Philosophy of Poverty/Poverty of Philosophy

[edwad]

I recently got a copy of the latter and I was wondering if it was absolutely necessary that I read the former first or if I can just skip it temporarily until I wind up with a copy. Does Marx cover Proudhon's arguments well enough to where I could be fine with only reading the one for now?

[Collective Reasons]

Marx actually only addresses a few parts of Proudhon's work, so you might want to at least give it a look, in order to judge how much of an engagement there really is. Unfortunately, only the first volume of Proudhon's book has been completely translated. You can find it under the title online "The System of Economical Contradictions," and you can find a rough translation of the chapter on property from the second volume in the AK Press Proudhon reader or online (http://wiki.proudhonlibrary.org/index.php?title=System_of_Economical_Contradiction s/Eighth_Epoch). (One of these days, we'll get the rest translated, but it's an early work and not even close to the top of the pile at the moment.)

[Бай Ганьо]

In "Poverty of Philosophy" Marx unjustly criticizes Proudhon for not retracing the history of political economy - which had never been Proudhon's ambition! - and for making use of the inductive-deductive method and categories (division of labour, value, competition, etc.) he himself would later apply fifteen years later in "Capital". Achronologically, "Poverty of Philosophy" could have been young Marx's response to mature Marx's "Capital". Capital is in other words - at least methodologically - the continuation, correction and refining of "Philosophy of Poverty" in which Marx (almost) totally abandoned dialectics and historical materialism.

"Poverty of Philosophy" is not an interesting book (unless you want to read about 23672 insults, dishonest talk and misquotations).

[Subversive]

In "Poverty of Philosophy" Marx unjustly criticizes Proudhon for not retracing the history of political economy - which had never been Proudhon's ambition! - and for making use of the inductive-deductive method and categories (division of labour, value, competition, etc.) he himself would later apply fifteen years later in "Capital". Achronologically, "Poverty of Philosophy" could have been young Marx's response to mature Marx's "Capital". Capital is in other words - at least methodologically - the continuation, correction and refining of "Philosophy of Poverty" in which Marx (almost) totally abandoned dialectics and historical materialism.

"Poverty of Philosophy" is not an interesting book (unless you want to read about 23672 insults, dishonest talk and misquotations).
^ This is a lot of absolute rubbish nonsense.

It is an 'interesting' book, if you find anything of Marx's interesting. It is along the same lines as the courses of all his other works.
He certainly does not use "dishonest talk" or "misquotations" as stated by the obviously misinformed user above. Nor is it contradictory to Marx's later works.

I wouldn't say it's a 'remarkable' book in comparison to Marx's other works, but it's certainly an interesting one as it demonstrates Marx's harsh criticisms of what would be the equivalent of today's reformists and "social-liberals". As well as expounding on a few common errors that these people make in their misinformed arguments (within history, of course).

I only assume that the user above is not a Marxist. Likely an Anarchist, I'd assume from his desperate defense of Proudhon.


On the matter of the topic: As with any derivative work, it gives you a greater sense of context if your know the original source material. A criticism or refutation doesn't mean all that much if you don't know the full text of what is being criticized or refuted. Though, like I said, it provides some interesting viewpoints of Marx as it certainly does quote excerpts of each point being refuted. So you can either take it as-is and understand the disagreements, or you can take both works and understand the disagreements, the agreements, and the lesser points. Your choice.

[Collective Reasons]

The Poverty of Philosophy is just barely a book about Proudhon. That should be clear by the form of the critique, where Marx responds to little bits and pieces of Proudhon's argument, sometimes simply to words which have struck him in some negative way, with almost no attempt to demonstrate what Proudhon was actually up to in The System of Economic Contradictions. As an attempt to critique that work, the letter to Annenkov (https://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1846/letters/46_12_28.htm) is actually more satisfactory. There, the critique is often wrong, and is equally driven by Marx's apparent impatience with the form of Proudhon's book, but at least the attempt at critique is complete and coherent enough to compare to Proudhon's ideas.

Given how little Proudhon had written in 1846, it is not necessarily a terribly black mark against Marx that the nature of Proudhon's theories of progress and collective force were not clear to Marx. Much of Proudhon's most useful work would be written after the end of the Second Republic, when he had an opportunity to summarize and clarify his earlier works. The real heart of Proudhon's mature thought is in works like The Philosophy of Progress, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, War and Peace, and the manuscripts on Economy and Poland. If there are useful fights to have about Proudhon now, they almost certainly don't involve the free credit schemes of the 1840s, nor are they likely to revolve around the 1846 conception of "constituted value."