System of Economical Contradictions; Or, The Philosophy of Misery

value in USE and

e as a basis of conjecture. Value, in fact, presents two faces: one, which the economists call value in USE, or intrinsic value; another, value in EXCHANGE, or of opinion. The effects which are produced by val

s constitution effected? To answer these questions is the object and end of political economy. I beg the reader to give his whole attention to what is

in other words, if the quantity of every valuable thing was inexhaustible,-my welfare would be forever assured: I should not have to labor; I should not even think. In such a state, things would always be USEFUL, but it would be no longer true to say that they ARE VALUABLE; for value, as we shall soon see, indicates an essentially social relation; and it is solely through exchange, reverting as it were from society to Nature, that we have acquired the ide

of the latter), nevertheless maintain a relation of succession: exchangeable value is a sort of reflex of useful value; just as the theologians teach that in the Trinity the Father, contempla

to yield me a portion of their products in exchange for mine. I shall then always have in my possession more of my own special product than I consume; just as my fellows will always have in their possession more of their respective products than they use. This tacit agreement is fulfilled by COMMER

in use; their capacity of purchasing each other, value in exchange. At bottom this is the same thing, since the second case only adds to the

; by it wealth and society are simultaneously created. Not only does labor produce incomparably more wealth than Nature gives us,-for instance, it has been remarked that the shoemakers alone in France produce ten times more than the mines of Peru, Brazil, and Mexico combined,-but, labor infinitely

ociation and distribution through labor until complete equality is attained. Chasms are scattered along our roa

den catastrophe, would be impoverished only; obliged to give a large quantity of his own value for a small quantity of the values of others, his means of subsistence would be reduced by an amount equal to the deficit in his sale: which would lead by degrees from competency to want. If, finally, the utility of the product should increase, or else if its production should become less costly, the balance of exchange would turn to the advantage of the producer, whose condition would thus be raised from fatiguing mediocrity to idle opulence. This phenomenon of depreciation and

cter of value, but what they have not made equally plai

away exchange, and utility vanishes: these two things are

that amount his exchanges, and consequently his enjoyments. Well, the first effect, the inevitable effect, of the multiplication of values is to LOWER them: the more abundant is

ng ahead for the explanation, to

be utterly mistaken. If the crop of wheat is double throughout the whole country, twenty sacks will sell for less than ten would have sold for if it had been but half as great; so, under similar circumstances, fifty yards of linen will be worth less than twenty-five: so that value decreases as the production of utility increases, and a producer may arrive at poverty by contin

n article of minor usefulness, which could easily be dispensed with, an exaggerated value of opinion: such, in general, are the arts of luxury. Man, through his aesthetic passion, is eager for the trifles the possession of which would highly satisfy his vanity, his innate desire for luxury, and his more noble and more respectable love of the beautiful: upon this the dealers in this class of articles speculate. To tax fan

e value, which the economists have been in the habit of regarding as very simple: it must be sh

eater or less cost does not serve at all to explain the variations in its price. Value is capricious, like liberty: it considers neither utility nor labor; on the contrary, it seems that, in the ordinary course of affairs, and exceptional derangements aside, the most useful objects are those which are sold at the lowest price; in other words, that it is just that the men who perform the most attractive labor should be the best rewarded, while those whose tasks demand the most exertion are paid the least. So that, in following the principle to its ultimate consequences, we reach the most lo

e which may serve to explain others, but which in themselves, like the bodies called simple, are inexplicable. Such is the dualism of spirit and matter. Spirit and matter are two terms each of which, taken separately, indicates a special aspect of spirit, but corresponds to no reality. So, given man's needs

y exchange our products, mine must suit you when you are the BUYER, and I must be satisfied with yours when you are the SELLER. For no one has a right to impose his own merchandise upon another: the sole judge of utility, or in other words the want, is the bu

lways is an arbitrary matter, and the price of merchandise will ever fluctuate. Suppose for a moment that all producers should sell at a fixed price: there would be some who, producing at less cost and in bette

oy liberty, which is to deny equality itself. Would you group producers in a single workshop (supposing you to possess this secret)? That again does not suffice: it would be necessary also to group consumers in a common household, whereby you would abandon the point. We are not to abolish the idea of value, which is as impossible as

