Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Categories: 1809 births | 1865 deaths | 19th century philosophers | Anarchists

Image:Proudhon-children.jpg
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon et ses enfants, Gustave Courbet, 1865.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (pronounced [ˈpruːd ɒn] in BrE, [pʁu dɔ̃] in French) (January 15, 1809 – January 19, 1865) was the first individual to call himself an "anarchist." Born in Besançon, Doubs, France, he was a workingman, a printer, who taught himself to read Latin so as to print books in that language as well. He is most famous for asserting "Property is theft", in his missive What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right of Government (original title: Qu'est-ce que la propriété? Recherche sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement), first published in 1840.

Proudhon declared that “property is theft”, “property is freedom”, and “property is impossible”. Although he was a libertarian socialist, he rejected communitarianism and believed that individual possession, which he distinguished from private property, was necessary both for liberty and for an efficient economy. Proudon had many arguments against property, including those based on morality, economics, politics, and individual liberty. One such argument was that private property enabled profit, which in turn led social instability and war by creating cycles of debt that eventually overcame the capacity of labor to pay them off,

Property, acting by exclusion and encroachment, while population was increasing, has been the life-principle and definitive cause of all revolutions. Religious wars, and wars of conquest, when they have stopped short of the extermination of races, have been only accidental disturbances, soon repaired by the mathematical progression of the life of nations. The downfall and death of societies are due to the power of accumulation possessed by property. (What is Property?)

As a consequence of these beliefs Proudhon rejected capitalism, which he believed was based in a coercive form of entitlement. He proposed instead a more limited form of proprety, based on labor and occupation, which he often refered to as "possession". Another of his famous statements is that "anarchy is order". This statement is believed by some to be the source of the circled-A.

He adopted the term Mutualism for his brand of anarchism, which involved control of the means of production by the workers. In his vision, self-employed artisans, peasants, and cooperatives would trade their products on the market. For Proudhon, factories and other large workplaces would be run by 'labor associations' operating on directly democratic principles. The state would be abolished; instead, society would be organized by a federation of 'free communes' (community assemblies). In 1863 Proudhon said, "All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization." Proudhon advocated a revolution, but insisted that it must be a non-violent one, thus he rejected large-scale expropriation: "I regard general disappropriation as impossible: attacked from that point, the problem of universal association seems to me insolvable. Property is like the dragon which Hercules killed: to destroy it, it must be taken, not by the head, but by the tail, -- that is, by profit and interest."

He made few public criticisms of Marx or Marxism because in his lifetime Marx was a relatively minor thinker; it was only after Proudhon's death that Marxism became a large movement. In fact, Marx had to struggle against the greater influence of Proudhon amongst leftists. He did, however, criticize other authoritarian socialists of his time period. This included the state socialist Louis Blanc, of which Proudhon said, "let me say to M. Blanc: you desire neither Catholicism nor monarchy nor nobility, but you must have a God, a religion, a dictatorship, a censorship, a hierarchy, distinctions, and ranks. For my part, I deny your God, your authority, your sovereignty, your judicial State, and all your representative mystifications." It was Proudhon's book What is Property? that convinced the young Karl Marx that private property should be abolished. In one of his first works, The Holy Family, Marx said, "Not only does Proudhon write in the interest of the proletarians, he is himself a proletarian, an ouvrier. His work is a scientific manifesto of the French proletariat." Marx, however, disagreed with Proudhon's anarchism and later published vicious criticisms of Proudhon. Marx wrote The Poverty of Philosophy as a refutation of Proudhon's The Philosophy of Poverty. In his socialism, Proudhon was followed by Mikhail Bakunin, in contrast to the authoritarian socialism that followed from Marx. After Bakunin's death his libertarian socialism diverged into anarcho-communsim when anarchists such as Joseph Dejacque amended Proudhon's theories, "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature."

His works were first translated into English by Benjamin Tucker, an advocate of individualist anarchism, who promoted Proudhon's ideas in the United States and extended his theory of mutualism.

His essay on what is government is also quite well known.

"To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality." (P.-J. Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294.)

Another famous quote was his 'dialogue with a philistine' in What is Property?:

"Why, how can you ask such a question? You are a republican."
"A republican! Yes; but that word specifies nothing. Res publica; that is, the public thing. Now, whoever is interested in public affairs -- no matter under what form of government -- may call himself a republican. Even kings are republicans."
"Well! You are a democrat?"
"No."
"What! "you would have a monarchy?"
"No."
" A Constitutionalist?"
"God forbid."
"Then you are an aristocrat?"
"Not at all!"
"You want a mixed form of government?"
"Even less."
"Then what are you?"
"I am an anarchist."
"Oh! I understand you; you speak satirically. This is a hit at the government."
"By no means. I have just given you my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist. Listen to me."


Late in his life Proudhon became more conservative and reactionary, eventually embracing a kind of liberalism. He no longer advocated the abolition of government, and instead argued for increasing its powers while also strenghthening property in order to counter-balance it. "Where shall we find a power capable of counter-balancing the... State? There is none other than property... The absolute right of the State is in conflict with the absolute right of the property owner. Property is the greatest revolutionary force which exists" and "property, by creating guarantees for itself that both spread it more equally and establish it more firmly in society, itself becomes a guarantee of liberty and keeps the State on an even keel. Once property has been firmly established . . . the power of the State is increased to the maximum"(Selected Writings).

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