Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: Mutualist and Federalist
Proudhon was born in Besancon in 1809. His father was a brewer. In 1827, Proudhon became an apprentice in the printing trade. In 1829 he met Fourier and supervised the printing of Fourier’s work – Le Nouveau Monde Industriel. In 1830, Proudhon became a journeyman compositor. In 1838, he won a bursary to study philosophy, the following year wining a prize at the Besancon Academy for an essay. The following year, he published his first substantive work – What is Property?, a social critique which included his famous statement that “property is theft”. This was followed by two further memoirs in letters to first Auguste Blanqui and then to Victor Considerant, the latter of which led to his arrest.
Stephen Vincent, in his study of Proudhon, seeks to trace his intellectual trajectory from a catholic republicanism, through Christian socialism, to a moral anti-theism to associational socialism. Proudhon saw himself as an anarchist, though his self-definition of anarchism was in fact mutualism, in contrast with the egotistical individualism of the German Hegelian anarchist, Max Stirner.
In 1846, Proudhon wrote the System of Economic Contradictions or the Philosophy of Poverty. This generated a critique from Karl Marx under the ironic title – The Poverty of Philosophy. In 1847, Proudhon founded a journal – The Representative of the People, which aimed at inaugurating a social revolution. Between March and April 1848, in the early months of the revolution, he published a series of articles on The Solution to the Social Problem, setting out his mutualist approach and arguing that the provisional government, including Louis Blanc, the Minister of Labour, misunderstood the social and economic needs of the country. To Proudhon, the republic was a “positive anarchy”. Proudhon attacked both political economists and utopian socialists. Instead, he argued that “reciprocity is the principle of existence”, the principle of social reality, the formula of justice” He quoted the Christian notion– “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. The economy should be based on “products exchanged for products”. While Blanc focused on the organisation of labour, Proudhon focused on the organisation of credit. In 1849, he attempted to organise an exchange bank. While this attracted some 13,000 adherents, it failed to raise sufficient capital to make it a viable enterprise. Proudhon had been elected to the legislative assembly in May 1848, but had limited influence, perhaps not surprising given his lack of belief in representative parliamentary institutions. He did make proposals for financial reform, in effect a system of taxation to provide subsidies for investment in industry and commerce to reflate the economy, which one historian has called “Keynesianism before Keynes”. This approach was not supported by Proudhon’s parliamentary colleagues. When the general election was called in May 1849, Proudhon decided he had had enough of parliamentary politics. He was nevertheless nominated by the left republicans and elected, but refused to take his seat. Proudhon was actually arrested and put into prison, despite his opposition to the militant resistance to Louis Bonaparte’s coup promoted by some of his republican associates.
Proudhon was financed by the Russian socialist, Alexander Herzen, to start a new journal – The Voice of the People. Proudhon was still in prison but given considerable freedom, though in June he was subjected to greater restrictions, and Herzen was expelled from France. Proudhon returned to writing books: Confessions of a Revolutionary was published in 1850; General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century in 1851; Of Justice in the Revolution of the Church in 1858, War and Peace in 1861 The Principle of Federation in 1863. and The Political Capacity of the Working Classes in 1865. Four other books published posthumously – on property, constitutionalism and art, with a final book with the curious title of “Pornocracy or Women in Modern Time’. Proudhon died in 1865. It is perhaps in The General Idea of the Revolution, that Proudhon sets out most clearly his libertarian alternative to Jacobinism, his critique of government, his denunciation of capitalism and his vision of a free society based on voluntary federation and workers” self-management.
Further Reading:
Woodcock, George Proudhon (Black Rose Books, 1987)
Hyams, Edward Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: His Revolutionary Life, Mind and Works (John Murray 1979)
Vincent, Stephen Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism (Oxford University Press 1984)
Hoffman, Robert Revolutionary Justice University of Illinois 1972)
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph ed Edwards Selected Writings (Macmillan 1969)
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph ed Kelley and Smith What is Property? (Cambridge University Press 1994)
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph General Idea of the Revolution of the Nineteenth Century (Pluto 1989)
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph ed Vernon The Principle of Federation (University of Toronto Press 1979)