We have started out from the premises of political economy. We have accepted its language and its laws.
Political economy proceeds from the fact of private property.
It does not explain it. It grasps the material process of private property, the process through which it actually passes, in general and abstract formulae which it then takes as laws. It does not comprehend these laws - i.e., it does not show how they arise from the nature of private property. Political economy fails to explain the reason for the division between labour and capital. Similarly, competition is frequently brought into the argument and explained in terms of external circumstances.