The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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20 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. CHAPTER IV. KARL MARX. ARL MARX is, beyond dispute, the most influential Socialist writer of Germany; and his principal work, Z><2i Kapital, is considered even by his opponents as an original and remarkable book. However, it is not to this work that Marx owes his influence, for it was not written to be read by the people. It is as abstract as a mathematical treatise and far more irksome to read. It is a regular puzzle, because the author uses terms in a peculiar sense, and builds up, by deduction after deduc tion, a complete system founded on definitions and hypotheses. It requires a constant tension of mind to follow his reasonings, in which certain words are always diverted from their usual significations. As Mr. Clifle Leslie has very truly remarked. Das Kapital is a striking example of the abuse of the deductive method, so often employed by many Economists. The author starts from certain axioms and formulas which he considers rigor ously true. From these he deduces the consequences which they seem to involve, and thus he arrives at conclusions which he presents as being as irrefutable as those of the exact sciences. Nothing is more deceptive than this method, and it has beguiled the best minds. In the moral and political sciences language never succeeds in rendering with precision the infinite variations of facts. Mathematical science alone can do this, because its speculations are confined to abstract and rigorously determined data. In Political Economy, as in morals and politics, definitions serve to give an idea of the subjects under discussion ; but they cannot describe those subjects with sufficient exactness

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