I wish to pay, and that you on the other hand, as a free producer, control the means of production, and consequently have the power t

our vineyards, three years of abundance are a calamity to the wine-grower I know well that the economists attribute this distress to a lack of markets; wherefore this question of markets is an important one with them. Unfortunately the theory of markets, like that of emigr

ally false, conclusions: the former have made it a text for the slander of political economy and its exclusion from social science; the latter, for the denial of al

parties are eq

s a general form of thought,-that is, as a category. Now, as the idea of value is the point of departure of political economy, it follows that all the elements of the science-I use the word science in anticipation-are contradictory in themselves and opposed to each other: so truly is this the case that on e

ively unfamiliar as yet to most economists,-antinomy is the conception of a law with two faces, the one positive, the other negative. Such, for instance, is the law called ATTRACTION, by which the planets revolve around the sun, and which mathema

surdity. This distinction between antinomy (contra-lex) and contradiction (contra-dictio) shows in what sense it can be

rom a contradiction,- that is, from a something which is affirmed and denied at the same moment and from the same point of view,-and that it may be necessary to abandon wholly the old-fashioned logic, which regards contradiction as the infallible sign of error? This babble is worthy of sophists who, destitute of faith and honesty, endeavor to perpetuate scepticism in order to maintain their impertinent uselessness. Because antinomy, immediately it is misunderstood, leads inevitably to contradiction, these have been mistaken for

terms has received the name thesis, position, and the second the name anti-thesis, counter-position. This method of thought is now so well-known that it will soon figure, I

plies to an infinite extent, and while manufactures tend in consequence to increase the natural utility of things, and finally to convert all useful value into exchangeable value, production, on the other hand, continu

massacres of competition; monopoly; reductions of wages; laws fixing maximum prices; the crushing inequality of fortunes; misery,-all these

cation by a legal decree. Hence this lamentable outbreak of sentimentalism, which has rendered socialism so insipid to positive minds, and which, spreading the absurdest delusions,

of modern metaphysics. It is indeed demonstrated, by the most positive evidence known to the human mind, that wherever an antinomy appears there is a promise of a resolution of its terms, and consequently an announcement of a coming change. Now, the idea of value, as developed by J. B. Say among others, satisfies exactly these conditions. But the economists, who have remained for the most part by an inconceivable fatality ignorant of the movement of philosophy, have guard

r all kinds of merchandise upon the basis of the average product per man and per day's labor in each branch of industry. "Le Journal des Economistes" (August, 1845) immediately made th

perpetual motion or quadrature of the circle, and that these never will be found. Now, if there is no standard of value, if the measure of value is not even a metaphysica

crated expression: though I shall show directly that this phrase, MEASURE OF VALUE, is somewhat am

ly to observing facts, but to seeking their explanation in the ideas which produce them,-I do not doubt that he would have expressed himself more cautiously, and that, instead of seeing in the variability of value the LAST WORD OF SCIENCE, he would have recognized unaided that it is the first. Seeing that the variability of value

e said to be unanimous. It is for this reason that so many kinds of merchandise are sold at a fixed price; there are some, indeed, which, even in their variations, are always fixed,-bread, for instance. It will not be denied that, if two manufacturers can supply one another by an account current, and at a settled price, with quantities of their respective products, ten, a hundred, a thousand manufacturers can do the same. Now, that would be a s

other as the crops which they yield with the same outlay; and here universal practice is in harmony with theory. Now who will say that this

nce teach us that there is no measure of value and can be none, and prove that, though the conception of such an idea wa

MAND, held up as the sole regulators of value, are nothing more than two ceremonial forms serving to bring useful value and exchangeable value face to face, and to provoke their reconciliation. They are the two electric poles, whose connection must produce the economical phenomenon of affinity called EXCHANGE. Like the poles of a battery, supply and demand are diametrically opposed to each other, and tend continually to mutual annihilation; it is by their antagonism that the price of things is either i

ation, taken at random from a million, there is no means of knowing which prevailed, supply-that is, useful value-or exchangeable value,-that is, demand. But as every increase in the price of merchandise is followed sooner or later by a proportional reduction; as, in other words, in society the profits of speculat

ure is irrational, unreasonable. Say as often as you please, on the one hand, that political economy is a science of facts, and that the facts are contrary to the hypothesis of a determination of valu

sts which has not its law; and that, if the law of exchange is not

ly, justice will be the condition of fraternity and the basis of associati

n of value; defi

can acquire this new idea, we shall have absolute value; and a table of values, su

