System of Economical Contradictions: or, the Philosophy of Misery

Chapter 8, Section 8.2 : Exposition of the Myth of Providence. — Retrogression of God
2. -- Exposition of the myth of Providence. -- Retrogression of God. Among the proofs, to the number of three, which theologians and philosophers are accustomed to bring forward to show the existence of a God, they give the foremost position to universal consent. This argument I considered when, without rejecting or admitting it, I promptly asked myself: What does universal consent affirm in affirming a God? And in this connection I should recall the fact that the difference of religions is not a proof that the human race has fallen into error in affirming a supreme Me outside of itself, any more than the diversity of languages is a proof of the non-reality of reason. The hypothesis of God, far from being weakened, is strengthened and established by the very divergence and opposition of faiths. An argument of another sort is that which is drawn from the order of the world. In regard to this I have observed that, nature affirming... (From : University of Virginia Library.)

Chapter 8, Section 8.1 : The Culpability of Man. — Exposition of the Myth of the Fall
1. -- The culpability of man. -- Exposition of the myth of the fall. As long as man lives under the law of egoism, he accuses himself; as soon as he rises to the conception of a social law, he accuses society. In both cases humanity accuses humanity; and so far the clearest result of this double accusation is the strange faculty, which we have not yet pointed out, and which religion attributes to God as well as to man, of REPENTANCE. Of what, then, does humanity repent? For what does God, who repents as well as ourselves, desire to punish us? Poenituit Deum quod hominem fecisset in terra, et tactus dolore cordis intrinsecus, delebo, inquit, hominem. . . . If I demonstrate that the offenses charged upon humanity are not the consequence of its economic embarrassments, although the latter result from the constitution of its ideas; that man does evil gratuitously and when not under compulsion, just as he honors himself by acts of hero... (From : University of Virginia Library.)

Chapter 8, Section 8.0 : Responsibility Of Man And Of God, Under The Law Of Contradiction, Or A Solution Of The Problem Of Providence
Chapter 8 CHAPTER VIII. OF THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MAN AND OF GOD, UNDER THE LAW OF CONTRADICTION, OR A SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF PROVIDENCE. THE ancients blamed human nature for the presence of evil in the world. Christian theology has only embroidered this theme in its own fashion; and, as that theology sums up the whole religious period extending from the origin of society to our own time, it may be said that the dogma of original sin, having in its favor the assent of the human race, acquires by that very fact the highest degree of probability. So, according to all the testimony of ancient wisdom, each people defending its own institutions as excellent and glorifying them, it is not to religions, or to governments, or to traditional customs accredited by the respect of generations, that the cause of evil must be traced, but rather to a primitive perversion, to a sort... (From : University of Virginia Library.)

Chapter 7, Section 7.3 : Disastrous and Inevitable Consequences of the Tax. (Provisions, Sumptuary Laws, Rural and Industrial Police, Patents, Trade-marks, Etc.)
3. -- Disastrous and inevitable consequences of the tax. (Provisions, sumptuary laws, rural and industrial police, patents, trade-marks, etc.) M. Chevalier addressed to himself, in July, 1843, on the subject of the tax, the following questions: Is it asked of all or by preference of a part of the nation? Does the tax resemble a levy on polls, or is it exactly proportioned to the fortunes of the tax-payers? Is agriculture more or less burdened than manufactures or commerce? Is real estate more or less spared than personal property? Is he who produces more favored than he who consumes? Have our taxation laws the character of sumptuary laws? To these various questions M. Chevalier makes the reply which I am about to quote, and which sums up all of the most philosophical considerations upon the subject which I have met: (a) The tax affects the universality, applies to the mass, takes the nation... (From : University of Virginia Library.)

