Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: Review of Karl Diehl’s P. J. Proudhon, seine Lehre und sein Leben (1888)

Böhm-Bawerk’s review assesses the first installment of Diehl’s study of Proudhon, devoted to property and value, before concluding with a defense of his own classification of value against Diehl’s objections. Its movement from appreciative historical criticism to conceptual clarification connects two concerns: recovering neglected socialist thought and distinguishing substantive theoretical disagreements from differences in terminology.

The review opens by contrasting the widespread attention paid to Marx, Rodbertus, and Lassalle with the relative neglect of their intellectual predecessors. Diehl’s undertaking is welcome both because Proudhon merits sustained study and because the scale of his writings makes direct acquaintance difficult:

Proudhon ist bedeutend und originell genug, um einen wissenschaftlichen Biographen zu verdienen, und, um die Wahrheit zu sagen, er hat die guten Dienste eines solchen auch besonders nötig.

English translation: Proudhon is significant and original enough to deserve a scholarly biographer, and, to tell the truth, he also stands in particular need of the good services of one.

Böhm-Bawerk endorses Diehl’s organization of Proudhon’s economic theories into separate thematic treatments closely following the original wording. The first installment addresses the condemnation of property as theft and the alleged economic contradiction between use value and exchange value. His assessment is unequivocally favorable:

Die Darstellung der Proudhon'schen Ideengänge ist klar und übersichtlich, die daran vom Verf. geübte Kritik scharfsinnig und wohl gelungen.

English translation: The presentation of Proudhon's trains of thought is clear and well ordered, the criticism exercised upon them by the author acute and well executed.

The historical comparisons with earlier and later socialists deepen this achievement. Particularly important is Diehl’s source-based account of Proudhon’s changing position on property. Böhm-Bawerk juxtaposes the categorical denunciations of 1840 with the qualified position of 1865: property could become a foundation of the social system through its generalization and its connection with other institutions. The point is interpretive as well as historical: Proudhon’s development cannot be adequately represented by his most famous slogan.

The closing polemic preserves this positive judgment while correcting what Böhm-Bawerk regards as misunderstandings of his value theory. Diehl objects to the primary division between subjective and objective value and proposes restoring the distinction between use value and exchange value. Böhm-Bawerk replies that he already retains that distinction at a subordinate level:

Nun habe ich selbst die Unterscheidung von Gebrauchs- und Tauschwert keineswegs ganz aufgegeben, sondern ihr nur die Stelle einer Unter-Einteilung innerhalb der oben genannten allgemeinsten Kategorien angewiesen (a. a. O. S. 53 ff.)

English translation: Now I myself have by no means wholly given up the distinction between use value and exchange value, but have merely assigned to it the place of a subdivision within the most general categories named above (op. cit., pp. 53 ff.)

His central move is to examine Diehl’s definitions rather than accept the apparent opposition established by his labels. In Böhm-Bawerk’s reading, Diehl’s use value and exchange value correspond to the same forms of subjective value that his own theory recognizes. Diehl does not restore the older meaning of exchange value as goods’ objective exchange power; he instead denies that this latter concept should bear the name “value.” The disagreement is consequently terminological rather than a competing classification of economic phenomena.

Böhm-Bawerk also rejects the claim that he treats value as an inherent property of goods. Subjective value is explicitly not such a property, while objective value describes exchangeability attributed to goods through customary forms of thought and speech. The review’s theoretical significance lies in this insistence on separating subjective valuation, objective exchange power, and the language used to describe them. Its favorable appraisal of Diehl thus culminates in a precise boundary-setting exercise: historical reconstruction deserves praise, but criticism of value theory must respect distinctions that familiar economic terms can conceal.