Pierre Joseph Proudhon

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ORGANIZATION RESEARCH
http://www.anarchy.no/iifor.html - IIFOR P.B. 4777 Sofienberg N- 0506 Oslo - Norway

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Pierre Joseph Proudhon's basic ideas

An anarchist classic and a contribution to the history of political economy

Proudhon is most famous for his hypothesis that Property is theft, but he was for possession. He was a social individualist anarchist, see the economic-political map at System Theory. IIFOR's precisation of Proudhon's property vs possession concept is: Anarchies very briefly defined are systems with small rank and income differences, plus efficiency. Any ownership that is compatible with systems with small rank and income differences, plus efficiency, is possession. Possession may be individual or collective, private or public. 1. Any ownership that results in large income differences is capitalist, economical plutarchy. 2. Any ownership that results in large rank differences is statist. 1. and 2. are property, i.e. theft, not possession. [1]. The basic ideas of Proudhon are elaborated in the following quotes. *)**)

"[Anarchy] ... the ideal of human government... centuries will pass before that ideal is attained, but our law is to go in that direction, to grow unceasingly nearer to that end, and thus I would uphold the principle of federation. [2] ...it is unlikely that all traces of government or authority will disappear... [3] Proudhon wanted people to minimalize the role of authority. By the word [anarchy] I wanted to indicate the extreme limit of political progress. Anarchy is... a form of government or constitution in which public and private consciousness, formed through the development of science and law, is alone sufficient to maintain order and guarantee all liberties... The institutions of the police, preventative and repressive methods officialdom, taxation etc., are reduced to a minimum... monarchy and intensive centralization disappear, to be replaced by federal institutions and a pattern of life based upon the commune. [4] Since the two principles, Authority and Liberty, which underlie all forms organized society, are on the one hand contrary to each other, in a perpetual state of conflict, and on the other can neither eliminate each other nor be resolved, some kind of compromise between the two is necessary.

Whatever the system favored, whether it be monarchical, democratic, communist or anarchist, its length of life will depend to the extent to which it has taken the contrary principle into account. [5] ...that monarchy and democracy, communism and anarchy, all of them unable to realize themselves in the purity of their concepts, are obliged to complement one another by mutual borrowings. There is surely something here to dampen the intolerance of fanatics who cannot listen to a contrary opinion... They should learn, then, poor wretches, that they are themselves necessarily disloyal to their principles, that their political creeds are tissues of inconsistencies... contradiction lies at the root of all programs. [6] ...writers have mistakenly introduced a political assumption as false as it is dangerous, in failing to distinguish practice from theory, the real, from the ideal... every real government is necessarily mixed... [7] ...few people defend the present state of affairs, but the distaste for utopias is no less widespread. [8]  The people indeed are not at all utopian... they have no faith in the absolute and they reject every apriori system... [9]"

How would Proudhon introduce the anarchist society? Not through utopian schemes or a wipe-the-slate-clean revolution but, " to dissolve, submerge, and cause to disappear the political or governmental system in the economic system, by reducing, simplifying, decentralizing and suppressing, one after another, all the wheels of this giant machine... the State. [12] We should not put forward revolutionary action as a means of social reform because that pretended means would simply be an appeal to force, or arbitrariness, in brief a contradiction. I myself put the problem this way; to bring about the return to society by an economic combination, of the wealth drawn from society... [13] We desire a peaceful revolution... you should make use of the very institutions which we charge you to abolish... in such a way that the new society may appear as the spontaneous, natural and necessary development of the old and that the revolution, while abrogating the old order, should nevertheless be derived from it... [14]  There are no such things as minor reforms, or minor economies or minor wrongs. The life of man is a battle, that of society a perpetual reformation; let us therefore reform and go on reforming unceasingly. [15] I am one of the greatest artifers of order, one of the most moderate progressionists, one of the least Utopian and one of the most practical reformers that exist. [16]

The way to achieve selfmanagement/selfadministration or anarchism on a large scale was through federation . Proudhon wished to dissolve authority and the State with the aid of the federal system. Note in the following quotations how the State is still assumed to exist, yet is being set on the path of abolition.

