Here we are, in the heart of Germany. We shall now have to talk
metaphysics while talking political economy. And in this again we
shall but follow M. Proudhon’s “contradictions”. Just now he forced
us to speak English, to become pretty well English ourselves. Now the
scene is changing. M. Proudhon is transporting us to our dear
fatherland and is forcing us, whether we like it or not, to become
German again.

If the Englishman transforms men into hats, the German
transforms hats into ideas. The Englishman is Ricardo, a rich
banker and distinguished economist; the German is Hegel, an
ordinary professor of philosophy at the University of Berlin.

Louis XV, the last absolute monarch and representative of the
decadence of French royalty, had attached to his person a physician
who was himself France’s first economist. This physician, this
economist, represented the imminent and certain triumph of the
French bourgeoisie. Doctor Quesnay made a science out of political
economy; he summarised it in his famous Tableau économique.
Besides the thousand and one commentaries on this table which have
appeared, we possess one by the doctor himself. It is the “Analyse du
Tableau économique’, followed by “seven observations importantes’’ .

M. Proudhon is another Dr. Quesnay. He is the Quesnay of the
metaphysics of political economy.

Now metaphysics—indeed all philosophy—can be summed up,
according to Hegel, in method. We must, therefore, try to elucidate
the method of M. Proudhon, which is at least as obscure as Tableau
économique. It is for this reason that we are making seven more or less
important observations. If Dr. Proudhon is not pleased with our

observations, well, then, he will have to become an Abbé Baudeau*
and give the “explanation of the economico-metaphysical method”
himself.

First Observation

“We are not giving a history according to the order in time, but according to the sequence
of ideas. Economic phases or categories are in their manifestation sometimes contempor-
ary, sometimes inverted.... Economic theories have nonetheless their logical sequence
and their serial relation in the understanding: it is this order that we flatter ourselves to
have discovered.” (Proudhon, tome I, pp. 145 and 146.)

M. Proudhon most certainly wanted to frighten the French by
flinging quasi-Hegelian phrases at them. So we have to deal with two
men: first with M. Proudhon, and then with Hegel. How does M.
Proudhon distinguish himself from other economists? And what
part does Hegel play in M. Proudhon’s political economy?