Pierre-Joseph Proudhon : Father of Anarcho-Mutualism

Notes on “How Business Goes in France, a...

The five under the Empire Today I received the visit of G. [1], who has come on the part of Proudhon to make me a rather original proposition. Proudhon is in the course of composing a booklet that bears this title: Comment les affaires vont en France et pourquoi nous aurons la guerre. Several sheets of that booklet are already composed; it will be put on sale in a few days. It is a question of getting it into France and here is the means that Proudhon has invented: The deputies of the opposition would address to the publisher in Brussels a request for 267 copies, destined to be distributed to the 267 members of the legislative body. It is unlikely, according to Proudhon, that the interior minister would da... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Parliamentary Isolation

I entered the National Assembly with the timidity of a child, with the ardor of a neophyte. Assiduous, from nine o’clock in the morning, at the meetings of bureaux and committees, I did not quit the Assembly until the evening, and then I was exhausted with fatigue and disgust. As soon as I set foot in the parliamentary Sinai, I ceased to be in touch with the masses; because I was absorbed by my legislative work, I entirely lost sight of the current of events. I knew nothing, either of . the situation of the national workshops, or the policy of the government, or of the intrigues that were grow-ing up in the heart of the Assembly. One must have lived in that isolator which is called a National Assembly to realize how the men who are mo... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Philosophy of Progress, The

FOREWORD France has exhausted the principles that once sustained it. Its conscience is empty, just like its reason. All the famous writers that it has produced in the last half-century,—the de Maisters, the Chateaubriands, the Lamennais, the de Bonalds, the Cousins, the Guizots, the Lamartines, the Saint-Simons, the Michelets, Catholics, eclectics, economists, socialists, and members of parliament,—have not ceased to predict that moral collapse which, thanks to God's mercy, man's foolishness, and the necessity of things, has finally arrived. The philosophers of Germany have echoed the prophets of France, as finally the destiny of our homeland has become common to all the old world; for it is written that as French societ... (From: Anarchy Archives.)

Propositions : To Leave Behind Abstractions, ...

There exists between men a tendency or attraction that pushes them to group and act for their greatest interests and the most complete scope of their liberty, collectively and en masse. From that tendency in the group results, for the human mass, a new and incalculable power, which can be considered as the proper and unique force of Society, commonly known as the Sovereignty of the People. That force is manifested in all the labors that demand an energy out of proportion with the means of the individual; in the large workshops and factories, in the armies, but especially in the political organization of Government. The importance of that force is such that we can affirm boldly, without fear of being refuted,... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

“Questions Eliminated by this Organizati...

Translator’s Introduction: I’ve been working through the texts in Ms. 2867, part of Economie, looking for material to include in the forthcoming edition of The Philosophy of Progress, and I’ve been finding all sorts of interesting things. The following section comes immediately after the “New Propositions Demonstrated in the Practice Of Revolutions,” so we should perhaps understand by “this organization” the program laid out at the end of that section: “To set aside the notion of substance and Cause, and move onto the terrain of Phenomena and Law, or of the Group.” While the translation here has a fair number of gaps in it (which can hopefully be filled by some more work with the manuscr... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Relation of the State and Liberty, Accor...

Modern right, by introducing itself in the place of the ancient right, has done one new thing: it has put in the presence of one another, on the same line, two powers which until now had been in a relation of subordination. These two powers are the State and the Individual, in other words Government and Liberty. The Revolution, indeed, has not suppressed that occult, mystical presence, that one called the sovereign, and that we name more willingly the State; it has not reduced society to lone individuals, compromising, contracting between them, and of their free transaction making for themselves a common law, as the Social Contract of J.-J. Rousseau gave us to understand. No, Government, Power, State, as on wishes to call it, ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Selections from the Carnets

CARNETS, VOLUME 1 Carnets, Vol. 1 (Carnet No. 1, 17): 27. Serial law. Everything in nature is simple and complex. What we call a simple idea or element is nothing but the term with which we ended our analysis. Each day I experience the truth of that observation, […] Carnets, Vol. 1 (Carnet 2, 38): 133. In order to organize society, to reestablish order, we must not wish to escape antinomic principles; we must seek one that coordinates with them. This principle exists, simpler and more common than anything the laws have ever prescribed: return it to its rank. Let us not seek a way out of the contradictions that’s press us; there is no way out. Let us manage ourselves [or come to an agreement] with t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Social Revolution Demonstrated by the Co...