The contract of federation, whose essence is always to reserve more powers for the citizen than the state, and for municipal and provincial authorities than for the central power, is the only thing that can set us of the right path. [17] ...the citizen who enters the association must 1. have as much to gain from the state as he sacrifices to it. 2. retain all his liberty... except that he must abandon in order to attain the special object for which the contract is made... the political contract is called federation. [18] Free association... the only true form of society. [19] The system of contracts, substituted for the system of laws, would constitute the true government, true sovereignty of the people, the REPUBLIC. [20] ... the constitutional monarchy is preferable to the qualified monarchy: in the same way that representative democracy is preferable to [monarchical] constitutionalism. [21] Regime of Authority: 1. Government of all by one - monarchy 2. Government of all by all - communism - Regime of Liberty 1. Government of all by each - democracy 2. Government of each by each - anarchy or self-government. [22]

There was also the important question of what kind of association one should organize.  Association is a bond which is naturally opposed to liberty, and which nobody consents to submit, unless it furnishes sufficient indemnification... Let us make a distinction between the principle of association, and the infinitely variable methods , of which a society makes us... [24] ...association applicable only under special conditions... [25] Association formed without any outside economic consideration, or any leading interest, association for its own sake is... without real value, a myth. [26]  ...mutualism intends men to associate only insofar as this is required by the demands of production, the cheapness of goods, the needs of consumption and security of the producers themselves, i.e., in those cases where it is not possible for the public to rely upon private industry...

Thus no systematized outlook... party spirit or vain sentimentality unites the persons concerned. [27] In cases in which production requires great division of labour, it is necessary to form an ASSOCIATION among the workers... because without that they would remain isolated as subordinates and superiors, and there would ensue two industrial castes of masters and wage workers, which is repugnant in a free and democratic society. But where the product can be obtained by the action of an individual or a family... there is no opportunity for association. [28]

Proudhon was in favor of private ownership of small-scale property, in the meaning of possession. He opposed individual ownership of large industries because workers would lose their rights and ownership. Property, in the meaning of possession, was essential to building a strong democracy and the only way to do this on the large-scale was through co-operative associations:  Where shall we find a power capable of counter-balancing the... State? There is none other than property [i.e. possession]... The absolute right of the State is in conflict with the absolute right of the property owner. Property [i.e. possession] is the greatest revolutionary force which exists. [29]. ...the more ground the principles of democracy have gained, the more I have seen the working classes interpret these principles favorably to individual ownership [i.e. possession]. [30] [Mutualism] ...will make capital and the State subordinate to labor. [31] 

That every individual in the association... has an undivided share in the company... a right to fill any position according to suitability... all positions are elective, and the by-laws subject to approval of the members. That pay is to be proportional to the nature of the position, the importance of the talents, and the extent of responsibility. [32]  In a free society, the role of the government is essentially that of legislating, instituting, creating, beginning, establishing, as little as possible should it be executive... The state is not an entrepreneur... Once a beginning has been made, the machinery established, the state withdraws, leaving the execution of the task to local authorities and citizens. [33] [Coinage] ...it is an industry left to the towns. That there should be an inspector to supervise its manufacture I admit, but the role of the state extends no farther than that. [34]

The following quote from 1863 is a good summary of Proudhon's economic and political ideas: All my economic ideas, developed over the last 25 years, can be defined in three words, agro-industrial federation; all my political views... political federation or decentralization, all my hopes for the present and future... progressive federation. [35] I)

"Do not expect me to provide you with a system. My system is Progress, that is to say the need to work constantly toward discovering the unknown while the past is being exhausted," Proudhon wrote in a letter of December 1851. This does not mean anarchism is without system, it is a whole set of systems related to the economical political map http://www.anarchy.no/a_e_p_m.html , and the updated research front of anarchism www.anarchy.no . It means we, Proudhon, IIFOR and other anarchists, will 1. not provide you with a fixed, dogmatic system once and for all. 2. You are invited to improve the research front of anarchist systems while learning. 3. "Proudhon's system" at that time, as well as today's updated research front of anarchism is a front of Progress:

The research front, using the scientifical method of the natural sciences, the hypothetical deductive method, see http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/sci/hd.php , is all of the time developing and improved as an accumulated capital of knowledge, consistent and with small -- and sometimes large -- breakthroughs and revolutions, in a progressive way. Join in to improve the research front while learning and send a comment to IIFOR, click on the link to IIFOR's homepage http://www.anarchy.no/iifor.html and use the e-mailform.

