The Poverty of Philosophy

This work was written by Karl Marx in French as a response to the book by French politician and sociologist P.-J. Proudhon, "The System of Economic Contradictions, or the Philosophy of Poverty". In "The Poverty of Philosophy", the author, in the form of a critique of Proudhon, first set out the basic tenets of his economic doctrine for a wide audience, proposing what would become, twenty years later, the coherent theory developed in "Capital". Two letters by K. Marx, also containing a critique of Proudhon's views, are included in this edition.