Page:Karl Marx - The Poverty of Philosophy - (tr. Harry Quelch) - 1913.djvu/110

 francs, and not thirty-three millions (100:33=1,000,000:330,000).

M. Proudhon, preoccupied with his theory of personified society, forgets to make the division by 100. He thus obtains 330,000 francs loss; but four francs per head profit make for the society a profit of four million francs. There remains for society a net profit of 3,670,000 francs. This account exactly demonstrates the opposite to that which M. Proudhon wished to demonstrate, that is, that the profits and losses of society are not in inverse ratio to the profits and losses of the individual.

After having rectified these simple errors of calculation, let us glance for a moment at the consequences to which we should arrive if we were to admit for railways this relation of speed to capital such as M. Proudhon gives it, less the errors of calculation. Suppose a transport four times as rapid cost four times as much, this transport would not give less profit than the road transport which is four times as slow and costs only a quarter as much. Then if the latter charges eighteen centimes the railway could charge seventy-two centimes. This would be, according to "mathematical rigor," the consequence of the supposition of M. Proudhon, always excepting his errors of calculation. But then he suddenly tells us that if, instead of seventy-two centimes the railway charged twenty-five it would at once lose all its consignments. Decidedly it would be necessary to return to the old road waggons [sic]. Only if we have any advice to offer M. Proudhon it is not to forget in his "Programme of the Progressive Association" to make the division by 100. But, alas! it is scarcely to be hoped that our advice will be listened to, for M. Proudhon is so enamored of his "progressive" calculation, corresponding to the "progressive occasion" that he cries with