We have made an extract of Proudhon's definitions of possesion and property from "What is property?"(WIP) [1]: If I were asked to answer the following question: WHAT IS SLAVERY? and I should answer in one word, IT IS MURDER, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him. Why, then, to this other question: WHAT IS PROPERTY! may I not likewise answer, IT IS ROBBERY, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?

There are different kinds of property: 1. Property pure and simple, the dominant and seigniorial power over a thing; or, as they term it, NAKED PROPERTY. 2. POSSESSION... The tenant, the farmer, the commandite', the usufructuary, are possessors; the owner who lets and lends for use, the heir who is to come into possession on the death of a usufructuary, are proprietors... This double definition of property -- domain and possession -- is of the highest importance; and it must be clearly understood, in order to comprehend what is to follow. This distinction between the jus in re and the jus ad rem is the basis of the famous distinction between possessoire and petitoire,-- actual categories of jurisprudence, the whole of which is included within their vast boundaries. Petitoire refers to every thing relating to property; possessoire to that relating to possession.

In writing this memoir against property, I bring against universal society an action petitoire: I prove that those who do not possess to-day are proprietors by the same title as those who do possess; but, instead of inferring therefrom that property should be shared by all, I demand, in the name of general security, its entire abolition. If I fail to win my case, there is nothing left for us (the proletarian class and myself) but to cut our throats: ... But property, in its derivative sense, and by the definitions of law, is a right outside of society; for it is clear that, if the wealth of each was social wealth, the conditions would be equal for all, and it would be a contradiction to say: PROPERTY IS A MAN'S RIGHT TO DISPOSE AT WILL OF SOCIAL PROPERTY. Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty, equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property; then if property is a NATURAL right, this natural right is not SOCIAL, but ANTI-SOCIAL.

Property and society are utterly irreconcilable institutions. It is as impossible to associate two proprietors as to join two magnets by their opposite poles. Either society must perish, or it must destroy property. To tell a poor man that he HAS property because he HAS arms and legs, -- that the hunger from which he suffers, and his power to sleep in the open air are his property, - is to play upon words, and to add insult to injury. The proprietor, producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief.

1. The republican constitution of 1793, which defined property as "the right to enjoy the fruit of one's labor," was grossly mistaken. It should have said, "Property is the right to enjoy and dispose at will of another's goods, -- the fruit of another's industry and labor."2. Every possessor of lands, houses, furniture, machinery, tools, money, &c., who lends a thing for a price exceeding the cost of repairs (the repairs being charged to the lender, and representing products which he exchanges for other products), is guilty of swindling and extortion. In short, all rent received (nominally as damages, but really as payment for a loan) is an act of property,--a robbery. 3. Since property is the grand cause of privilege and despotism, the form of the republican oath should be changed. Instead of, "I swear hatred to royalty," henceforth the new member of a secret society should say, "I swear hatred to property."

By this principle, the man who takes possession of a field, and says, "This field is mine," will not be unjust so long as every one else has an equal right of possession; nor will he be unjust, if, wishing to change his location, he exchanges this field for an equivalent. But if, putting another in his place, he says to him, "Work for me while I rest," he then becomes unjust, unassociated, UNEQUAL. He is a proprietor. Reciprocally, the sluggard, or the rake, who, without performing any social task, enjoys like others -- and often more than others -- the products of society, should be proceeded against as a thief and a parasite. We owe it to ourselves to give him nothing; but, since he must live, to put him under supervision, and compel him to labor.

With "sluggard or the rake" Proudhon probably means a capitalist/economical plutarchist, who lives entirely on the work of others. Proudhon is a man of paradox, see George Woodcock Anarchism, Penguin Books 1979 p 98-133. It is also stated that Proudhon called himself a man of paradox. (source E. H. Carr, Studies in Revolution p. 18 (1962).) Thus he must be interpreted in the full context to be properly understood. In What is property? Proudhon also writes: "Property is impossible". In Ch. 5, Part 2, Proudhon writes: "Property is the exploitation of the weak by the strong." He also declared: "... property is despotism." p. 259 and "Property ... violates equality by the rights of exclusion and increase, and freedom by despotism ... [and has] perfect identity with robbery." p. 251.

