PROUDHON.
The principle of authority occupied a prominent place in the socialistic
schemes of Saint-Simon and Louis Blanc. The former planned a religious
society in which the priests should exercise undisputed sway over the
production and distribution of goods, assigning to each member of the
society his proper rank and rewarding him in proportion to his services.
The latter expressly demanded a strong government, in order that it might
be able to transform the economic life of the people by the erection
of social workshops, although a large amount of local self-government
was in the end to be allowed to each group of workers. Fourier did not
explicitly reject the principle of authority, but contrived a system in
which it should be easy and natural to rule and to be ruled, in so far
as any ruling was necessary. There existed in his mind still a large and
compact social organization. He made war, not on authority in itself,
but upon all restraint placed on the desires and passions of man. He
thought a natural combination of these rendered compulsion unnecessary.
There was thus room left for another advance in the development of
French socialism. A problem which had not as yet been attempted, was to
unite absolute and unqualified individualism with perfect justice in the
production of goods, and in their distribution. Does not this imply a
contradiction? Can there be such a thing as individualistic socialism?
or socialistic individualism? Can collectivism and anarchy obtain in
the same group of people? Do they not mutually exclude each other? What
matter! The task must be tried; and a man appeared on the scene who
delighted in contradictions, and thought that truth sprang out of their
union. This man was Proudhon.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was born July 15, 1809, in Besançon, of humble
parents. His father was a cooper, while his mother was a bright and
vigorous country girl. He was of the people, the masses, and he spoke of
it freely as an advantage. Proudhon professed that he always remained
one of them and thus knew their life. It was early necessary that he
should assist in his support, and this he did by agricultural labor, in
particular by guarding the cows as they pastured on the mountains of
the Jura. Later he became a waiter in a restaurant. Time was, however,
found for the school and the college, where he distinguished himself for
unusual talents and carried off a large number of prizes and honors.
The public library furnished him with reading-matter, so that he read a
large number of books before he was fourteen. He used to call for as many
as six books at a time. At the age of nineteen Proudhon was compelled
to leave the college in order to assist his father, whose business had
fallen into a sad condition. He learned the printer’s trade and soon
became a corrector in a publishing house of some note, which became to
him a school. The house published a large number of theological works,
which he perused so carefully that it was afterwards supposed that he had
studied at a theological seminary. He learned Hebrew when they published
a Bible with an interlinear translation. The result was that he was able
to contribute a number of theological articles to the “Encyclopédie
Catholique.”
The Académie de Besançon having honors and prizes to distribute,
proposed every year a subject for an essay. In 1839 the subject was
“The Utility of the Celebration of Sunday.” Proudhon competed for the
prize, but was not successful, although the book met with some praise,
and passed through two editions in two years. He had, however, already
been fortunate enough to secure a pension of 1500 francs, which had been
founded to encourage literature and science, and placed in charge of the
Académie. Besides his work demonstrating the utility of the observation
of Sunday, Proudhon had written several essays of more or less merit
on comparative philology, and he was considered a very promising young
man. But he was thinking all this time of means to elevate the laboring
classes. When he solicited the votes of the Académie for the pension,
he told them plainly that it was his intention to direct his studies
towards the means of ameliorating the physical, moral, and intellectual
condition of the most numerous and the poorest class. In a letter to
Paul Ackermann, a distinguished man of letters, with whom he had formed
a connection, he wrote as follows, concerning the congratulations
he had received on being awarded the pension: “I have received the
congratulations of more than two hundred people. Why do you think that
people felicitate me? Because it is almost certain that I shall attain
honors equal to those which the Jouffroys, the Pouillets have obtained,
and perhaps, I am told, even greater honors. No one has come to me and
said: ‘Proudhon, you ought before everything else to devote yourself to
the cause of the poor, to the enfranchisement of the little ones, to the
instruction of the people. You will perhaps be an abomination to the rich
and powerful; pursue your way as a reformer regardless of persecutions,
of calumny, of sorrow, and of death itself.’”[118]
About this time he founded a printing establishment in his native city,
which appears never to have flourished greatly. He had already taken up
the study of political economy, in addition to theology and philology, to
both of which he hereafter devoted comparatively little attention. One of
his first instructors in his new study was the able economist, Pellegrino
Rossi. His economic studies bore fruit in 1840, in his work on property,
“Qu’est-ce que la Propriété?”[119]—“What is Property?” A startling answer
to the question is given—viz., “Property is theft” and “Property-holders
are thieves.”
