Pierre-Joseph Proudhon , born the January 15th 1809 with Besancon in the Doubs and dead the January 19th 1865 with Passy, was a Publiciste, economist, Sociologue and Socialiste French, the first to qualify anarchistic . Proudhon is famous for its famous quotation “ the property, it is the flight! ” in its report Which is what the property? Or research on the principle of the right and the government which was its first major work, published in 1840.

Publication of “ What the property? ” draws the attention of the French authorities but also of Karl Marx which starts a correspondence with Proudhon. The two men influence themselves mutually; they meet with Paris where Marx is in exile. Their friendship is completed when, in answer to the Philosophy of misery of Proudhon, Marx written the Misery of philosophy . Within the International association of the workers (first International), there was a scission between the anarchists of Bakounine and those of Proudhon. Proudhon thought that the collective ownership was undesirable and that the social revolution could be reached peacefully.

Proudhon gave in its Système of economic contradictions published in 1846 an explanation of the company based on the existence of contradictory realities. Thus the property expresses the inequality but is the object even of freedom, mechanization increases the productivity but destroyed the craft industry and subjects the employee, in fine freedom itself is at the same time essential but causes inequality. These contradictions are eternal and announce the self-destruction of capitalism by no means that Marx would have announced.

In its book “the Confessions of a revolutionist to be used with the history of the Revolution as February”, Proudhon writes inter alia things the famous sentence “anarchy it is the order without the capacity”. It tried to create a national bank which gives free loans, similar in a certain mutual way to the S of today.

Political philosophy

Proudhon is the first theorist known to designate itself as a “anarchist”. He writes in federative Principle that “the concept of " anarchie" , in policy, is quite as rational and positive that no other .” Proudhon defended individual freedom against any dominant force: the Church, the Religion and any species of dictatorship, the individual should never be sacrificed to the General interest or the Social justice.

Proudhon and the economic scene

Proudhon has a great confidence in the economic scene, which he regards as only qualified to change the company: “I persist in believing that the questions about God, on the human destiny, the ideas, on the certainty, in a word, all the high questions of philosophy form integral part of the economic scene, which is not, after all, which the external realization”. Like Fourier or Saint-Simon, he thus affirms the primacy of the economy on the policy.

In its economic Contradictions , Proudhon attempts to show that the economy is founded on internal contradictions: thus, mechanization reduces the sorrow of the workman but the met with unemployment, the division of the labor increases the social richness but abrutit the workman, the credit can émanciper the worker but is granted only to the rich person, the land and buildings is the base even of freedom, but produced privileges.

The Concurrence is in the same way contradictory, on a side it is unjust by its effects (it lends to him to lead necessarily to the monopoly) but Proudhon accepts it because she effective and is necessarily opposed to the privileges: “By that only that the workman of the administration does not have competition, that it neither for the benefits, nor with the loss, that it is not free in a word, its productivity is interested is necessarily less and its too expensive service. ”. The leaders become “by their treatment (note: their subsidies), of the aristocrats as expensive as useless and the others, the employees, are retained forever under a condition subordinate”

Vis-a-vis these contradictions which are eternal, the revolution is vain and it is necessary to seek a new way of considering the economic reports/ratios, founded on the right and the contract.

If it is shown very critical towards the capitalist economy, socialism more does not find grace in its writings. What it cannot accept, it is the Utopia, which, for him, in accordance with the etymology, is a “place of nowhere” which cannot be. However, socialism is a Utopia: “ only, in the vagueness of its ideas, it protests against the unanimity of mankind ”; also, “ it does not have there an hour marked for him; he is condemned to a perpetual adjournment ”. When capitalism affirms that what must be is, socialism affirms that what must be is not. When the political economy affirms that work is organized, the utopian socialism affirms that it should be organized. Faithful to dialectical the hégélienne of which he claims himself a large follower, Proudhon refutes these two conclusions; it thinks that work is organized. It is that he does not admit the assumption of a stationary state: for him, the company evolves/moves since the birth of the world and will evolve/move until the end of the world. Consequently, he is opposed as well to the classical economists - who describe realities of the world of the time without thinking as they are transitory and than they could evolve/move - that with the Socialists, for whom the advent of an ideal company will mark the end of the history.

