Poverty of philosophy

The present work was produced in the winter of 1846 47, at a time when Marx had cleared up for himself the basic features of his new historical and economic out look. Proudhon's Système des Contradictions économi ques ou Philosophie de la Misère, which had just ap peared, gave him the opportunity to develop these basic features in opposing them to the views of a man who, from then on, was to occupy the chief place among liv ing French Socialists. From the time when the two of them in Paris often spent whole nights in discussing economic questions, their paths had more and more di verged; Proudhon's book proved that there was already an unbridgeable gulf between them. To ignore it was at that time impossible, and so Marx by this answer of his put on record the irreparable rupture.

Marx's general opinion of Proudhon is to be found in the article,¹ given as appendix to this preface, which ap peared in the Berlin Sozialdemokrat, Nos. 16, 17 and 18, in 1865. It was the only article that Marx wrote for that paper; Herr von Schweitzer's attempts, which soon after wards became evident, to guide it along feudal and gov ernment lines compelled us to announce publicly the end of our collaboration after only a few weeks.