The work marks a new epoch in the history of socialism, on several
accounts. First, he attacks in it directly the chief support of
individualism and the greatest obstacle to the realization of
communism—private property. Others had proposed phalansteries, religious
sects, and social workshops, all presupposing the abolition of private
property; but Proudhon was the first to attempt to prove directly and
scientifically that private property _per se_ was a monstrosity—was
robbery. Again, he set an example of harsh and rude attacks on classes
and institutions, which modern social democrats have not been slow to
follow. He could easily have expressed the thought which he wished
to convey otherwise than by using the word “theft,” but he preferred
the cruel, biting expression. Likewise, in condemning the God of the
theologians, he cried out, “God is the evil!” (“_Dieu c’est le mal!_”)
Very likely he simply meant to condemn certain ideas concerning God, but
it was not at all necessary for him to use an expression sure to give
offence and pain to many good people. In the same way he was not content
to call property-holders thieves. He says elsewhere that the “proprietor
is essentially a libidinous animal, without virtue and without shame.”
This reveals another side of Proudhon’s character. He felt for the
poor, but he hated the rich as a class, if not individually. He tells
us himself that he first experienced a feeling of shame on account of
poverty, but finding existence intolerable while tormented by such a
humiliating feeling, he succeeded in transforming it into hate and anger.
Afterwards his hatred turned into contempt and he became calmer, though
it is probable that he always retained a certain bitterness of feeling.
He writes to the Académie de Besançon: “When I sought to become your
pensioner, I was full of hate for that which exists and of projects of
destruction. My hatred of privilege and of the authority of man was
without measure. Perhaps I was sometimes wrong in confounding in my
indignation persons and things; at present I only know how to despise
and complain. In order to cease to hate, it was only necessary for me to
understand.”[120]
In the third place, this book is remarkable, because so many modern
socialistic schools can be traced back to it. The ideas of the
anarchists of France at the present time are well presented in it. We
also find in it a good presentation of that part of Marx’s doctrine of
value which treats of labor-time as the measure of value, and the portion
of the products which the capitalist takes under the name of profits as
robbery. Marx developed it, and doubtless understood its import better
than Proudhon, but nevertheless the germs of his most important theory
are very plainly contained in this work on Property.[121]
Finally, the essay on Property is important because it led socialists
and even political economists to a revision of their theories and a
more careful observation of facts. Louis Blanc discouraged fantastical
and supernatural schemes of reform; but the sharp, cutting criticism
of Proudhon, directed now against the communists, now against the
Saint-Simonians and Fourierists, now against the political economists,
rendered them impossible. High-priests and revealers of visions could
henceforth count on no favor on the part of the laborers.
Proudhon disposed of his printing establishment in 1843, but at such
a loss as to leave him in debt to the amount of 7000 francs, which,
however, he was finally able to pay. His next business enterprise was
the formation of a connection with a company which was engaged in
transportation on the Saone and the Rhone. This occupation lasted five
years, but he did not, in the meantime, cease his literary labors.
In 1846 he published his “Système des Contradictions Économiques
ou Philosophie de la Misère.”[122] If the work, “Qu’est-ce que la
Propriété?” ranks first in importance of all his works, this certainly
occupies the second place. It contains a sharp criticism of socialistic
and economic theories, which he opposes to one another, and shows that
they are mutually destructive. Here, as elsewhere, no one has doubted the
merit of his criticism. He adopted as the motto of the book “_Destruam
et ædificabo_”—“I will destroy and I will build up again.” He was
powerful as a destroyer, but weak as a constructor. He could not keep
the second part of his promise. He had become imperfectly acquainted
with the Hegelian logic at second-hand through Carl Grün, who became
his translator, and he sought to unite contradictories, “thesis” and
“antithesis,” into a “synthesis.” But Hegel is not an author whom a
Frenchman is likely to understand, and Proudhon did not succeed well in
the use of his logical method.
