The misery of philosophy

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Karl Marx: Misère de la philosophie. Réponse a la philosophie de la misère de M. Proudhon, first edition 1847

The misery of philosophy. Answer to Proudhon's "Philosophy of Misery" (orig. French : "Misère de la philosophie. Response a la philosophie de la misère de M. Proudhon" ) was a work written by Karl Marx in 1847 and directed against Pierre-Joseph Proudhon . The title of the work alludes to Proudhon's two-volume work Système des contradictions économiques ou Philosophie de la misère (“System of economic contradictions or: Philosophy of misery”) Guillaumin, Paris 1846.

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Marx considers Proudhon's book to be “generally bad, yes very bad” . It offers Marx, however, a welcome opportunity, because Proudhon was considered the most important representative of French socialism at the time , to present his own materialistic conception of history in general and his political economy in particular to an interested audience.

Proudhon did not understand the current conditions in their chain, for which he probably also lacked the necessary historical knowledge (for example about the world market or slavery ). In addition, there are contradicting philosophical phrases that further impair the logical consistency of the desired theory, with logic often being replaced by rhetoric .

Since Proudhon did not master the German language, he only knew Hegelian terms from hearsay. He sometimes flirts with expressions such as “ dialectic ” or “ antinomy ”; but you have to write your corresponding applications to your own account. Like Hegel, however, Proudhon deduces reality from concepts, which Marx sharply rejects as "constructing from the head" and "confusing ideas with things" . Marx, on the other hand, insists on the basic conception of historical materialism (as the materialistic conception of history was later to be called):

“The social history of people is always only the history of their individual development, whether they are aware of it or not. Their material circumstances are the basis of all their relationships. These material relationships are nothing other than the necessary forms in which their material and individual activity is realized. " ( MEW 4. S. 548f.)

Proudhon understands a dialectical sequence to be an arrangement of economic categories (by which he also includes “machines”, which Marx rejects as an uneconomic category), whereby a good side contradicts a bad side and ultimately both are reconciled in a synthesis. For Marx this is neither a ( Hegelian ) dialectic nor a satisfactory procedure, since instead of an explanation, only moral evaluations come into play.

Marx bases his analysis of the contradicting relationships between exchange value and use value instead on the analysis of David Ricardo . Incidentally, he finds things in Proudhon (about the division of labor with Adam Smith ) that other economists would have analyzed better and more thoroughly beforehand.

Only mockery (“ prophet ”, “a Bible”, “Hegelian hackneyed stuff”) left Marx for Proudhon's endeavors to present the historical development of society as a history of ideas that should mean progress in the development of divine reason. The contradictions that Proudhon found are ultimately contradictions between his conceptual construction when they encounter real history.

Marx, however, recognizes Proudhon as having an important political position:

“He himself is just the social contradiction in action. He must justify by theory what he is in practice, and Mr Proudhon has the merit of being the scientific interpreter of the French petty bourgeoisie, which is a real merit, since the petty bourgeoisie will be an integral part of all preparatory social revolutions. " ( MEW 4. p. 557)

Origin and publication history

Marx began work on the 178-page work Misère de la philosophie before January 15, 1847, such as from a letter from Engels to Marx of January 15, 1847, a letter from Marx to Annenkow of December 28, 1846 and the first foreword Engels is close. At the beginning of April 1847, Marx finished the main text, and his preface to the work was dated June 15. On July 24, 1847, the publisher Frank announced the book as published. The misery of philosophy first appeared in French in 1847 in Paris and Brussels. The edition was 800 pieces. Excerpts from parts of the script (the 5th section of the 2nd chapter, "Strikes and workers' coalitions") appeared mainly between 1872 and 1875 in newspapers such as La Emancipacion , Der Volksstaat and Der Sozialdemokrat . In 1880 Marx tried to publish the text in the French socialist news magazine L'Égalité , the organ of the French workers' party, but only the preface and the first section of the first chapter were published.

The misery of philosophy was only published in German after Marx's death, in Stuttgart in 1884/85 , in an edition that was obtained and translated by Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein , which was checked by Friedrich Engels and provided with a foreword. This edition was based on the original version published in 1847 and contained handwritten changes made by Marx around 1876, which can be found in a version of the French original edition which Marx personally dedicated to Natalja Utina . In addition, a passage from Marx's work On Critique of Political Economy of 1859 and a translation of the Brussels speech on free trade (Marx, "Speech on the question of free trade", 1848, MEW 4 : 444–458.) With a foreword by Engels was added .

