The Philosophy of Misery | Page 3

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THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM
SYSTEM OF ECONOMICAL CONTRADICTIONS OR, THE
PHILOSOPHY OF MISERY. BY P. J. PROUDHON
Destruam et aedificabo. Deuteronomy: c. 32.
VOLUME FIRST.

CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
. OF THE ECONOMIC SCIENCE % 1. Opposition between FACT
and RIGHT in Social Economy % 2. Inadequacy of Theories and
Criticisms

CHAPTER II
. OF VALUE % 1. Opposition of Value in USE and Value in
EXCHANGE % 2. Constitution of Value; Definition of Wealth % 3.
Application of the Law of Proportionality of Values

CHAPTER III
. ECONOMIC EVOLUTIONS.--FIRST PERIOD.--THE DIVISION
OF LABOR % 1. Antagonistic Effects of the Principle of Division % 2.
Impotence of Palliatives.--MM. Blanqui, Chevalier, Dunoyer, Rossi,
and Passy

CHAPTER IV
. SECOND PERIOD.--MACHINERY % 1. Of the Function of
Machinery in its Relations to Liberty % 2. Machinery's
Contradiction.--Origin of Capital and Wages % 3. Of Preservatives
against the Disastrous Influence of Machinery

CHAPTER V
. THIRD PERIOD.--COMPETITION % 1. Necessity of Competition %
2. Subversive Effects of Competition, and the Destruction of Liberty
thereby % 3. Remedies against Competition

CHAPTER VI
. FOURTH PERIOD.--MONOPOLY % 1. Necessity of Monopoly % 2.
The Disasters in Labor and the Perversion of Ideas caused by
Monopoly

CHAPTER VII
. FIFTH PERIOD.--POLICE, OR TAXATION % 1. Synthetic Idea of
the Tax. Point of Departure and Development of this Idea % 2.
Antinomy of the Tax % 3. Disastrous and Inevitable Consequences of
the Tax. (Provisions, Sumptuary Laws, Rural and Industrial Police,
Patents,Trade-Marks, etc.)

CHAPTER VIII
. OF THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MAN AND OF GOD, UNDER
THE LAW OF CONTRADICTION, OR A SOLUTION OF THE
PROBLEM OF PROVIDENCE % 1. The Culpability of
Man.--Exposition of the Myth of the Fall % 2. Exposition of the Myth
of Providence.--Retrogression of God

INTRODUCTION.
Before entering upon the subject-matter of these new memoirs, I must
explain an hypothesis which will undoubtedly seem strange, but in the
absence of which it is impossible for me to proceed intelligibly: I mean
the hypothesis of a God.
To suppose God, it will be said, is to deny him. Why do you not affirm
him?
Is it my fault if belief in Divinity has become a suspected opinion; if
the bare suspicion of a Supreme Being is already noted as evidence of a
weak mind; and if, of all philosophical Utopias, this is the only one

which the world no longer tolerates? Is it my fault if hypocrisy and
imbecility everywhere hide behind this holy formula?
Let a public teacher suppose the existence, in the universe, of an
unknown force governing suns and atoms, and keeping the whole
machine in motion. With him this supposition, wholly gratuitous, is
perfectly natural; it is received, encouraged: witness attraction--an
hypothesis which will never be verified, and which, nevertheless, is the
glory of its originator. But when, to explain the course of human events,
I suppose, with all imaginable caution, the intervention of a God, I am
sure to shock scientific gravity and offend critical ears: to so wonderful
an extent has our piety discredited Providence, so many tricks have
been played by means of this dogma or fiction by charlatans of every
stamp! I have seen the theists of my time, and blasphemy has played
over my lips; I have studied the belief of the people,--this people that
Brydaine called the best friend of God,--and have shuddered at the
negation which was about to escape me. Tormented by conflicting
feelings, I appealed to reason; and it is reason which, amid so many
dogmatic contradictions, now forces the hypothesis upon me. A priori
dogmatism, applying itself to God, has proved fruitless: who knows
whither the hypothesis, in its turn, will lead us?
I will explain therefore how, studying in the silence of my heart, and far
from every human consideration, the mystery of social revolutions,
God, the great unknown, has become for me an hypothesis,--I mean a
necessary dialectical tool.

I.
If I follow the God-idea through its successive transformations, I find
that