ich new elements, continually entering, combine in different proportions, but according to a certain law:

and also when, after having demonstrated that this standard of measure was neither here nor there, they have concluded that value has neither law nor measure; the o

changeable value; in the second place, it puts an end to the contradiction which seemed an insurmountable obstacle in the way of the determination of value; further, we shal

onality of products is, as we might prove easily by innumerable quotations, a common idea running through the works on political economy, but to which no one as yet has dreamed of attributing its rightful importance: and this is the task which

of money has proved that, far from being the measure of values, specie is only their arithmetic, and a conventional arithmetic at that. Gold and silver are to value what the thermometer is to heat. The thermometer, with its arbitrarily graduated scale, indicates clearly when there is a loss or an increase of heat: but w

lates the proportions of the various products to the social wealth; for upon the knowledge of this law depends the rise and fall of prices in so far as it is normal and legitimate. In a word, as we understand

tion has its law, and thi

seless. The internal movement by which the combination is produced, and which the affinities of the various substances determine-this movement in society is exchange; exchange considered no longer simply in its elementary form and between man and man, but exchange considered as the fusion of all values produced

n later the fu

to the formation of water. There is nothing objectionable in this method of determining values; it is, after all, only a matter of accounts. But such a work, however interesting it might be, would teach us nothing very useful. On the one hand, indeed, we know that the proportion continually varies; on the other, it is clear that from a statement of the pub

ns, know no more of their how or why than of the force which governs them. Social economy, on the contrary, to which no a posteriori investigati

ciples of Nature and the most general laws, simple in their action and formula, but infinitely modified by a multitude of special causes, and manifesting themselves under an innumerable variety of forms. It is labor, labor alone, that produces all the el

ORTION. From this fundamental datum it follows that society always, at each instant of its life, must strive for such proportion in its products as will give the greatest amount of well-being, considering the power and means of production. Abundance, variety,

ut it a portion of human labor is lost,-that is, useless, inharmonio

the fire of heaven, and invents the early arts; Prometheus foresees the future, and a

pointments. But, as a final result, the more he labors, the greater is his well-being and the more idealized his luxury; the further he extends his conquests over Nature, the more strongly he fortifies within him the principle of life and intelligence in the exercise of which he alone finds happiness; till finally, the early education of the Laborer completed and order introduced into his occupations, t

ortionality of values; its guarantee and san

st costly, and consequently most necessary, things; then, as fast as his position becomes secure, he will look forward to articles of luxury, proceeding always, if he is wise, according to the natural position of each article in the scale of prices. Sometimes Prometheus will make a mistake in his

f all the others, equally constitutes the general well-being, the state of prosperity of a country. So, when he says: "The fortune of each consumer is perpetually at war with all that he buys," he should have added again: "The fortune of each producer is incessantly attacked by

is it true that cheapness of products is always a correlative of their necessity, and vice versa; so that t

sly produced, and therefore the most necessary, which cost the least. But the parallel between the utility and price of products is not characterized by this theoretical precision: either through th

E, HUNTING, and FISHING, which were followed long afterwards by agriculture? Since then, these four primitive industries have been perfected, and moreover appropriated: a double circumstance which does not change the meaning of the facts, but, on t

ple by distinguishing four great classes of industry, which he arranges according to

hor placed agriculture last in the list. For, despite its great antiquity, it is certain that this industry has not kept pace with the others, and the succession of human affairs is not decided by their origin, b

ffect the production of the values that make up his well-being. Our law of proportionality, then, is at once phys

initions, has become more necessary. How, then, shall we explain this change? Why has the calendar, so useless to the early hordes, who only needed the alternation of night and day, as of winter and summer, become at last so in

occupations and from those which immediately followed them. In other words, these industries had to become more productive, or less costly, than they were at th

oduct will change its position in the table of the elements of wealth; its power of affinity for other products, so to speak, being increased, its relative value will be proportionately diminished, and, instead of being quoted at one hundred, it will thereafter be quoted only at ten. But this value will still and always be non

multiplying our tasks, rendering our moments more and more precious, and obliging us to keep a perpetual and detailed record of our whole life-the calendar has become to all one of the most

jection, the only one that can be offered again

a species of merchandise indeed like any other, to take it as the principal and efficient cause of value is t

bor is said TO HAVE VALUE, not as merchandise itself, but in view of the values supposed to be contained

he rules of language, but which theorists ought to guard against mistaking for a reality. Labor, like liberty, love, ambition, genius, is a thing vague and indeterminate in its nature, but qualitatively defined by its

ry consequence, to transform natural or indefinite utilities (appropriated or not) into measurable or social utilities: when