Proudhon took no part in the Revolution of February, as he was not a
politician, holding that all forms of government were equally vicious,
and it was of little importance whether this or that party triumphed.
He held himself aloof from any participation in the events which were
transpiring until the political revolution was past, in order then
to make his power more effectually felt in the settlement of social
questions. In April he became editor of the _Représentant du Peuple_, and
in June he was elected, by a large majority, to the Constituent Assembly
as one of the representatives of the Departement de la Seine. After he
had seen the various social parties retire, defeated, from the scene,
one after another, it became his turn to present positive measures of
social reform. He had combated all socialistic sects, while maintaining
persistently his position as a friend of the poor. What had he to offer,
now that he had assisted to overthrow every plan of improvement which
had been proposed? On the 31st of July he brought forward his scheme of
organization of credit, which would guarantee labor to all in the only
effectual way, as it would furnish every one with the instruments of
labor. What this was we will consider presently. It is only necessary to
state that it was rejected by the overwhelming majority of 691 to 2.[123]
He attempted the execution of his plan without the aid of the state,
by the erection of a bank, which failed about April 1, 1849, after an
existence of a few weeks. Thus ended the attempt of the last great French
socialist to carry out a scheme of social and economic regeneration.
Proudhon’s paper was suppressed, but it reappeared twice under different
names, before the arrest and sentence of its editor to three years’
imprisonment for breaking the press-laws terminated its existence.
During his imprisonment he wrote his “La Révolution Sociale Démontrée
par le Coup d’État du 2 Décembre”—“The Social Revolution Demonstrated by
the Coup d’État of 2d December” (1851). This created a sensation, and
six editions were sold in less than six months.[124] His imprisonment
terminated on the 4th of June, 1852, and he retired to private life. He
had been married in 1850 to the daughter of a merchant, and it is said
that his conduct as a husband and a father was exemplary. It is necessary
to mention only one other work which he wrote—viz., “De la Justice dans
la Révolution et dans l’Église”—which appeared in 1858.[125] He shows
in this book that outside of the Catholic Church and Christianity there
is no God, no theology, no religion, and no faith. Has Proudhon become
a Catholic and a conservative? By no means. He immediately proceeds
to demonstrate that the Church is ever in conflict with justice. The
book was seized eight days after its appearance, its author tried, and
sentenced to a fine of 4000 francs and to three years’ imprisonment,
which he escaped by flight to Belgium, where he remained until an amnesty
in 1860 allowed him to return to France. He died in Passy in 1865.
It is necessary to dwell more at length on three points in Proudhon’s
teachings—viz., his ideas concerning property, government, and positive
reform.
“Property is theft,” says Proudhon. Every argument brought forward to
sustain it destroys the institution. Some seek to justify it by the
theory of occupation, in accordance with which theory that which belongs
to no one becomes the property of him who takes possession of it.[126]
But if this be admitted, then property depends upon the accidents of
number of population and extent of territory. Those who are born too late
will be property-less. However, if the soil originally belonged to no
private individual it must have belonged to all collectively, and all
will not and cannot renounce their right to this common possession. If I
fashion a plough it is mine, because I made it. Who made the earth? God.
Well, let him then demand a rent for it—let him take his own. But this
he will not do. His gifts are free. We see that the theory of occupation
presupposes common property, and that cannot be surrendered any more than
life or liberty.
The second theory of property is the labor theory. But this theory
likewise destroys property. That only is mine which I produce. The earth
is mine only so long as I cultivate it. The moment another labors on my
farm it becomes his property. Again, labor presupposes the instruments of
labor, and where is one to obtain these in a system of private, personal
property, provided one does not already possess them? The theory of labor
demands the abolition of property, in order that every one may have free
access to the soil and to the other instruments of labor.