Proudhon wants to be the apostle of a third way, that of the scientific socialism, which will take the form of the positive anarchy or the self-management federalism . The self-management federalism of Proudhon is founded on two parallel structures, one corresponding to the economic activities, and the other with the body politic. These two constructions must be distinct but cooperate. In the field of the production, it is about a “economic democracy mutualist: the farmers are owners of a piece which they exploit, and they join others within co-operative units, themselves included in an agricultural federation. The industrial sector would owe, as for him, being made up of multiple collective ownerships concurrent between them but associated in the same industrial federation. Groupings of consumers' unions would form a " trade union of the production and the consommation" , in charge of the management of the system, independently of the State. Proudhon does not stop there: he imagines also a confederation which would gather all the markets of the world.

On the political plan, the “federative political democracy” would be founded on areas which car-would be managed - for France, a dozen - and would be associated to train a federal republic. The federal level would not have " that a role of institution, creation, the least possible installation, of exécution". There would be 2 rooms: a Room of the areas and a Room of the professions. The vote for all would be thus based on a regional and socio-professional division. Nations could form confederations together. Thus, in 1863, Proudhon imagines confederal Europe equipped with a budget, various agencies, of a court of justice and organizing a Common Market. This organization can be installation only thanks to the will of the workmen and with time. Will, especially: the thought of Proudhon is founded on the contract.

The criticism of the property

In its first work, Proudhon analyzes the nature and the problems of a capitalist economy. Although deeply critical of capitalism, he also objects to the contemporary Socialists who idolâtrent the Collectivisme. In series of comments, of Which is what the property? (1840) until posthumous the Theory of the property (1863-64), it declared initially that " the property it is the vol" , but affirmed in fine that " the property, it is the liberté". He explained whereas when he said that the property is flight, he had been included/understood with misconception: he designated in fact land sole owner idle who, according to him, steals the profits to the workers. In Theory of the property , he affirms that the “property is the only force which can be used as counterweight in the State”. Thus, “Proudhon could maintain the idea of property like flight and offer a new definition like freedom of it at the same time. There is perpetual possibility of abuse, of exploitation which produces the vol. But simultaneously the property is a spontaneous creation of the company and a defense against the insatiable capacity of the State. ” Thus the property is principal eternal contradictions which explains the company.

While supporting that the property is essential with freedom, Proudhon returns not only to the product of the work of the individual but also to the hearth of the Paysan or the Artisan, with the instruments of sound Commerce and with the income which it perceives of the sale of his goods. For Proudhon - following Locke - the only legitimate source of property is work. What each one product is its property and anything else. It can be regarded as a socialist libertarian since it pled for the Auto-gestion of the worker and asserted against the capitalist possession of the means of production. However, it rejected the possession of the products of work by the company . Proudhon exposed many arguments not to confer rights to the ground and the capital, arguments including/understanding of the reasons based on morals, economics, politics and individual freedom. One of its arguments was that such rights allowed the profit, which led to its turn with the social instability and the war by creation of cycles of debt which with final made impossible refunding by work. Another argument was that produced the “despotism” and transformed the workers into employees prone to the authority of a chief.

Proudhon is opposed to the collective ownership and the personal property. He denounces them both, however he gives up finally his defense of the “possession” against the “property” and justifies the latter like necessary evil. In Theory of the property , it maintains: “But, in 1840, I straightforwardly denied the property right… for the group as for the individual, for the nation as for the citizen” but then it exposes its new theory of the property. “The property is the greatest revolutionary force which exists and which can oppose to the capacity” and “be used as counterweight with the public power, to balance the State, by this means of ensuring individual freedom; such will be thus, in the political system, the principal function of the property. ” ( Theory of the property ). However, although it supports the land ownership now (including the right to the heritage), it still believes that the “property” should be distributed égalitairement and limited cuts some so that it is really used by the individuals, the families and associations of workers. ( Theory of the property ) It supports the right of heritage, defended “like one of the bases of the family and the company”. (Edwards Steward, Introduction to Selected Writings off P.J. Proudhon ) It however refuses to extend it beyond the personal possessions asserting that under the law of association, the transmission of the richness applies to the instruments of work (Daniel Guerin Neither god nor Master) (in Daniel Guerin (ED.), No Gods, No Masters , vol. 1, p. 62). -->