In the Revolutionary Program (1848): "Revolutionary Program, To the voters of Seine, Paris, May 30, 1848" Proudhon comfirms his hypothesis that propety is theft. This conclusion stands firm:

Citizens,

Since my political friends and the socialists desire it, I again agree to try my fortune in the elections, and I address to you my profession of faith. It will summarize without equivocation, and in an intelligible fashion, my ideas on the Revolution, and my hopes for the future. You will not name me, citizens: neither you, whom I solicit for the vote, nor the government, which might support my candidacy, have the time to understand me. But, voters of Paris, ... ; and what your prudence will not grant at first sight, I do not despair, will elicit your wisdom on the second examination.

The revolution of February put into question all of society. In such a solemn moment, a profession of the faith, in order to be sincere, must be complete; it is not even enough that it is complete, it is necessary that it is justified. You will excuse then, citizens, the length of these explications. I am not one of those for whom a profession is only a diplomatic act, where, with vague formulas, one appears to promise much, while in reality one promises nothing. The social system, that which it is a question of reforming and refounding, embraces three orders of ideas: The family, Public economy, The form of government. I will tell you what I think about each of these points.

I am, as you are well aware, citizens, the man who wrote these words: Property is theft! I do not come to retract them, heaven forbid! I persist in regarding this provocative definition as the greatest truth of the century. I have no desire to insult your convictions either: all that I ask, is to say to you how I — partisan of the family and the household, and adversary of communism that I am — understand that the negation of property is necessary for the abolition of misery, for the emancipation of the proletariat. It is by its fruits that one must judge a doctrine: judge then my theory by my practice. When I say, Property is theft! I do not propose a principle; I do nothing but express one conclusion. You will understand the enormous difference presently. However, if the definition of property which I state is only the conclusion, or rather the general formula of the economic system, what is the principle of that system, what is its practice, and what are its forms?

My principle, which will appear astonishing to you, citizens, my principle is yours; it is property itself. I have no other symbol, no other principle than those of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: Liberty, equality, security, property . Like the Declaration of Rights, I define liberty as the right to do anything that does not harm others . Again, like the Declaration of Rights, I define property, provisionally, as the right to dispose freely of one's income, the fruits of one's labor and industry. Here is the entirety of my system: liberty of conscience, liberty of the press, liberty of labor, free trade, liberty in education, free competition, free disposition of the fruits of labor and industry, liberty ad infinitum, absolute liberty, liberty for all and always.

It is the system of '89 and '93; the system of Quesnay, of Turgot, of J.-B. Say; the system that is always professed, with more or less intelligence and good faith, by the various organs of the political parties, the system of the Débats , of the Presse , of the Constitutionnel , of the Siècle , of the Nationale , of the Rèforme , of the Gazette ; in the end it is your system, voters. Simple as unity, vast as infinity, this system serves for itself and for others as a criterion. In a word it is understood and compels adhesion; nobody wants a system in which liberty is the least bit undermined. One word identifies and wards off all errors: what could be easier than to say what is or is not liberty?

Liberty then, nothing more, nothing less. Laissez faire, laissez passer , in the broadest and most literal sense; consequently property, as it rises legitimately from this freedom, is my principle. No other solidarity between citizens than that which rises accidentally from force majeur: for all that which relates to free acts, and manifestations of reflective thought, complete and absolute insolidarity ... Who does not see that the mutualist organization of exchange, of circulation, of credit, of buying and selling, the abolition of taxes and tolls of every nature which place burdens on production and bans on goods, irresistibly push the producers, each following his specialty, towards a centralization analogous with that of the State, but in which no one obeys, no one is dependent, and everyone is free and sovereign? II)

It is worth while to note that Proudhon is critical to the policy of Quesnay, Turgot and J.-B. Say, stating their system is professed with more or less intelligence and good faith, he himself proposing a mutualist organization. Laissez faire literally means let (people) do (as they please), it has nothing to do with liberalism, capitalism or extreme individualism in this context. Laissez passer means literally let pass, a permit. Proudhon was a social individualst anarchist: "... we must regard Proudhon as a social individualist", see p. 99, George Woodcock: Anarchism, Penguin Books 1979.

