ce que la propriete?_ is a
criticism of political economy from the standpoint of political
economy. Since the criticism of political economy forms the chief
subject of interest, we need not here examine the legal section of the
book, which criticizes law from the standpoint of law. Proudhon's book
is therefore scientifically surpassed by the critical school of
political economy, even of political economy as conceived by Proudhon.
This work of criticism was only rendered possible by Proudhon himself,
just as Proudhon's criticism had as its antecedents the criticism of
the mercantile system by the physiocrats, that of the physiocrats by
Adam Smith, that of Adam Smith by Ricardo, as well as the labours of
Fourier and Saint-Simon.

All the developments of political economy have private property as
their major premise. This fundamental assumption is regarded by it as
an unassailable fact, which needs no demonstration, and about which it
only chances to speak casually, as M. Say naively confesses.

Now Proudhon subjects private property, the basis of political
economy, to a critical examination, which is in fact the first
decisive, ruthless, and at the same time scientific analysis. This
constitutes the great scientific progress which he made, a progress
which revolutionized political economy, and first rendered possible a
real science of political economy.

Proudhon's work _Qu'est ce que la propriete?_ has the same
significance for modern political economy as Sieyes' pamphlet: _Qu'est
ce que le tiers etat?_ has for modern politics.

If Proudhon did not conceive the various forms of private property,
as, for example, wages, trade, value, price, money, etc., as such, but
used these forms of political economy as weapons against political
economy, this was quite in accordance with his whole standpoint, as
above described and historically justified.

Political economy, which accepts the relationships of private
property as human and reasonable relationships, moves in a perpetual
contradiction to its fundamental assumption, which is private
property, a contradiction analogous to that of theology, which
constantly gives a human interpretation to religious ideas, and
thereby constantly violates its fundamental assumption, which is the
supramundane character of religion. Thus in political economy wages
appear at the outset as labour's proportionate share in the product.
Wages and the profit of capital exist in the most friendly