The transformation of the company: the free credit, mutualism, federalism

Proudhon has a clean design of the exploitation: there is exploitation in what the owner pays of individual labor forces to his workmen and collects a higher labor force collective. Thus, the 200 pomegranates which set up in one day the Obelisk on the place of the Harmony achieved a work that could not have achieved only one pomegranate in 200 days, but its wages would have been the sum of those versed with 200 pomegranates: capitalism does not pay the immense force which results from the union and the harmony of the workers, the convergence and the simultaneity of their efforts .

Consequently of its opposition to the profit, with paid work, the exploitation of the workers, like the public property, Proudhon rejects at the same time capitalism and Communism. He recommends association and adopts the term of mutualism for his kind of anarchism, which implies the control of the means of production by the workers. In its vision, independent craftsmen, peasants, and Coopérative S would exchange their products on a market. For Proudhon, the factories and other broad work places would be directed by trade unions functioning by direct democracy. The State would be abolished; in the place the company should be organized by a federation of “free communes”. Proudhon is made theorist of the Fédéralisme.

Proudhon is opposed to taxation interest and revenue, but does not seek to abolish them by the law ( Solution of the social problem , 1848-49). He considers that once the workers will have organized the credit and work, such forms of exploitation will disappear.

The theory of Proudhon was revolutionist, but its revolution did not mean violent rising nor civil war but rather transformation of the company by the advent of a Middle-class. This transformation was primarily moral and required highest ethics on behalf of those which sought the change. It was a monetary reform combined with the contractual organization of a bank credit and associations of workers that Proudhon proposes to use as lever to cause the organization of the company according to new lines. It does not envisage nor does not suggest how the monetary institutions should manage the problem of inflation and the need for allocating the rare resources effectively.

Relationships to the other socialist or anarchistic doctrines

Proudhon disapproves the revolutionary action. Wire of craftsmen, he is wary of the working class of which he fears violence and denounces the “charlatanries” of total and total organization of the company.

“The attachment of Proudhon to individual freedom, that no shape of social organization must remove, for some reason that it is, enabled him to perceive better than any other socialist thinker the risks attached to the triumph of the State, the collective or the community”.

He criticized the authoritative Socialists like the Socialist etatist Louis Blanc . Proudhon highly rejects the idea of a centralizing State.

It fades in the same way the Communisme: “Communism is synonymous with nihilism, joint possession, immobility, of night, of silence” ( Système of economic contradictions ); the phalansterian system “contains only silly thing and ignorance”.

Proudhon did few criticisms public of Karl Marx. One can think that it is because the alive one of Proudhon Marx was little known out of certain circles.

It is the book Which is what the property? which would have convinced Marx that the Private property was to be abolished. In one of its first work, the Holy Family, written Marx: “Not only Proudhon written in the interest of the Proletariat, but it is itself a proletarian, a workman. Its work is a scientific proclamation of the French proletariat. ” Marx published later severe criticisms against Proudhon. Marx wrote the Misery of Philosophy to refute the Philosophy of misery of Proudhon. In certain aspects of its socialism, Proudhon was followed by Michel Bakounine. After the death of Bakounine, libertarian socialism divided between Anarchist-Communism and libertarian Collectivisme, with notable partisans such as Pierre Kropotkine and Joseph Déjacque.

Discusses

According to Daniel Guerin Proudhon was at the same time a driven back puritan and homosexual: “It is necessary to exterminate all bad natures and to renew the sex, by the elimination of the vicious subjects, like the English an ox race, sheep and pigs remake…. ”; “O you all, young men and young girls, who dream of a perfect love, will know it well, your platonism is the right way which leads to Sodome”.