In the posthumously published Théorie de la propriété - Theory of Property (1866) [a book that was not finished from his side, and thus must be given less weight in the context] he declared that "Property is liberty" and argued that property is a power that can act as a counterweight to the State. But he retained to his death that "property is theft". As mentioned in What is property? Proudhon operates with two forms of property, quoting: "There are different kinds of property: 1. Property pure and simple, the dominant and seigniorial power over a thing; or, as they term it, NAKED PROPERTY. 2. POSSESSION...". The property is theft hypothesis mainly excludes property type 1., a hypothesis that Proudhon was retaining all of the time from he wrote it to his death. Thus it is perhaps likely that when he writes property is freedom, he mostly means property in the form 2. possession, not property in the meaning 1. Hence, Proudhon could retain the idea of property as theft, and at the same time offer a new dimension to the definition of it as liberty. There is the constant possibility of abuse, exploitation, which spells theft.

At the same time property (mostly in the meaning of possession) is a spontaneous creation of society and a bullwark against the ever-encroaching power of the State. He continued to oppose both capitalist and state property . In the Theory of Property he maintains: "Now in 1840, I categorically rejected the notion of property ... for both the group and the individual," but then states: "property is the greatest revolutionary force which exists, with an unequaled capacity for setting itself against authority..." and the "... principal function of private property within the political system will be to act as a counterweight to the power of the State, and by so doing to insure the liberty of the individual." However, he continued to oppose concentrations of wealth and property , arguing for small-scale property ownership associated with peasants and artisans, i.e. possession.

He still opposed private property in land: "What I cannot accept, regarding land, is that the work put in gives a right to ownership of what has been worked on." In addition, he still believed that "property" (i.e. possession) should be more equally distributed and limited in size to that actually used by individuals, families and workers associations. He supported the right of inheritance, and defended it "as one of the foundations of the family and society." However, he refused to extend this beyond personal possessions arguing that "under the law of association, transmission of wealth does not apply to the instruments of labour."III)

Contradictions are not acceptable from anarchist, i.e. scientifical point of view, see note on dialectics below. Proudhon is as mentioned above a man of paradox. Thus as mentioned he must be interpreted in the whole context to get a proper interpretation. And thus, when Prodhon writes: "There is only one new thing for us in our thesis: It is that we today accept entirely the very principle of property, the contradictory and abusive principle of which raised our disapproval, as well as its equally contradictory qualification: Dominium est jus utendi re sud, quatenus juris ratio patitur." [from "The Theory of Property", p 242.], it must be interpreted in the whole context. This statement is a bit unclear, but "Dominium est jus utendi re sud, quatenus juris ratio patitur" means "property is the right to use without breaking the law".

If the law only accepts property 2. possession, this is consistent with WIP. But this is perhaps not the most likely interpretation. This statement however clearly means there should be some sort of regulations, perhaps a form of selfregulation, on the use of property according to law, and it seems like Proudhon is accepting some tendencies of property 1., naked property, in addition to what he defined as possession in WIP. Some insignificant tendencies towards or of property 1. naked property, are however compatible with the definition of possession at the introduction to this page. For more information on this property vs possession concept, theoretically and practical operationally, see chapter V. A and B at http://www.anarchy.no/a_e_p_m.html .

Based on the whole context the following is valid: As a consequence of his opposition to profit, wage labour, worker exploitation, ownership of land and capital, as well as to state property , Proudhon rejected both capitalism and communism. 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" (a commune is a local municipality in French). In 1863 Proudhon wrote: "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."

In his book The Confessions of a Revolutionary (1849), Proudhon wrote among other things, the well known phrase, "anarchy is order". Proudhon seems to reject massive, unregulated, i.e. very significant tendencies of property 1, naked property, i.e. theft, according to WIP and favors property 2., i.e. possession, because he of course do not want a society based on massive theft. Theft is not order, and Proudhon advocates anarchy, i.e. order. Possession vs property in the Proudhonian sense will probably correlate well with the definitions of possession vs property in the introduction to this page. Some slight, unsignificant tendencies of property 1, naked property, may also be compatible with the operational definition of possession in the introductions to this page, and socialism. But not if this is the significant, i.e. much and unregulated property 1., will a.o.t. probably make the gini-index above 35, indicating, as a rule of the thumb, capitalism, see chapter V. B. of http://www.anarchy.no/a_e_p_m.html , and thus not be compatible with anarchism.

