System of Economical Contradictions; Or, The Philosophy of MiseryProudhon, P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph)
Philosophy
System of Economical Contradictions; Or, The Philosophy of Misery
Proudhon, P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph)
Economics
Labor, then, after having distinguished capacities and arranged
their equilibrium by the division of industries, completes the
armament of intelligence, if I may venture to say so, by
machinery. According to the testimony of history as well as
according to analysis, and notwithstanding the anomalies caused
by the antagonism of economic principles, intelligence differs in
men, not by power, clearness, or reach, but, in the first place,
by specialty, or, in the language of the schools, by qualitative
determination, and, in the second place, by exercise and
education. Hence, in the individual as in the collective
man, intelligence is much more a faculty which comes, forms, and
develops, qu{ae} fit, than an entity or entelechy which exists,
wholly formed, prior to apprenticeship. Reason, by whatever name
we call it,--genius, talent, industry,--is at the start a naked
and inert potentiality, which gradually grows in size and
strength, takes on color and form, and shades itself in an
infinite variety of ways. By the importance of its acquirements,
by its capital, in a word, the intelligence of one individual
differs and will always differ from that of another; but, being a
power equal in all at the beginning, social progress must consist
in rendering it, by an ever increasing perfection of methods,
again equal in all at the end. Otherwise labor would remain a
privilege for some and a punishment for others.
But the equilibrium of capacities, the prelude of which we have
seen in the division of labor, does not fulfil the entire destiny
of machinery, and the views of Providence extend far beyond.
With the introduction of machinery into economy, wings are given
to LIBERTY.
The machine is the symbol of human liberty, the sign of our
domination over nature, the attribute of our power, the
expression of our right, the emblem of our personality. Liberty,
intelligence,--those constitute the whole of man: for, if we
brush aside as mystical and unintelligible all speculation
concerning the human being considered from the point of view of
substance (mind or matter), we have left only two categories of
manifestations,--the first including all that we call sensations,
volitions, passions, attractions, instincts, sentiments; the
other, all phenomena classed under the heads of attention,
perception, memory, imagination, comparison, judgment, reasoning,
etc. As for the organic apparatus, very far from being the
principle or base of these two orders of faculties, it must be
considered as their synthetic and positive realization, their
living and harmonious expression. For just as from the
long-continued issue by humanity of its antagonistic principles
must some day result social organization, so man must be
conceived as the result of two series of potentialities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account