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.If the Englishman transforms men into hats, the German transforms hats into ideas.TheEnglishman is Ricardo, rich banker and distinguished economist; the German is Hegel,simple professor at the University of Berlin.Louis XV, the last absolute monarch and representative of the decadence of Frenchroyalty, had attached to his person a physician who was himself France's first economist.This doctor, this economist, represented the imminent and certain triumph of the Frenchbourgeoisie.Doctor Quesnay made a science out of political economy; he summarized itin his famous Tablueau economique.Besides the thousand and one commentaries on thistable which have appeared, we possess one by the doctor himself.It is the "analysis of theeconomic table", followed by "seven important observations".M.Proudhon is another Dr.Quesnay.He is the Quesnay of the metaphysics of politicaleconomy.Now metaphysics indeed all philosophy can be summed up, according to Hegel, inmethod.We must, therefore, try to elucidate the method of M.Proudhon, which is at least as foggy as the Economic Table.It is for this reason that we are making seven more orless important observations.If Dr.Proudhon is not pleased with our observations, well,then, he will have to become an Abbe Baydeau and give the "explanation of theeconomico-metaphysical method" himself.First Observation"We are not giving a history according to the order in time, but according to the sequenceof ideas.Economic phases or categories are in their manifestation sometimescontemporary, sometimes inverted.Economic theories have nonetheless their logicalsequence and their serial relation in the understanding: it is this order that we flatter our-selves to have discovered."(Proudhon, Vol.I, p.146)M.Proudhon most certainly wanted to frighten the French by flinging quasi-Hegelianphrases at them.So we have to deal with two men: firstly with M.Proudhon, and thenwith Hegel.How does M.Proudhon distinguish himself from other economists? Andwhat part does Hegel play in M.Proudhon's political economy?Economists express the relations of bourgeois production, the division of labor, credit,money, etc., as fixed, immutable, eternal categories.M.Proudhon, who has theseready-made categories before him, wants to explain to us the act of formation, the genesisof these categories, principles, laws, ideas, thoughts.Economists explain how production takes place in the above-mentioned relations, butwhat they do not explain is how these relations themselves are produced, that is, thehistorical movement which gave them birth.M.Proudhon, taking these relations forprinciples, categories, abstract thoughts, has merely to put into order these thoughts,which are to be found alphabetically arranged at the end of every treatise on politicaleconomy.The economists' material is the active, energetic life of man; M.Proudhon'smaterial is the dogmas of the economists.But the moment we cease to pursue thehistorical movement of production relations, of which the categories are but thetheoretical expression, the moment we want to see in these categories no more than ideas,spontaneous thoughts, independent of real relations, we are forced to attribute the originof these thoughts to the movement of pure reason.How does pure, eternal, impersonalreason give rise to these thoughts? How does it proceed in order to produce them?If we had M.Proudhon's intrepidity in the matter of Hegelianism we should say: it isdistinguished in itself from itself.What does this mean? Impersonal reason, havingoutside itself neither a base on which it can pose itself, nor an object to which it canoppose itself, nor a subject with which it can compose itself, is forced to turn head overheels, in posing itself, opposing itself and composing itself position, opposition, composition.Or, to speak Greek we have thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.For thosewho do not know the Hegelian formula: affirmation, negation and negation of thenegation.That is what language means.It is certainly not Hebrew (with due apologies M.Proudhon); but it is the language of this pure reason, separate from the individual.Insteadof the ordinary individual with his ordinary manner of speaking and thinking we havenothing but this ordinary manner in itself without the individual [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]