In The solution to the social problem (Solution du problème social) Paris, Pilhes et Guillaumin (1847 and 1848),  The organization of credit and the circulation, and the solution to the social problem , without tax, without loan  (Organisation du Crédit et de la Circulation, et Solution du problème social, sans impôt, sans emprunt ). Paris, Pilhes et Guillaumin (1848), and the Summary of the social question, Exchange bank ( Resumé de la question sociale, Banque d'échange) (1848),  he laid out a program of mutual financial cooperation among workers. He believed this would transfer control of economic relations from capitalists and financiers to workers. The central part of his plan was the establishment of a bank (similar in some respects to today's credit unions) to provide credit at a very low rate of interest and the issuing of "exchange notes" (i.e. similar to labor notes credit) that would circulate in lieu of money based on gold. He attempted to establish a popular bank (Bank du Peuple) early in 1849, but despite over 13,000 people signing up, mostly workers, receipts were limited falling short of 18,000FF and the whole enterprise was essentially stillborn.

In Freedom pamphlets. No. 1. (New Edition. 1920) The wage system, by Peter Kropotkin, he states: : "That the English Socialists of the early part of this century should invent labor notes is comprehensible.... If later Proudhon took up this same idea, that again is easy to understand..."In "Anarchism", by Peter Kropotkin, from The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910, he states: " He [Proudhon] preferred to attain the same end by rendering capital incapable of earning interest; and this he proposed to obtain by means of a national bank, based on the mutual confidence of all those who are engaged in production, who would agree to exchange among themselves their produces at cost-value, by means of labour cheques representing the hours of labour required to produce every given commodity.

Under such a system, which Proudhon described as 'Mutuellisme', all the exchanges of services would be strictly equivalent. Besides, such a bank would be enabled to lend money without interest, levying only something like I per cent, or even less, for covering the cost of administration. Everyone being thus enabled to borrow the money that would be required to buy a house, nobody would agree to pay any more a yearly rent for the use of it. A general 'social liquidation' would thus be rendered easy, without violent expropriation. The same applied to mines, railways, factories and so on." However Kropotkin does not mention a particular source in Proudhon's works where he mentions labor notes or similar. Whether Proudhon really advocated labor notes or something similar, or not, is a bit disputed, and the answer is left to further research on Proudhons works, especially perhaps the works on mutualism. As a likely working hypothesis IIFOR for the moment assumes that Proudhon's proposed "exchange notes" are something similar to labor notes credits, see http://www.anarchy.no/aneco1.html .

Proudhon's essay on What Is Government? is worth mentioning:

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. IV)

Another famous quote was his "dialogue with a Philistine" in What is Property? [1] pp. 271-272, where Proudhon speaks from the anarchist ideal perspective:

"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."

About Proudhon's works and dialectics

Quoting Kropotkin, from MODERN SCIENCE AND ANARCHISM http://www.anarchy.no/kropot1.html :

" When the metaphysicians try to convince the naturalist that the mental and moral life of man develops in accordance with certain "Immanent (in-dwelling) Laws of the Spirit," the latter shrugs his shoulders and continues his physiological study of the mental and moral phenomena of life, with a view to showing that they can all be resolved into chemical and physical phenomena. He endeavors to discover the natural laws on which they are based. Similarly, when the Anarchists are told, for instance, that -- as Hegel says -- every development consists of a Thesis, an Antithesis, and a Synthesis; or that "the object of Law is the establishment of Justice, which represents the realization of the Highest Idea;" or, again, when they are asked, -- What, in their opinion, is "the Object of Life?" they, too, simply shrug their shoulders and wonder how, at the present state of development of natural science, old fashioned people can still be found who believe in "words" like these ...