Property is robbery because it enables him who has not produced to
consume the fruits of other people’s toil. What I produce is worth what
it costs—_i.e._, the time and economic goods which enter into it. If
a capitalist or landlord takes away ten per cent., then the product
costs me more than it is worth. I am robbed of this ten per cent. The
proprietor is a thief.[127]
Shall we, then, return to the original state of society, to communism? By
no means. Private property is unjust. It is robbery of the weak by the
strong. Communism is the reverse injustice. It is robbery of the strong
by the weak. “Community is inequality, but in an inverse sense from
property. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Community
is an exploitation of the strong by the weak. In the system of property
inequality of conditions results from force, under whatever name it may
disguise itself—force, physical and intellectual; force of circumstances,
hazard, _fortune_; force of acquired property, etc. In community
inequality springs from mediocrity of talent and of labor, elevated to
an equality with force; and this injurious equation is revolting to
conscience and causes merit to murmur.”[128]
We have now our thesis and our antithesis. The synthesis is found in
POSSESSION. I may possess the instruments of labor of every kind in
order to enable me to labor. It is labor which renders them mine—my own
individual labor. So long as I cultivate myself a piece of land, it is
mine and the product is mine. I may not rob another by charging for the
use of the instruments of labor. It will be seen thus that what Proudhon
really is fighting against is rent[129] and profits of capital. He allows
inheritance—everything except individual ownership. Of course, when this
is analyzed, it becomes apparent that inheritance can amount to very
little.
What is the ideal of government? ANARCHY. We desire absolute liberty.
Any control of man by man is oppression. “What form of government shall
we prefer? Ah, how can you ask? replies one of my youngest readers.—You
are a republican? Republican, yes; but this word defines nothing. _Res
publica_—that is, the public thing; now, whoever wishes the public
thing, under any form of government, can call himself a republican. The
kings also are republicans.—Ah, well, you are a democrat? No.—What! are
you a monarchist? No.—A constitutionalist? God forbid.—You are, then, an
aristocrat? Not at all.—Do you wish a mixed government? Still less.—What
are you, then? I am an anarchist.... Anarchy—the absence of master, of
sovereign—such is the form of government which we approach every day,
and our inveterate habit of taking man for a guide and his will for law
makes us regard it as a heap of disorder and an expression of chaos....
No one is king.... Every question of internal politics ought to be solved
according to the data of the Department of Statistics; every question of
international politics is a question of international statistics. The
science of government belongs of right to one of the sections of the
Academy of Sciences, of which the perpetual secretary necessarily becomes
the first minister; and since every citizen may address a _mémoire_ to
the Academy, every citizen is a legislator; but as the opinion of no one
counts except in so far as it is demonstrated to be true, no one can
substitute his will for reason—no one is king.... Justice and legality
are two things as independent of our consent as mathematical truth....
In order that truth should become law, it must be recognized. Now, what
is it to recognize a law? It is to verify a mathematical or metaphysical
operation. It is to repeat an experience, to observe a phenomenon, to
prove a fact.”[130]
What positive measures of reform are proposed to bring about equality
associated with anarchy? One is a great national bank, in which product
shall be exchanged against product without any intermediaries, so that
money-mongers shall not be able to stop the circulation and thereby
the production of goods. Paper money is to be given in exchange for
whatever is brought to this place of deposit. This paper is a check,
which indicates labor-time. It may be exchanged for anything else of
the same value, which has cost the same labor. Products are exchanged
for products, and what is received has the same value as what is given.
Property must be abolished, and no landlord or capitalist may intervene
and, by exacting toll, make what I receive cost me more than it is worth.