In 1891 followed a Spanish translation by José Mesa , with whom Friedrich Engels was in correspondence. The second German edition followed in Stuttgart in 1892, again with a short foreword by Engels. The first English-language edition appeared in 1900. Until before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, unchanged editions of the second German edition were regularly published by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz . In 1898 there was a Bulgarian translation. The work was first translated into Russian in Odessa in 1898. In 1939 the publishing house for foreign language literature in the Soviet Union published the work again in German. After the end of the Second World War , the work was published in German, mainly in the GDR . A first Chinese translation was made in Beijing in 1929, a Swedish in 1919 in Stockholm, a Ukrainian in 1923 in Charkow, a Japanese in 1926 in Kyoto, a Georgian in 1931 in Tbilisi, a Finnish in 1932 in Leningrad, a Hungarian in 1932 in Budapest, and a Croatian in Zagreb in 1933 , a Serbian in 1934 in Zagreb, a Yiddish in 1939 in Vilnius, a Hebrew in 1955 in Tel Aviv, a Slovenian in 1957 in Ljubljana and a Dutch in 1974 in Moscow. With the advent of the Internet towards the end of the 20th century, the text was digitized and in 2007 was online in the Marxists Internet Archive in ten languages: Arabic, German, English, French, Italian, Catalan , Dutch, Persian, Swedish, and Vietnamese.

In some editions, a letter from Marx to Annenkow dated December 28, 1846 and a letter to Schweitzer dated January 21, 1865 were also printed, both of which contain an argument with Proudhon.

Quotes

  • The economic categories are only the theoretical expressions, the abstractions of the social relations of production . ... So these ideas, these categories, are no more eternal than the relationships they express. They are historical, ephemeral, temporary products. - MEW 4: 130
  • With the acquisition of new productive forces, people change their mode of production , and with the change in the mode of production, the way of earning a living, they all change their social relations. The hand mill results in a society with feudal lords, the steam mill a society with industrial capitalists. - MEW 4: 130
  • What characterizes the division of labor in modern society is the fact that it produces specialties, specialists, and with them specialist idiotism . - MEW 4: 157
  • Economic conditions first turned the bulk of the population into workers. The rule of capital has created a common situation and common interests for this mass. So this mass is already a class in relation to capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle that we have only characterized in a few phases, this mass comes together, constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests, which defending them become class interests. But the struggle of class against class is a political struggle. - MEW 4: 180 f.
  • The condition for the liberation of the working class is the abolition of every class, just as the condition for the liberation of the third estate, the bourgeois order, was the abolition of all classes. In the course of development, the working class will replace the old bourgeois society with an association which excludes classes and their opposites, and there will no longer be any real political violence, because political violence is the official expression of class antagonism within bourgeois society Society is. Meanwhile the antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie has become a class-versus-class struggle, a struggle which, in its highest terms, means a total revolution. Incidentally, does one have to wonder that a society based on class antagonism amounts to brutal contradiction, to the clash of man against man as the ultimate solution? One does not say that the social movement excludes the political one. There is no political movement that is not also a social one at the same time. Only with an order of things where there are no classes and no class antagonism will social evolutions cease to be political revolutions. - MEW 4: 181 f.

Issues (selection chronologically)

19th century
The misery of philosophy, first German edition 1885
  • Misère de la philosophy. Réponse a la philosophie de la misère de M. Proudhon , CG Vogler, Brussels / A. Frank, Paris 1847. Digitized
  • The misery of philosophy. Answer to Proudhon's “Philosophy of Misery”. German by Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein. With foreword and notes by Friedrich Engels , Stuttgart (JHW Dietz) 1885 4th unchanged edition. 1907 digitized
  • Carlos Marx: Miseria de la filosofia, Contestación á la filosofía de la miseria de Proudhon. Versió espanñola, precedida de una carta de Federico Engels y unos Apuntes sobre las teorias, carácter y obras del autor por José Mesa . Establecimiernto Tipográfico de Ricardo Fé, Madrid 1891
  • The misery of philosophy , Stuttgart, Dietz, 1892 (2nd edition) (International Library, Vol. 12)
  • The misery of philosophy , Stuttgart, Dietz, 1895 (3rd unchanged edition) (International Library, Vol. 12)
  • Carlo Marx: La miseria della filosofia. In risposta alla filosofia della miseria di Proudhon . Libreria Treves di Pietro Virano, Bologna 1895
  • Misère de la philosophy. Response to philosophy de la misère de M. Proudhon, pasr Karl Marx. Avec une préface de Friedrich Engels , V. Girad & E. Brière Libraires-éditeurs, Paris 1896
20th century
  • The Poverty of Philosophy. Answer to the Philosophy of Poverty by M. Proudhon . Twentieth Century Press, London 1900
  • The misery of philosophy . JHW Dietz, Stuttgart 1913 (5th unchanged edition)
  • The misery of philosophy . Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow 1939
  • The misery of philosophy . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1947
  • The misery of philosophy . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2nd ed.
  • The Poverty of Philosophy . Progress Publishers, Moscow 1955
  • The misery of philosophy . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1960, 4th edition (66th - 70th thousand)
  • The misery of philosophy . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1971, 5th edition verb. Ed.
  • The misery of philosophy . Marxist sheets publishing house , Frankfurt am Main 1971
  • The misery of philosophy. Answer to Proudhon's Philosophy of Misery. New editors based on the German translation by Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky and Friedrich Engels. with commentary and annotation by Hans Pelger , Berlin / Bonn , JHWDietz Nachf., 1979 ISBN 3-8012-1012-X (11th edition) (International Library Vol. 12)
21st century
  • Karl Marx: The misery of philosophy. Translation edited by Friedrich Engels by Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky . In: Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe . Department 1. Volume 30. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2011 ISBN 978-3-05-004674-7 , pp. 238–333 Origin and Tradition, pp. 920–932
Translations
  • Arabic 2007
  • Armenian 1948
  • Bulgarian 1921, 1938, 1953, 1957
  • Chinese 1929, 1930, 1932, 1937, 1949, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965
  • Danish 1848, 1888, 1890
  • English 1920, 1934, 1935, 1941, 1955, 1958, 1962, 1976
  • Finnish 1932
  • Georgian 1931, 1938
  • Hebrew 1955
  • Dutch 1974
  • Italian 1914, 1945, 1949, 1950, 1973
  • Japanese 1929, 1929, 1930, 1947, 1948, 1950, 18951, 1954, 1956, 1960, 1982
  • Yiddish 1939
  • Croatian 1933, 1946, 1959
  • Macedonian 1960
  • Norwegian 1970
  • Polish 1933, 1948, 1949, 1962
  • Portuguese 1872
  • Romanian 1947, 1958
  • Russian 1918, 1919, 1922, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1937, 1938, 1941, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1962, 1973, 1976
  • Swedish 1919, 1949, 1972
  • Serbian 1934, 1946
  • Slovak 1955
  • Slovenian 1957
  • Spanish 1928, 1933, 1937, 1957, 1961, 1973
  • Czech 1948, 1958, 1959
  • Ukrainian 1923, 1932, 1958, 1959
  • Hungarian 1932, 1946, 1959, 1959