Chapter 7, Section 7.2 : Antinomy of the Tax
2. -- 2. -- Antinomy of the tax. I sometimes hear the champions of the status quo maintain that for the present we enjoy liberty enough, and that, in spite of the declamation against the existing order, we are below the level of our institutions. So far at least as taxation is concerned, I am quite of the opinion of these optimists. According to the theory that we have just seen, the tax is the reaction of society against monopoly. Upon this point opinions are unanimous: citizens and legislators, economists, journalists, and ballad-writers, rendering, each in their own tongue, the social thought, vie with each other in proclaiming that the tax should fall upon the rich, strike the superfluous and articles of luxury, and leave those of prime necessity free. In short, they have made the tax a sort of privilege for the privileged: a bad idea, since it involved a recognition of the legitimacy of privilege, which in no case, whatever... (From : University of Virginia Library.)

Of Preservatives Against the Disastrous Influence of Machinery
Proudhon, Pierre Joseph. System of Economical Contradictions: or, the Philosophy of Misery Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library 3. -- Of preservatives against the disastrous influence of machinery. Reduction of manual labor is synonymous with lowering of price, and, consequently, with increase of exchange, since, if the consumer pays less, he will buy more. But reduction of manual labor is synonymous also with restriction of market, since, if the producer earns less, he will buy less. And this is the course that things actually take. The concentration of forces in the workshop and the intervention of capital in production, under the name of machinery, engender at the same time overproduction and destitution; and everybody ... (From : University of Virginia Library.)

Fifth Period. — Police, or Taxation
Chapter 7 CHAPTER VII. FIFTH PERIOD. -- POLICE, OR TAXATION. IN positing its principles humanity, as if in obedience to a sovereign order, never goes backward. Like the traveler who by oblique windings rises from the depth of the valley to the mountain-top, it follows intrepidly its zigzag road, and marches to its goal with confident step, without repentance and without pause. Arriving at the angle of monopoly, the social genius casts backward a melancholy glance, and, in a moment of profound reflection, says to itself: "Monopoly has stripped the poor hireling of everything, -- bread, clothing, home, education, liberty, and security. I will lay a tax upon the monopolist; at this price I will save him his privilege. "Land and mines, woods an... (From : University of Virginia Library.)

Inadequacy of Theories and Criticisms
Proudhon, Pierre Joseph. System of Economical Contradictions: or, the Philosophy of Misery Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library 2. -- Inadequacy of theories and criticisms. We will record first an important observation: the contending parties agree in acknowledging a common authority, whose support each claims, -- SCIENCE. Plato, a utopian, organized his ideal republic in the name of science, which, through modesty and euphemism, he called philosophy. Aristotle, a practical man, refuted the Platonic utopia in the name of the same philosophy. Thus the social war has continued since Plato and Aristotle. The modern socialists refer all things to science one and indivisible, but without power to agree either as to its content,... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Proudhon, Pierre Joseph. System of Economical Contradictions: or, the Philosophy of Misery Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library II. It seems, then, that all is ended; it seems that, with the cessation of the worship and mystification of humanity by itself, the theological problem is for ever put aside. The gods have gone: there is nothing left for man but to grow weary and die in his egoism. What frightful solitude extends around me, and forces its way to the bottom of my soul! My exaltation resembles annihilation; and, since I made myself a God, I seem but a shadow. It is possible that I am still a me, but it is very difficult to regard myself as the absolute; and, if I am not the absolute, I am only half of an idea. Some... (From : University of Virginia Library.)

Machinery's Contradiction. — Origin of Capital and Wages
Proudhon, Pierre Joseph. System of Economical Contradictions: or, the Philosophy of Misery Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library 2. -- Machinery's contradiction. -- Origin of capital and wages. From the very fact that machinery diminishes the workman's toil, it abridges and diminishes labor, the supply of which thus grows greater from day to day and the demand less. Little by little, it is true, the reduction in prices causing an increase in consumption, the proportion is restored and the laborer set at work again: but as industrial improvements steadily succeed each other and continually tend to substitute mechanical operations for the labor of man, it follows that there is a constant tendency to cut off a portion of the s... (From : University of Virginia Library.)