One of the things that ought to be clear from recent developments here is that sometimes the most interesting, and also the most unexpected, insights into Proudhon’s work come from double-checking those things that “everyone knows” about his work. It was, after all, in the context of tracking down how close he came to saying “anarchy is order” that I ran across the dubious translations in The General Idea of the Revolution, and that has led to a general scouring of his work for discussions of “anarchy” and “anarchism,” which keeps raising interesting points about the early uses of that term. When I started working through what I was finding, I was reminded that some of Proudhon&rs... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Solution of the Social Problem, The : [Excerpts]

P.-J. Proudhon’s Solution du Problème Social consists of five sections: “Solution du Problème Social;” “Organization du Crédit et de la Circulation;” “Résumé de la Question Social;” “Banque d’Échange;” and “Banque du Peuple.” The collection does not seem to have been included in the Rivière edition of the Oeuvres Complète, so the standard French edition is vol. 8 of the edition by A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven and Co. (1868) This edition is available on microfiche from John Zube’s Libertarian Microfiche Project, and the major untranslated sections will also soon be available in pdf form from the Libertarian Labyr... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

State, The : Its Nature, Object, and Destin...

The Revolution of February raised two leading questions: one economic, the question of labor and property; the other political, the question of government or the State. On the first of these questions the socialistic democracy is substantially in accord. They admit that it is not a question of the seizure and division of property, or even of its repurchase. Neither is it a question of dishonorably levying additional taxes on the wealthy and property-holding classes, which, while violating the principle of property recognized in the constitution, would serve only to overturn the general economy and aggravate the situation of the proletariat. The economic reform consists, on the one hand, in opening usurious credit to competition and thereby... (From: proudhonlibrary.org.)

tax

industrial solidarity

System of Economical Contradictions: or,...

1. -- Necessity of monopoly. Thus monopoly is the inevitable end of competition, which engenders it by a continual denial of itself: this generation of monopoly is already its justification. For, since competition is inherent in society as motion is in living beings, monopoly which comes in its train, which is its object and its end, and without which competition would not have been accepted, -- monopoly is and will remain legitimate as long as competition, as long as mechanical processes and industrial combinations, as long, in fact, as the division of labor and the constitution of values shall be necessities and laws. Therefore by the single fact of its logical generation mono-poly is justified. Nevertheless this justification would se... (From: University of Virginia Library.)

Theory of Taxation, The

Relation of the State and Liberty, according to modern right. Modern right, by introducing itself in the place of the ancient right, has done one new thing: it has put in the presence of one another, on the same line, two powers which until now had been in a relation of subordination. These two powers are the State and the Individual, in other words Government and Liberty. The Revolution, indeed, has not suppressed that occult, mystical presence, that one called the sovereign, and that we name more willingly the State; it has not reduced society to lone individuals, compromising, contracting between them, and of their free transaction making for themselves a common law, as the Social Contract of J.-J. Rousseau gave us to under... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Toast to the Revolution

October 17, 1848 Citizens, When our friends of the democratic republic, apprehensive of our ideas and our inclinations, cry out against the qualification of socialist which we add to that of democrat, of what do they reproach us? — They reproach us for not being revolutionaries. Let us see then if they or we are in the tradition; whether they or we have the true revolutionary practice. And when our adversaries of the middle class, concerned for their privileges, pour upon us calumny and insult, what is the pretext of their charges? It is that we want to totally destroy property, the family, and civilization. Let us see then again whether we or our adversaries better deserve the title of conservatives... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Unanimity : Universal Consent

There are things, in the moral order, about which the human race is unanimous; there are even many of them. So isn’t it possible that all the questions of politics, economics and morals could be simplified or clarified in such a way that the response to them would be unanimous? In this way, the direct government of the people would be possible. It is according to that idea, confirmed by the testimony of the sciences, that [Pierre-Napoléon] Domenjarie [1852] has written his pamphlet, La loi morale, loi d’unanimité, which we have read in prison. That philosophical thesis [reveals] the ignorance of the author, but it is nonetheless useful to clarify it. The things about which there c... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

What is Government? What is God?

What is Government? What is its principle, its object, its right? -- This is incontestably the first question that the political man poses to himself. Now, this question, which appears so simple and the solution of which seems so easy, we find that faith alone can answer. Philosophy is as incapable of demonstrating Government as it is of proving God. Authority, like Divinity, is not a matter of knowing; it is, I repeat, a matter of faith. That insight, so paradoxical at first glance, and yet so true, merits some development. We are going to try, without any significant scientific apparatus, to make ourselves understood. The principal attribute, the signal trait of our species, after THOUGHT, is belief, and above all thi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

What is Property? : An Inquiry into the Principle ...

P. J. Proudhon: His Life and His Works. The correspondence[1] of P. J. Proudhon, the first volumes of which we publish to-day, has been collected since his death by the faithful and intelligent labors of his daughter, aided by a few friends. It was incomplete when submitted to Sainte Beuve, but the portion with which the illustrious academician became acquainted was sufficient to allow him to estimate it as a whole with that soundness of judgment which characterized him as a literary critic. In an important work, which his habitual readers certainly have not forgotten, although death did not allow him to finish it, Sainte Beuve thus judges the correspondence of the great publicist: — “The letters of Proudhon, even outside the... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)