IONAL RELATION OF THE PRODUCTS WHICH CONSTITUTE WEALTH, and what we call the value of any special product is a formula which expresses, in terms of money, the proportion of this product to t

ce, and governs progress. Every effort of thinking and laboring humanity, every individual and social speculation, as an integrant part of collective wealth, obeys this law. It was the destiny of political economy, by successively positing all its

ty between producer and consumer, the revenue paid to an idler is like value cast into the flames of Etna, so the laborer who receives excessive wages is like a gleaner to whom should be

set the example, of sacrifice; selfishness is stronger, and only the law of severity, economic fatality, is capable of mastering it. Humanitarian enthusiasm may produce shocks favorable to the progress of civilization; but these crises of sentiment, like the oscillations of value, must always result only in a firmer and more absolute establishment of justice. Nature, or Divinity, we distrust in our hearts: she has never believed in the love of man for his fellow; and all that science reveals to us of the ways of Providence in the progress

and, since the precept of charity always has failed to promote social wel

usly united. It implies utility, for, without this condition, the product would be destitute of that affinity which renders it exchangeable, and consequently makes it an elem

s possess of serving for our enjoyments and in our researches; venality is no longer the exaggeration of a blind fancy or an unprincipled opinion; finally, variability has ceased to exp

, discovered by the alimentary instinct, then prepared by the digestive organs, enters into the general circulation, where it i

in their place a compound possessed, but in a superior degree, of all their positive properties, and divested of all their negative properties. A value really such-like money, first-class business paper, government annuities, shares in a well-established enterprise-can neither be increased without reason nor lost in exchange: it is governed only by the natural law of the additio

rmation or negation-for both amount to the same thing-of two diametrically opposite concepts. Whence we deduce this corollary, of the first importance in practice as well as in theory: wherever, in the spheres of

to certain economists, who, apropos of my critique of property, have heaped dilemmas on dilemmas to prove that, if I was

. Blanqui, "he showed that labor is the universal and invariable measure of values, and proved that everything has its natural price, toward whic

the authority of facts. The antinomy had to be expressed in a plainer and clearer manner: J. B. Say was its principal interpreter. But, in spite of the im

IL IT IS RECOGNIZED. . . . . ." There is, therefore, a method of recognizing the value of things,-that is, of determining it; and, as this recognition or determination results from the comp

, generally so clear and decided, embarrasses himself with vain distinctions: "We may APPRECIATE the value of things; we cannot MEASURE it,-that is, COMPARE it with an invariable and known standard, for no such standard exists. We can do nothing but ESTIMATE THE VALUE

ach other in that capacity, but to the determination of a point of comparison. In geometry the point of comparison is extent, and the unit of measure is now the division of the circle into three hundred and sixty parts, now the circumference of the terrestrial globe, now the average dimension of the human arm, hand, thumb, or foot. In economic science, we have said after Adam Smith, the point of view from which all values are compared is labor; as for the unit o

idea of the measure or proportion of values, theoretica

the law of proport

is a represent

be exchanged for some other,

sefulness, which, being stamped with no economic character, no human se

f merchandise, less conveniently perhaps, but just as authentically, could play this part: the economists admit it, and more than one example of it can be cited. What, then, is the reason of this preference generally accorded to the metals for the purpose of money, and how shall we explain this speciality of function, unparalle

s, they have said, by their scarcity, density, and incorruptibility, are fitted to serve as money in, a degree unapproached by other kinds of merchandise. In short, the economists, instead of replying to the economic question put to them, have set themselves to t

bought and sold in ingots, but already with a visible tendency to superiority and with a marked preference. Gradually sovereigns took possession of them and stamped them with their seal; and from this roya

ith gold; neither is it its scarcity or density, for in both these respects it might be replaced, either by labor spent upon other materials, or, as at present, by bank notes representing vast amounts of iron or copper. The distinctive feature of

