In Partial Defense of Proudhon

F. In Partial Defense of Proudhon

The next stage in our investigation of the early texts is The Holy Family or Critique of Critical Criticism written in Autumn 1844. Although this was formally a joint production, Engels himself was actually unaware of Marx’s full contribution, which includes observations on Proudhon’s criticism of political economy in Qu’est-ce

que la propri´ete? 26 Here we find a warm tribute to the scientific advance achieved by Proudhon. Indeed, any future progress – Marx evidently has himself in mind here – was made possible only because of the breakthrough in question: “Proud- hon’s treatise will . . . be scientifically superseded by a criticism of political economy,

25 Marx adds: “The extreme limit to sales in general is imposed by production costs, plus a margin to assure the producer a certain gain” (Marx 1968: 41) a proposition somewhat at odds with

the mature doctrine of surplus value. 26 Ou recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement (Paris, 1st ed. 1840; 2nd ed. 1841).

Marx’s discussion of Proudhon is a response to Edgar Bauer’s article “Proudhon” in the Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung, April 1844. The “Critics” referred to are the so-called Young Hegelians, preeminently Bruno Bauer and his brother Edgar. On this, see Rubel 1982: 419–26;

F. In Partial Defense of Proudhon 185 including Proudhon’s conception of political economy. This work became possible

only owing to the work of Proudhon himself, just as Proudhon’s criticism has as its premise the criticism of the mercantile system by the physiocrats, Adam Smith’s criticism of the physiocrats, Ricardo’s criticism of Adam Smith, and the works of Fourier and Saint-Simon” (MECW 4 : 31).

The “premise” in question is private property : “All treatises on political economy take private property for granted. This basic premise is for them an incontestable fact to which they devote no further investigation, indeed a fact which is spoken about only ‘accidentellement,’ as Say [Say 1803, 2 : 471] naively admits” (31–2). 27 It was Proudhon’s great merit to have made “a critical investigation – the first resolute, ruthless, and at the same time scientific investigation – of the basis of political economy, private property. This is the great scientific advance he made, an advance which revolutionises political economy and for the first time makes a real science of political economy possible” (32).

The need for such a breakthrough reflected the circumstance that “[a]ccepting the relationships of private property as human and rational, political economy operates in permanent contradiction to its basic premise, private property.” Marx illustrates the contradictions from value and distribution theory. For example, “in political economy wages appear at the beginning as the proportional share of the product due to labour. Wages and profit on capital stand in the most friendly, mutu- ally stimulating, apparently most human relationship to each other. Afterwards it turns out that they stand in the most hostile relationship, in inverse proportion to each other.” This illustration reveals that Marx misunderstood or mistated the Ricardian inverse wage-profit relation, which is consistent with contemporaneous increase or decrease in both wages and profits; and this despite the reference in the 1844 documents to Ricardo’s “advance” over Smith for the fundamental theorem on distribution (above, p. 167). Secondly: “Value is determined at the beginning in an apparently rational way, by the cost of production of an object and by its social usefulness. Later it turns out that value is determined quite fortuitously and that it does not need to bear any relation to either the cost of production or social usefulness.” This illustration focuses on the allegedly random character of “value” unrelated to either costs or “social utility,” recalling the attribution to Say in the 1844 documents (above p. 169). Thirdly: “The size of wages is determined at the beginning by free agreement between the free worker and the free capitalist. Later it turns out that the worker is compelled to allow the capitalist to determine it, just as the capitalist is compelled to fix it as low as possible” (32–3). This assumes that

27 Cf: “Propri´et´e . . . une possession reconnue. L’´economie politique en suppose l’existence comme une chose de fait, et n’en consid`ere qu’accidentellement le fondement et les con-

sequences” (Say 1817, 2 : 471). Marx insists, against Edgar Bauer’s reading, that Say “far from inferring from the greater possibility of appropriating land [than air or water] a property right to it, says instead quite explicitly: ‘Les droits des propri´etaires de terres – remontent `a une spoliation’ [Say 1817, 1 : 136]. That is why, in Say’s opinion, there must be ‘concours de la l´egislation’ and ‘droit positif ’ to provide a basis of the right to landed property” (MECW 4 :

Marx’s Economics 1843–1845

wages are determined monopsonistically, and imposed at the lowest possible rate, again a theme of the 1844 documents probably drawn from a reading of Smith (above, p. 172). 28

Marx allowed that various economists had recognized some at least of these (and other) contradictions, leading them to criticize the private-property institution, though only in special or “local” situations, while insisting on the essential rational nature of capitalistic value, wages, and trade: “Adam Smith, for instance, occasion- ally polemises against the capitalists, Destutt de Tracy against the money-changers, Simonde de Sismondi against the factory system, Ricardo against landed property, and nearly all modern economists against the non-industrial capitalist . . . ” (33). It is here precisely where Marx saw Proudhon’s contribution to lie – in its explicit generalization of the contradictions inherent in political economy and flowing from the private-property axiom; and in so doing “[h]e has done all that criticism of political economy from the standpoint of political economy can do.”

