The Poverty of Philosophy

VI

on the part of Mr. von Schweitzer to steer it into feudal and governmental waters forced us to publicly cancel our collaboration after only a few weeks.

For Germany, the present work has a significance at this very moment that Marx himself never suspected. How could he have known that, by lashing out at Proudhon, he was striking at Rodbertus, the striver-god of today, who was at that time unknown to him even by name?

This is not the place to enter into the relationship between Marx and Rodbertus; an opportunity for that will likely present itself to me soon. Here, only this: if Rodbertus accuses Marx of having "plundered" him and "quite prettily used" his work, Zur Erkenntnis On Knowledge, in his Capital without citing him, he allows himself to be carried away into a slander that is only explainable by the resentment of a misunderstood genius and by his remarkable ignorance of things occurring outside of Prussia, and particularly regarding socialist and economic literature. Neither these accusations nor the aforementioned work of Rodbertus ever came to Marx's attention; he knew of Rodbertus only the three Soziale Briefe Social Letters, and these not before 1858 or 59 in any case.

With more justification, Rodbertus claims in these letters to have already discovered Proudhon's "constituted value" konstituirten Werth before Proudhon; though he again erroneously flatters himself to be the first discoverer. In any case, he is therefore also criticized in our work, and this compels me to address his "foundational" little work, Zur Erkenntnis unserer staatswirth incomplete in original; implies 'Staatswirtschaft' (national economy).