had often spent whole nights in discussing economic questions, their paths had more and more diverged; Proudhon sbook proved that tliere was already an unbridgeable gulf between them. To ignore it was at that time impossible, and so Marx by this ansver of his put on record the irreparable rupture. Marx sconclusive judgment on Proudhon is to be found in the article, given as appendix to this preface, which appeared in the Berlin Sozialdcmokrat1, Nos. 16, 17 and 18, in 1865. It was the only article that Marx wrote for that paper; Herr von Schweitzer sattempts, which soon afterwards became evident, to guide it along feudal and government lines compelled us to announce publicly the end of our collaboration after only a few weeks. For Germany the present work has just at this moment a significance which Marx himself never foresaw. How could he have known that, in trouncing Proudhon, he was hitting Rodbertus. the idol of the place hunters of today, whose very name was then unknown to him? This is not the place to deal with the relation of Marx to Rodbertus; an opportunity for that is sure to occur to me very soon. The superior figures in the text refer to the explanatory notes. Ed. See page 164 of the present volume. Ed.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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