Despite his warm commendation, Marx still envisaged the need for further revisions, including correction of “Proudhon’s conception of political economy” (above, p. 185). For Proudhon had objected to political economy – essentially to private-property – but on the basis of the premises of political economy including private property. A word of explanation is required.

For Marx, labor time is the essential constraint under all social arrangements, and its allocation provides the key to production decisions: “As far as immediate material production is concerned, the decision whether an object is to be pro- duced or not, i.e., the decision on the value of the object, will depend essentially on the labour time required for its production. For it depends on time whether society has time to develop in a human way” (49). And though Proudhon’s “crit- icism of political economy from the standpoint of political economy recognises all the essential determinants of human activity,” it did so “only in an estranged, alienated form . . . converting the importance of time for human labour into its importance for wages, for wage-labour” (50). The problem is thus that Proudhon retained concepts such as “wages” that are only relevant assuming private property and the wage-labor institution, and this notwithstanding his claim to have “excluded” private property in arriving at the significance of labor for “value.” Here lay the “contradiction” in question. For all that, Proudhon at least was honest, since unlike the followers of Fourier and Saint-Simon, he rejected the “exaggerated fee claims” of “talent.” 29

28 For the “contradictory” character of political economy in the 1844 documents, see above p. 177.

29 See Rubel: “Proudhon d´efend la th`ese de l’´egalit´e de salaries contre les saint-simoniens et les fouri´eristes . . . : `

A chacun selon sa capacit´e, `a chaque capacit´e selon ses oeuvres (Saint-Simon). A chacun selon son capital, son travail et son talent (Fourier)’ ” (Proudhon 1840: 97; cited Rubel 1982: 1602). In brief: “Dans le sillage de Saint-Simon, Marx ira plus loin que Fourier et Proudhon: seule la disparition du salariat et du commerce peut conduire `a la conquˆete d’une libert´e authentique.”

F. In Partial Defense of Proudhon 187 Proudhon, it is implied by Marx’s temperate criticism, had failed to arrive at

a positive economics under collectivist arrangement rid of all inappropriate cate- gories. And Marx credits Engels for having set out in 1844 on the right path. For to the passage expounding on Proudhon’s “great scientific advance” which “for the first time makes a real science of political economy possible” (above, p. 185), Marx adds a qualification that seems to refer precisely to Proudhon’s retention of entities appropriate only assuming the private-property institution, and requiring transformation or abolition in its absence: “Proudhon does not consider the fur- ther creations of private property, e.g., wages, trade, value, price, money, etc., as forms of private property in themselves, as they are considered, for example, in the Deutsch-Franz¨osische Jahrb¨ucher (see Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy by F. Engels), but uses these economic premises in arguing against the political economists . . . ” (32). 30

There remains to consider the matter of exploitation and the source of surplus- value in a private-property system that was already touched upon in Marx’s 1844 documents (see above, p. 168). I have in mind the contention, formally based on Proudhon, that though laborers are each paid a full (presumably a competitive) wage, there is a sense in which aggregate wages fall short: “‘Although you have paid for all the individual powers you have still not paid for the collective power.’ Proudhon was the first to draw attention to the fact that the sum of the wages of the individual workers, even if each individual labour be paid for completely, does not pay for the collective power objectified in its product, that therefore the worker is not paid as a part of the collective labour power [gemeinschaftlichen Arbeitskraft]” (52). The extract should be read in the light of an objection by Edgar Bauer to Proudhon’s position that the “impossibility” of private property – its inherent contradictoriness – was revealed by the fact that the worker could not buy back the [entire] product of his work out of his wage (see paraphrase of Bauer by Marx, 51). Marx protested that Bauer failed to explain “why the capitalist, who himself is . . . paid by profit and interest, can buy back not only the product of labour, but still more than this product. To explain this Herr Edgar would have to explain the relationship between labour and capital, that is, to expound the essence of capital.” There is a hint here of the lines along which Marx was thinking for he points out that the source of the wage shortfall was, in principle, clear: “the worker can not buy back his product because in general he must buy it back” (52) – alluding to the circumstance of his product being an “estranged object” under capitalism. Still all

30 Cf. Rubel: “En appelant Engels `a la rescousse, Marx se reconnaˆıt disciple de son ami dont il vantera, encore quinze ans plus tard, ‘l’esquisse g´eniale’ de 1844” (Rubel 1982: 1597). See also

Stedman Jones 1987: 144. Marx subsequently further diluted his qualified praise of Proudhon. See a letter to the editor of Der Social-Demokrat of January 24 1865: “In a strictly scientific history of political economy the book would hardly be worth mentioning” (MECW 20 : 27).

Marx’s Economics 1843–1845

this does not carry us far, and it is clear that Marx was, as in the 1844 documents, far from his final solution, despite his use (following Proudhon) of the term labor power in the extract cited above.