Amazon.com description: Product Description: The Poverty of Philosophy (French: Misère de la philosophie), German title Das Elend der Philosophie, is a book by Karl Marx published in Paris and Brussels in 1847, where he lived in exile in 1843-1849. It was originally written in French, though Marx wrote most of his works in German. It criticizes the economic and philosophical arguments of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon set forth in The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty. Marx specifically accuses Proudhon of wanting to rise above the bourgeoisie. In the history of Marx's thought and Marxism, this work is pivotal in the distinction between the Marxist concepts of utopian socialism and scientific socialism.