The Poverty of Philosophy

“The present work was written 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 outlook. Proudhon’s Système des contradictions économiques, ou Philosophie de la misère, which had just appeared, 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 living French socialists. From the time when the two of them in Paris often spent whole nights in discussing economic questions, their paths had diverged more and more; Proudhon’s book proved that there was already an unbridgeable gulf between them. To ignore it was no longer possible, and so Marx by this answer of his put on record the irreparable rupture.” Friedrich Engels