; I add that it is no longer susceptible of depreciation, like other values, although it may vary continually nevertheless. All the logic and erudition that has been expended t

lamed? A very sound argument from the standpoint of commercial routine, but wholly false in the view of economic science,-namely, that, supply and demand being the regulators of value, we may, either by causing an artificial scarcity or by monopolizing the manufacture, raise the estimation, and consequently the value, of things, and th

not in the power of the sovereign to make that which was worth but two worth four. For the same reason, if, instead of debasing the coin, it had been in the king's power to double its mass, the exchangeable value of gold and

ubject of money. Why, then, do they not see that money is the written law of commerce, the type of exchange, the first link in that long chain of creations all of whi

s already made, or as a good medium of exchange, only so far as its value approaches the ide

ry of Publ

ly judicious observation

s the product of each individual is in proportion with the mass; f

mental principle of political economy, the arbitrary instability of values, is frowned down? If the administration should presume to give twelve ounces of tobacco for a pound,[9] the economists would cry robbery; bu

of tobacco is a governme

giving this attribute of absolute exchangeability to a special product, which shall become the type and model of all others. In the same way, to lift its members to liberty and equality, it begins by creating kings. The people have a confused idea of this providential progress when, in their dreams of fortune and in their legends, they speak continually of gold and royalty; and the philosophers only do homage to univers

to other con

ally admitted by the

ULD LEAVE

her cost, nor market price, nor wages can be mathematically determined, how is it possible to conceive of a surplus, a profit? Commercial routine has given us the idea of profit as well as the word; and, since we are equal politically, we infer that every citizen has an equal right to realize profits in his personal industry. But commercial operations are essentially irregular, and it has been proved beyond question that the profits of commerce are

. I will approach the question a little farther back: its gravity

e is manifested, not under a material aspect, but by the close concert and mutual interdependence of all its members. Therefore, when a few pages back, adopting the allegorical method, we used a fabulous god as a symbol of society, our language in reality was not in the least metaphorical: we only gave a name to the social being, an organic and synthetic unit. In the eyes of any one who has reflected upon the laws of labor and exchange (I disregard every other consideration), the reality, I had almost said the personality, of the collective man is as certain as the reality and the personali

-is one of those which bear strongest testimony to the reality of the collective person: for, as we shall see, this princi

ion is a true one; and it might have been added that it applies, not only to railroads, but to every industry. But this phenomenon, which is essentially the result of the

eels, all allowances made, as four to one: in society time itself being value, at the same price the railroad would have an advantage over the stage-wagon of four hundred per cent. `Nevertheless, this enormous advantage, a very real one so far as society is concerned, is by no means realized in a like proportion by the carrier, who, while he adds four hundred per cent. to the social value, makes personally less than ten per cent. Su

e); while the loss falls directly and personally on the consumer. A special profit of four hundred per cent. in a society composed of say a million of men represents four ten-thousandths for each individual; while a loss to the consumer of thirty-three per cent.

posed, it is absolutely necessary that the railroad's prices shall n

orted must be sufficiently great to cover at least the interest on the capital invested and the running expenses of the road. Then a r

ufacturers; but, in spite of them, social action is one, convergent, harmonious,-in a word, personal. Further, there is a day appointed for the creation of great instruments of labor: it is the day when general consumption shall be able to maintain their employment,-t

easier than to explain why labor mus

charming, but which would soon become misery and torture if he did not make haste to abandon it for labor. In this original idl

, the first of the second creation, the product of Promet

vides his labor, and his pro

e senses to the sphere of morals and intelligence, and with every step that his industry takes the amount of his product increases, and assures him additional happiness. And sin

man is directly proportional to the intensity of labor and the multiplicity of industri

evelopment would be to affirm a truth which, by reason of the evidence in its support, wo

consumption, articles which time gradually causes it to feel the

entralization, nationality, country, independence, these are the elements which make up the life of society, the totality of its mental faculties; these are the sentiments which must find expression and representation. Such formerly was the object of the temple of Jerusalem, rea

is rewarded for its advances by the political and moral advantages resulting from these great works, and

n the conditions of mutuality which make consumption possible,-that is, immediate payment with advantage to the producers. These conditions we

xist in society classes which THRIVE and classes which PERISH; laborers paid twice, thrice, a hundred times over, and laborers continually out of pocket; everywhere, finally, people who enjoy and people who suffer, and, by a monstrous division of the means of industry, individuals who consume and do not produce. The distribution of well-being follows all the movements of value, and reproduces them in misery and luxury on