literature

  • Ferdinand Wolff : Marx against Proudhon . In: Westphalian steam boat . 1848, January issue, pp. 7-16; February issue pp. 51–63.
  • Manfred Neuhaus : The social and political background for Marx's first public statement on communism and Proudhon's contribution to the development of social thought in the early forties of the 19th century . Leipzig 1982 (Doctorate to Dr. phil. University of Leipzig)
  • The work of Marx and Engels in the literature of the German social democracy (1869-1895). Bibliography . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1979 No. 158, 316, 327, 342, 343, 353, 357, 364, 365, 387, 394, 409, 425, 442, 443, 463, 465, 484, 607, 611, 623, 659, 674 , 709, 738, 747, 793, 805, 835 and 849.
  • Bert Andréas : Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels. The end of classical German philosophy. Bibliography . Trier 1983, pp. 155–196 (= writings from the Karl-Marx-Haus Trier issue 28) evidence of prints, quotations and translations.
  • Bert Andréas, Jacques Grandjonc , Hans Pelger (eds.): Unknowns from Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Part I: 1840-1874 . Trier 1986, pp. 26-30. (= Writings from the Karl-Marx-Haus issue 33)
  • Boris Rudjak : Ob odnoj netoċnosti v primecanijach k izdanijam raboty K Marksa "Niščeta filosofii" (About an inaccuracy in the notes on the publication of K. Marx's work "The Misery of Philosophy). In: Institut Marksizma-Leninizma pri CK KPSS. Nausčno -informacionnnyj bjulleten 'sektora prozevedenij K. Marksa i F. Engel'sa (Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the CPSU. Scientific information bulletin of the sector Works by K. Marx and F. Engels). No. 18, Moskava 1970, p. 75-78.
  • Inge Werchan: Karl Marx: Misère de la philosophie. Fac-Similé de I'exemploire personnel de l'auteur annoté en particulier de sa main. Avec notice, transcription et notes par Kikuji Tanaka . In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research . Berlin 1982, issue 13, p. 113 ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Volume 1 MDZ Reader Volume 2 MDZ Reader
  2. ^ Letter to PW Annenkow, MEW 4. p. 547
  3. ^ Friedrich Engels, foreword to the first German edition, MEW 4, 558
  4. ↑ MEW 4 , 547
  5. ^ For Roger Picard, Introduction to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Œuvres complètes , I, Geneva Paris 1982, p. 29, this is attested by Karl Grün : The social movement in France and Belgium, 1843
  6. ↑ MEW 4. p. 555
  7. ↑ MEW 4. pp. 550f.
  8. ↑ MEW 4. p. 549; MEW 4. p. 138
  9. ^ The French version of the letter in Hans Pelger (1979), pp. 1–12.
  10. ↑ On this section compare: Bert Andréas : Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels. The end of classical philosophy . Bibliography. German by Elisabeth Krüger, Trier 1983 (writings from the Karl-Marx-Haus 28), pp. 155–198
  11. ↑ The dedication reads: Madame Natalie Outine As a friendly reminder, London January 1, 1876. Karl Marx (The original is lost, copy RGASPI (Moscow) F. 1. op. 1. d. 3705. In reality, Engels used a copy by Marx, that is now kept at Tohoku University, Sendai.)
  12. ↑ On dedications of the font to Friedrich Martin Albert Breyer, Emile Gachet and George Sand .

Web links

Wikiquote: The Misery of Philosophy  - Quotes