What Proudhon proposed in the National Assembly was a bank which should
effect exchanges of this sort. It was to be established by funds derived
from a part of the proceeds of a tax of one third, or thirty-three and a
third per cent. on revenues derived from property, and from a progressive
tax on salaries of government officers. Branches were to be established
in every part of France, and all were to be furnished with gratuitous
credit. Interest has shown a tendency to decrease, which may be traced
back for centuries.[131] Its normal rate is zero, and the national bank
is to assist in bringing it down to this point. Everybody wants credit
and everybody will be benefited by the measure.[132] All the world will
give and receive credit. Rights and duties, privileges and obligations,
are mutual. We may call this scheme MUTUALISM.[133]
But when interest becomes zero, it follows naturally and inevitably
that rents and profits become _nil_. Credit enabling every one to obtain
the instruments of labor without price, it is self-evident that no one
will pay anything to landlord or capitalist for their use. The problem
of abolishing the class of idlers is therefore solved. Henceforward
property does not exist. The laborer receives all, and products cost no
more than they are worth. This is the highest and the only true form
of SOCIABILITÉ. All men are associated on terms of equality; no one is
subject to another.
Proudhon rejected communism. His ground of opposition was of a twofold
nature. First, communism is based on property—not the property of an
individual, but of the community. We have in it, consequently, the same
kind of slavery as in our present society, save that we have many masters
instead of one. “The members of a community, it is true, have nothing
which is individual; but the community is proprietor, and proprietor
not only of goods, but of persons and of wills. It is according to this
principle of sovereign property that in every community labor, which
ought to be for man only a condition imposed by nature, became a human
command, and thereby odious.”[134] Second, communism is unjust, because
it is unequal. It is the robbery of the strong by the weak.
We have to ask, then, what is the equality which Proudhon desired? If
he did not wish to place all on the same level as regards recompense,
what did he wish? He tells us that “equality consists in the equality of
conditions—that is, of means—not in the equality of well-being, which
with equal means ought to be the work of the laborer.”[135] Was he not,
then, a Saint-Simonian? did he not wish to proportion reward to services?
He tells us distinctly, No.[136] He combats Saint-Simonism as unjust
and impracticable. He also speaks of equality as the corner-stone of
his system. The highest stage of society towards which we are moving he
calls LIBERTY—that is, the synthesis of the thesis, community, and the
antithesis, property—but “liberty is equality, because liberty exists
only in the social state, and outside of equality there is no society.”
And he again and again condemns inequality of wages and recompense in
his new society. Some writers, dwelling merely upon his condemnation
of community, have said that he was not in favor of equality. This
is a mistake. But how are we to reconcile his statements? They are
contradictories. Where is the synthesis? It is found in the fact that
all will hereafter produce alike. When possession takes the place of
property, each one will labor equally, and the products, being measured
by labor-time, will be equal in value. Equality of conditions becomes
absolute equality. “On the one hand, the task of each laborer being easy
and short, and the means of performing it successfully being equal, how
could there, then, be great and small producers? On the other hand, the
functions all being equal, either by the real equivalence of talents and
capacities or by social co-operation, how can a functionary, arguing from
the excellence of his work, demand a proportional salary?” (_i.e._, a
remuneration larger than the remuneration of others, in proportion to
the superiority of his work).
“But what do I say? In equality the salaries are always proportional
to faculties. But what is the salary or remuneration received? It is
that which composes the reproductive consumption of the laborer. The
act itself by which the laborer produces is then this consumption,
equal to his production. When the astronomer produces observations, the
poet verses, the savant experiences, they consume instruments, books,
travels, etc.; now, if society provides for this consumption, what
other proportionality of honors can the astronomer, the savant, and the
poet demand? Let us conclude, then, that in equality, and in equality
alone, the adage of Saint-Simon, ‘To each one according to his capacity,
to each capacity according to its works,’ finds its full and complete
application.”[137]
In intention, then, Proudhon was a communist in the sense of the
definition given in this work. No man ever preached more plainly and
unreservedly absolute equality as an ideal. He was not a communist in the
sense of favoring communities such as we see in a few places at present,
because they involve control and authority. He was, on the contrary, in
favor of anarchic equality. The distinction might be made by saying that
he was a communist, but not a communitarian.