her it is not true that they affirm at once, on the one hand the progress of wealth and well-being, and consequently the measure of values, and on the other the arbitrariness of commercial transactions and the incommensurability of values,-the flattest of contradictions? Is it not because of this contradiction that we continually hear repeated in lectures, and read in the works on political economy, this absurd hypothesis: If THE PRICE OF ALL THINGS WAS DOUBLED. . . . . . ? As if the price of all things was not the proportion of things, and as if we could double a proportion, a relation, a law! Finally, is it not because of the proprietary and abnormal routine

on presents itself, which I

fute that idea. He, if I am not mistaken, is the author of the formula: EVERY PRODUCT IS WORTH WHAT IT COSTS; or, what amounts to the same thing: PRODUCTS ARE BOUGHT W

this series, as well as the equivalence of its elements, is expressed in practice more or less exactly by the equilibrium of wages and fortunes; our first business is with the relation of things, the economic law. For here, as ever, the idea first and spontaneously generates the fact, which, recognized then by the thought which has given it birth, gradually rectifies itself and conforms to its principle. Commerce, free and competitive, is but a long operation of redressal, whose object is to define more and more clearly the proportion

's work pays for day's work, neither more nor less. It is quite true that, if we compare the products of a certain period of social life with those of another, the hundred millionth day's work of the human race will show a result incomparably superior to that of the first; but it must be remembered also that the life of the collective being can no more be divided than that of the individual; that, though the days may not resemble each other, they are indissolubly united, and that in the sum total of existence pain and pleasure are common to them. If, then,

self at first upon the right of property, it only laid down one of the principles of its future organization; and that, the preponderance of property once destroyed, it remains only to reduce this famous antithesis to unity. All the objections that can be offered in favor of property I am as well acquainted with as any of my critics, whom I ask as a

id, "is labor. In proclaiming this great principle, the industrial school has placed in evidence not only an economic principle, but that social fact wh

Rossi thought it his duty to retract them afterwards in a review, and t

yet, to escape one way or another the objections which these doctrines call forth on all hands, some incomplete, others ab

lost their influence: the present object of worship is the shop, and, after the shop, the desperate constitutionalism which represents it. To whom, then, does M. Rossi address h

ng the history of human institutions on the face of the earth, why shoul

Where is the legitimacy of monopoly? Explain then, once for all, this theory of the right of unproductive consu

that the primitive notion of labor is identical with the subsequent notions of product, value, capital, wealth, etc. Nevertheless, we see that M. Rossi rejects the doctrine which results from this analysis. LABOR, CAPITAL, AND LAND ARE THE SOURCES OF WEALTH: a synthetic proposition, precisely such as M. Rossi does not like. Indeed, wealth is considered here as a general notion, produced in three distinct, but not identical, ways. And yet the doctrine thus formul

d he not say to the phalanx of economists who listen so

utility given to these MATERIALS, and which consequently transforms them into capital and wealth. Capital is the result of labor,- that is, realized intelligence and life,-as animals and plants are realizations of the soul of the universe, and as the chefs d'oeuvre of Homer, Raphael, and

illogical and contradictory, as is shown by the ver

t it is the object of progress, the condition and form of social well-being, the beginning and end of political economy. From this proposition

d, the value of every product constantly seeks a level with cost and with the needs of consumption, and consequently tends to establish itself in a fixed and positive manner; (d) how, collective production continually increasing the amount of consumable things, and the day's work constantly obtaining higher and higher pay, labor must leave an excess for each producer; (e) how the amount of work to be done, instead of being diminished by industrial progress, ev

omic point of view, is revealed to us: TO PRODUCE INCESSANTLY, WITH THEE LEAST POSSIBLE AMOUNT OF LABOR FOR EACH PRODUCT, THE GREATEST POSSIBLE QUANTITY AND VARIETY OF VALUES, IN

uscades; an impediment to production, circulation, and consumption; unproductive labor; insecurity; spoliation; insolidarity; want; luxury: but at the same time an effort of the genius of society to obtain justice, and a constant tendency toward association and order. Political economy is simply the history of this grand struggle. On the one hand, indeed, political economy, in so far as it

social progress can be acquired, no reform attempted. The error of socialism has consisted hitherto in perpetuating religious reverie by launching forward into a fantastic future

the distribution of wealth, I shall interrogate political economy as the depositary of the secret thoughts of humanity; I shall cause it to disclose the facts in the order of their occurrence, and shal