System of Economical Contradictions; Or, The Philosophy of Misery

ith profound regret

nufacturing distri

oria on the reassem

one accord the economic and representative theorists, must remain outside of the attributes of power. From the height of the glorious sphere where religion has placed them, thrones, dominations, principalities, powers, and all the heavenly host view the torment of society, beyond the reach of its stress; but their power does not extend over the winds and floods. Kings can

uestions of distribution; those of public utility, questions of national labor and industrial organization; those of finance, operations of credit; and those of international law, questions of customs duties and markets,-it stands as demonstrated that the prince, who, accordi

ts posited, it follows that progress, after being accomplished in the mind insensibly, is realized in society by leaps, and that force, in spite of the calumny of which it is the ob

rywhere the social compact has united power and conspired against life, it being impossible fo

of the right of the strongest which created you and which is changing every day? Promptly, at the slightest nod of your head, a numerous army starts up, runs to arms, and forms in line of battle. And when the people complain that, in spite of their labor and precisely because of their labor, misery devours them, when society as

, searching for progress, and securing for all liberty, equality, health, and wealth, we continue our task of criticism courageously, entirely sure that, when w

of machinery in its

nd as if to reestablish the equilibrium profoundly compromised by that law. To truly appreciate the

without surprise, that the HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY was the same thing at bottom as the PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY; further, that these two branches of speculation, so different

ion of the totality of history: so that entire philosophy lies at the bottom of every natural or industrial manifestation; that it is no respecter of degrees or qualities; that, to rise to its sublimest conceptions, all prototypes may be employed equally well; and

ry to begin with the philosophy of labor, after which each laborer will be able to attempt in his turn the philosophy of his trade. Thus every product of art and industry, every political and religious constitution, like every creature organized or unorganized, being only a realization, a natural or practical application, of phi

we say,

ly necessary and legitimate products of the same law. To harmonically establish this two-faced principle and solve this antinomy, society evokes a second, soon to be followed by a third; and such will be the progress of the social genius until, having exhausted all its contradictions,-supposing, though it is not proved, that there is an end to contradiction in humanity,-it shall cover with one backward leap all its previous positions and in a single formula solve all problems. In following in our exposition this method of the parallel development of the reality and the idea, we find a doub

know, which does not exist, as long as it is not reflected, like light, which would be nothing if the sun existed by itself in an infinite void,-and brushing aside all a priori reasoning upon theogony a

that mystery is the point of departure of knowledge, or that mysticism is the necessary condition of logic: quite the contrary, the spontaneity of our reason tends to the perpetual rejection of mysticism

y the laws of social economy is to constitute the theory of the laws of reas

er at loggerheads with the law of division: how will

ion of labor; it is the protest of the industrial genius against parcellaire and homicidal labor. Wha

espects machinery is the counterpart of division. Therefore through machinery will come a restoration of the parcellaire laborer, a decrease of toil for t

ich it may be inferred that the antinomy of the division of labor, if not entirely destroyed, will be balanced and neutralized. No one should fail to read the lectures of M. Cheva

olitical economy entire is contained, so with analysis and synthesis goes the possession of logic entire, of philosophy. The man who labors proceeds necessarily and by turns by division and the aid of tools; likewise, he who reasons p

ple and as luminous as axioms

lligence from activity, and divides man into two impossible entities, theorizer and automaton. That is why we applaud the just complaints of M. Chevalier, M. Dunoyer, and all those who demand reform in university education; on that also rests the hope of the results that we have promised ourselves from such reform. If education were first of all experimental and practical, reserving speech only to explain, summarize, and coordinate work; if those who cannot learn with imagination and memory were permitted to learn with their eyes and hands,

ons. To them there were kings and rulers of genius, princes of genius, ministers of genius; and then there were also noble minds and bourgeois minds, city talents and country talents. Clear at the foot of the ladder lay the gross industrial population, souls imperfectly outlined

in,-the man of genius is simply a man with a good constitution, who has worked a great deal, thought a great deal, analyzed, compared, classified, summarized, and concluded a great deal; while the limited being, who stagnates in an endemic routine, instead of developing his faculties, has killed his intell