I have, nevertheless, spoken of him several times as a socialist,
because the entire tendency of every positive proposal which he made was
socialistic, and not communistic. Equality has no logical connection
with his projects. He proposed to transform property into possession,
which means simply limiting very materially the rights of property. Now,
how could this change be so restricted without allowing inequalities to
arise? Each one cultivates his land as he pleases and works as he will,
all authority being banished from the face of the earth. Can any one,
without resorting to some supernatural and unwarranted theory, suppose
that all would derive the same products from the same instruments? Then
let us take up the case of gratuitous credit. Will all avail themselves
of it with equal profit in anarchy? What is to prevent my accumulating
labor receipts if my production exceeds consumption? Or shall the state
or some outside body prevent my taking more than I consume from the
magazines or banks, whatever they are called? If so, do we not have all
the interference and control of the hated community? It is thus seen that
Proudhon is inconsistent as well as paradoxical, and is unable to effect
his synthesis.
The following ten statements contain, in Proudhon’s own words, a _résumé_
of the system which we have just examined:
“I. Individual possession is the condition of social life; ...
Property is the suicide of society....
“II. The right of occupation being equal for all, possession
varies according to the number of possessors....
“III. The effect of labor being the same for all, property is
lost by its use on the part of others and by rent.
“IV. All human labor proceeding necessarily from a collective
force, all property becomes, for the same reason, collective
and indivisible; in terms more precise, labor destroys property.
“V. Every capacity for labor being, the same as every
instrument of labor, an accumulated capital or collective
property, _inequality of remuneration and of fortune_, under
pretext of inequality of capacity, _is injustice and theft_.
“VI. Commerce has for its necessary conditions the liberty of
contractors and the equivalence of products exchanged; now,
value having for its expression the sum of the time and of the
expense which each product costs, and liberty being inviolable,
the laborers necessarily remain equal in wages, as they are in
duties and in rights.
“VII. Products are purchased only by products; now, the
condition of every exchange being the equivalence of products,
profits from exchange are impossible and unjust. Observe this
principle of the most elementary economy, and pauperism,
luxury, oppression, vice, crime, and hunger will disappear from
among us.
“VIII. Men are associated by the physical and mathematical law
of production; ...
“IX. Free association, liberty, which confines itself to
the maintenance of equality in the means of production and
equivalence in exchanges, is the only form of society possible,
just, and true.
“X. Politics is the science of liberty; the government of
man by man, under whatever name it may disguise itself, is
oppression. The highest form of society is found in the union
of order and anarchy.”[138]
Proudhon’s earnestness and sincerity can scarcely be doubted. We must
give him credit for honesty, however strong our conviction that his
schemes are utterly impracticable, and however severely we condemn the
bitterness and injustice with which his views are presented. He closes
his first _mémoire_ on property with the following appeal to the Deity
to hasten the coming emancipation and to witness his unselfish devotion:
“O God of liberty! God of equality! Thou God, who hast placed in my
heart the sentiment of justice before my reason comprehended it, hear my
ardent prayer. Thou hast dictated that which I have written. Thou hast
formed my thought, thou hast directed my studies, thou hast separated
my spirit from curiosity and my heart from attachment, in order that I
should publish the truth before the master and the slave. I have spoken
as thou hast given me power and talent; it remains for thee to complete
thy work. Thou knowest whether I have sought my interest or thy glory.
O God of liberty! May my memory perish, if humanity may but be free; if
I may but see in my obscurity the people finally instructed, if noble
instructors but enlighten it, if disinterested hearts but guide it.
Shorten, if it may be, our time of trial; smother inequality, pride, and
avarice; confound this idolatry of glory which retains us in abjection;
teach thy poor children that in the haven of liberty there are no more
heroes nor grand men. Inspire the strong one, the wealthy one, whose name
my lips shall never pronounce before thee, with horror on account of his
robberies.... Then the great and the small, the rich and the poor, will
unite in one ineffable fraternity; and all together, chanting a new hymn,
will re-erect thy altar, O God of liberty and of equality!”[139]