Quotations

The test of Proudhon on “What the government? ” is well-known:

To be controlled, it is to be police custody, inspected, spy, directed, legislated, regulated, parked, endoctriné, preached, controlled, estimated, appreciated, censured, ordered, by beings which have neither title, neither science, nor the virtue… To be controlled, it is to be with each transaction, with each movement, noted, recorded, listed, tariffed, stamped, measured, dimensioned, cotized, licensed, laid off, authorized, admonished, prevented, reformed, rectified, corrected. It is under pretext of public utility and in the name of the general interest being put at contribution, exerted, held to ransom, exploited, monopolized, concussionné, pressed, mystified, stolen; then, with the least complaint, with the first word of complaint, repressed, amended, vilified, upset, tracked, scolded, struck, disarmed, garrotté, imprisoned, shot, grapeshot, judged, condemned, off-set, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and for roof, played, Bern, insult, dishonoured. Here is the government, here is its justice, here is its morals!

And that there are among us democrats who claim that the government has good; Socialists who support, in the name of freedom, of the equality and fraternity, this ignominie; proletarians who present their candidature for the presidency the Republic! Proudhon (Pierre Joseph) (" General idea of the revolution to the XIXe siècle" 1851)

Another famous quotation in Which is what the property? :

Which shape of government will we prefer?

“- eh! Can you ask it, undoubtedly answers somebody of my younger readers; you are republican. ”

“- republican, yes; but this word does not specify anything. LMBO publica, it is the public thing; however whoever wants the thing public, in some shape of government that it is, can be said republican. The kings also are republican. ”

“- eh well! You are democratic? ”

“- not. ”

“- what! You would be monarchical? ”

“- not. ”

“- constitutional? ”

“- God keeps me. ”

“- you are thus aristocrat? ”

“- not of the whole. ”

“- you want a government mixed? ”

“- even less. ”

“- what are you thus? ”

“- I am anarchistic. ”

“- I hear you: you made satire; this is with the address of the government. ”

“- in any way: you have just heard my serious and maturely considered profession of faith; though very friend of the order, I am, in all the force of the term, anarchist. listen to me. ”

• "Where did the History of the overcome people pass in the French history? "

• Jewish. To make an article against this race, which envenime all, while lining themselves everywhere, without never melting themselves with any people. To ask for its expulsion of France, except for the individuals married with Frenchwomen; to abolish the synagogs, to admit them with any employment, to finally continue the abolition of this worship. It is not for only the Christians called them deicides. The Jew is the enemy of mankind. It is necessary to return this race to Asia, or to exterminate it. (...) By iron or fire, or expulsion, it is necessary that the Jew disappears… To tolerate the old men who do not generate any more. (...) What the people of the Middle Ages hated of instinct, I hate it with reflection and irrevocably. The hatred of the Jew as of the English must be the first article of our political faith. Notebooks , December 26th, 1847. (Like a great number of Socialists of the XIXe century, Proudhon expressed feelings anti-Jews which can be explained by their identification with the capital, by the money which the States borrowed from financial Juifs.)

Others

Gustave Courbet made a famous portrait in of it 1865, preserved at the museum of the Petit Palais.

Nonexhaustive bibliography

• Which is what the property? Or research on the principle of the right and the government (1840)
• Warning to the owners (1841)
• System of economic contradictions or Philosophy of misery (1846)
• Solution of the social problem (1848)
• Confessions of a revolutionist to be used for the history of the Revolution of February (1849)
• general Idea of the revolution at the XIXe century (1851)
• the handbook of the speculator to the purse (1853)
• Of justice in the revolution and the Church. New Principles of philosophy practices (1858)
• Theory of taxation (1861)
• the War and Peace (1861)
• Of the principle Fédératif (1863)
• Of the political capacity of the working classes (1865)
• Of the principle of art and its social destination (1865)
• Théorie of the property (1866)
• Théorie of the constitutional movement (1870)
• Correspondances (1875)

Influenced writers

• Mikhaïl Aleksandrovitch Bakounine

• Pierre Kropotkine
• Georges Sorel
• Benjamin Tucker

Random links:

Fléville-in front of-Nancy | Executive council (Swiss) | Hiéronyme | Marie-madeleine Peyronnet | Centipede