clared by them equals and sovereigns of distinct realms. How irrational! As if the specialty of genius did not itself reveal the law of the equality of minds! As if, looking at it in another light, the steadiness of success in the product of genius were not a proof that it works according to principles outside of itself, which are

of the schools, by qualitative determination, and, in the second place, by exercise and education. Hence, in the individual as in the collective man, intelligence is much more a faculty which comes, forms, and develops, qu{ae} fit, than an entity or entelechy which exists, wholly formed, prior to apprenticeship. Reason, by whatever name we call it,-genius, talent, industry,-is at the start a naked and inert potentiality, which gradually grows in size and strength, take

abor, does not fulfil the entire destiny of machinery, and the views of Providence extend

ubstance (mind or matter), we have left only two categories of manifestations,-the first including all that we call sensations, volitions, passions, attractions, instincts, sentiments; the other, all phenomena classed under the heads of attention, perception, memory, imagination, comparison, judgment, reasoning, etc. As for the organic apparatus, very far from be

perfectly synonymous expressions,-such is the common object of political economy and philosophy. To determine the laws of the production and distribution of wealth will be to demonstra

t data of psychology and polit

erty, at the birth of conscience, as a living point, punctum saliens, a vague, blind, or, rather, indifferent spontaneity, capable of receiving all possible impressions, dispositions, and inclinations. Liber

gets its value and character later from external impressions,-a faculty, therefore, which is negativ

r to us, a name reserved for the children of the father of a family; lib-ertas, the condition, character, or inclination of children of a noble race; lib-ido, the passion of a slave, who knows neither God nor law nor country,

ition of liberty which, by its likeness to our own

he is from the causes which prevented him from making use of his forces, the farther from him he has driven these causes, the more he has extended and cleared the sphere of his action . . . . Thus it is said that a man has a free min

an; it would be nothing. But immediately M. Dunoyer, though persisting in his incomplete definition, seizes the true side of the matter: then it is that it occurs to him to say tha

nstrument than the spoken word; therefore one is freer to act on the mind of his fellows when he knows how to picture the word to their eyes than when he simply knows how to speak it. The press is an instrument two or t

ar of ideology has perverted their language, and one perceives, in reading them, that adoration of fact has caused them to lose even the perception of theory. I prefer to establish the fact that M. Dunoyer, and political economy with him, is not mistaken concernin

ribute of man, I shall make it the ATTRIBUTE OF CIVILIZATION; instead of imagining forms of government

s, with no

ts and duties; of what it is the duty of governments to do and the right of nations to demand, etc. I do not s

the obstacles that IMPEDE liberty and the means (instruments, methods, ideas, customs, religions, governments, etc.)

n every point to that given by psychology and suggested by the analogies of language: and thus we see how, littl

the name of VOLITIONS, sentiments, habits, customs. Then, language, figurative in its nature, continuing to furnish the elements of primary psychology, the habit has been formed of assigning to ideas, as the place or capacity where they reside, the INTELLIGENCE, and to voli

f, through an error or oversight of the reason, liberty, blind by nature, acquires a false and fatal habit, the reason itself will not be slow to feel the effects; instead of true ideas, conforming to the natural relations of things, it will retain only prejudices, as much more difficult to root

merce was supply and demand, liberty abandoned itself to the passion of ambition, egoism, and gambling; commerce was thereafter but a wager subjected to certain police regulations; misery developed from the sources

ite, and as, moreover, these two powers are closely connected and solidary, it must be concluded that liberty is the more perfect the more closely it defines itself in conformity with the laws of reason,

he succession of ideas. The economic phases or categories are now contemporary, now inverted, in their manifestation; hence the extreme difficulty always felt by the economists in systematizing their ideas; hence the chaos of their works, even those most to be commended in every other r

tradiction.-Origin o

is restored and the laborer set at work again: but as industrial improvements steadily succeed each other and continually tend to substitute mechanical operations for the labor of man, it follows that there is a constant tendency to cut off a portion of the service and consequent

planted, are left without work. A new machine, therefore, replaces the labor of a portion of the laborers, but does not diminish the amount of production, for, if it did, it would not be adopted; IT DISPL