methods of production and their corresponding forms of exchange on the positive side, that is on the side on which they further the objects of society, as a whole and closes with the socialist criticism of the capitalistic methods of production, that is, with the exhibition of its laws on the negative side, with the proof that this method of production arrives at the point, by its own development, where it is no longer possible. This criticism proves that the capitalistic methods of production and exchange constitute more and more an insufferable fetter upon production itself. The mode of distribution which is necessarily associated with this form of production has brought about a class condition which grows daily more unberable. It has produced the daily sharpening antagonism between the continually less numerous but constantly richer capitalists and the more numerous, but on the whole, continually poorer propertyless wage-workers. Finally the tremendous productive forces of the capitalistic methods of production, which are practically unlimited, are only awaiting their seizure at the hands of an organized co-operative society to secure for all the members of that society the means of existence and the fuller development of their faculties in an ever increasing degree.
In order to fully accomplish this criticism of the bourgeois economy acquaintance with the capitalistic form of production of exchange and of distribution was not enough. Preceding forms and others, existing side by side with the capitalistic mode in a few highly developed countries, had to be examined and compared at least in their chief features. Such an investigation and comparision has been undertaken as a whole by Max alone and we consider that this investigation practically sums up all that has been established respecting theoretical economy prior to that of the bourgeois.
