were thought by Proudhon to be proved in the same way.
"Property considered in the totality of social institutions has, so to
speak, two current accounts. One is the thought of the good which it
produces, and which flows directly from its nature; the other is the
disadvantages which it produces, and the sacrifices which it causes,
and which also result directly, just as much as the good, from its
nature. In property evil, or the abuse of it, is inseparable from the
good, just as in book-keeping by double entry the debtor is
inseparable from the creditor side. The one necessarily implies the
other. To suppress the abuse of property means to extinguish it, just
as much as to strike out an entry on the debtor side means also
striking it out on the creditor side of an account." He proceeded in
the same way with all "economic categories." Labour, he tells us in
the _Contradictions_ more explicitly, is the principle of wealth, the
power which creates or abolishes values, or puts them in proportion
one to another, and also distributes them. Labour thus in itself, at
the same time, is a force that makes for equilibrium and productivity,
which one might think should secure mankind against every want. But in
order to work, labour must define and determine itself--that is,
organise itself. What are, then, the organs of labour, that is, the
forms in which human labour produces and fixes values and keeps off
want? These forms or categories are: division of labour, machinery,
competition, monopoly, the State or centralisation, free exchange,
credit, property, and partnership.

However much labour in itself is the source of wealth, yet those means
which are invented for the purpose of increasing wealth, become,
through their antagonism and through that antithetical character,
which, according to Proudhon, lies in the very nature of all social
forms, just as many causes of want and pauperism. Labour gains by its
division a more than natural fertility, but, at the same time, this
divided labour, which debases the workman, sinks, owing to the manner
in which this division is carried out, with great rapidity below its
own level and only creates an insufficient value. After it has
increased consumption by the superfluity of products, it leaves them
in the lurch owing to the low rate of pay; instead of keeping off want
it actually produces it.

The deficiency caused by the division of labour is said to be filled
by machinery, which not o