We have heard much of late about "the dialectic method," which was recommended for formulating the socialist ideal (i.e. marxism, ed. note). Such a method we do not recognize, neither would the modern natural sciences have anything to do with it. "The dialectic method" reminds the modern naturalist of something long since passed -- of something outlived and now happily forgotten by science. The discoveries of the nineteenth century in mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, physical psychology, anthropology, psychology of nations, etc., were made -- not by the dialectic method, but by the natural-scientific method..." (i.e. the hypothetical deductive method)

Similar to Michael Bakunin, Sam Dolgoff, Daniel Guerin and other more or less anarchist or semilibertarian thinkers sometimes using left-Hegelian type dialectics, Proudhon's dialectical ideas in itself and the arguments and writings related to these ideas must principally be rejected as pseudoscience, and thus not anarchism or anarchist, i.e. scientifical. These dialectical ideas may a) at best be irrelevant to anarchism or b) at worst be marxian dialectical ideas and semilibertarian or athoritarian. In case b) the general principle is to reject the whole thing as marxian, as marxian ideas are incompatible with anarchism, and mixes of marxian ideas and anarchist rhetorics are marxism, not anarchism. In case a) the dialectical ideas and framework should be omitted in anarchist perspective, or the hypothesis be reformulated in a non-dialectical, anarchist way if possible and reasonable.

When this is done, what is left of the work and corrected, may be seen as anarchist, and the writer may also be seen as anarchist if what is omitted or corrected in general of important works is not the essential or significant, and the rest, the valid part of the works intending to be anarchist, are of major interest as anarchism. In the case of Proudhon several of  his  works may be considered as anarchist . In the texts quoted on http://www.anarchy.no/proudhon.html the dialectical tendency is insignificant. However, quoting from the Système des contradictions économiques ou Philosophie de la misère ( The System of Economic Contradictions or the Philosophy of Misery) , 1846, of Proudhon: "I will explain therefore how, studying in the silence of my heart, and far from every human consideration, the mystery of social revolutions, God, the great unknown, has become for me an hypothesis, -- I mean a necessary dialectical tool".

Thus this book is based on "god" as well as dialectics and is thus from anarchist, i.e. scientifical point of view - based on the hypothetical deductive method, of less importance. Here we have made a scientifically valid interpretation of Proudhon's major works, and omitted the dialectical, non-scientifical, parts. We have a nomothetical approach to the interpretations of Proudhon, as opposed to a hermeneutical approach. The nomothetical approach is the scientifically valid.

Proudhon maintained to his death the hypothesis that property is theft and advocated possession as the best and most libertarian form of ownership, and he was a socialist all of his life. That he in his older days indicated that private property (capitalism) could be a counterweight against statism, is another thing, but that is not central to Proudhon's basic ideas as a socialist and anarchist thinker. It is mainly Proudhon's basic ideas as a socialist and anarchist thinker, that is relevant as a contribution to the updated research front of anarchism www.anarchy.no . In this connection the following quote of Proudhon may be mentioned: 1) "It is a fact of universal history that land has been no more unequally divided than in places where the system of possession alone has predominated." (Frazier's translation, from the "Selected Writings." Originally appeared in "Theory of Property,"  p146 .) "... similarly, the states where the most liberty and equality is found are  those where property reigns," (Shawn P. Wilbur's translation).

We think Proudhon's hypothesis 1) is wrong in this case, and probably a slip of the pen. He has no statistics of the gini-index or similar to discuss the consequences of possession vs property in a scientific way. We also doubt there has ever been a society with significant possession as defined by Proudhon before he wrote 1). And this is just a single, and not central, quote of Proudhon. Remember: "In the posthumously published Théorie de la propriété - Theory of Property (1866) [a book that was not finished from his side, and thus must be given less weight in the context...]". Another reason for that this hypothesis should be rejected, is that it implicitely means that a system with property, i.e. theft according to Proudhon, i.e. a society based on massive theft, should have more equality in rank and/or income, than a society without much theft, i.e. absurd. A society based on massive theft, cannot be anarchy/ism, by a reasonable definition. And this also contradicts other quotes of Proudhon, see above. Proudhon was in general not an advocater of theft.

Sources:

1. V. NOTES A. PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS VS POSSESSION IN ANARCHIST LAW, at http://www.anarchy.no/a_e_p_m.html

. Extracts from P. J. Proudhon: What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government. http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProProp.html

2. Woodcock, George. P.J. Proudhon , p. 249

3. Selected Writings p. 105

4. Ibid 92

5. Ibid 103

6. The Federal Principle , p. 21

7. Ibid 21

8. op cit 56

9. General Idea of Revolution in the 19th Century , Freedom, 1927, p. 76

10. Ibid 95

11. Ritter, Alan, Political Thought of P.J. Proudhon , p 280

12. General Idea 173

13. George Woodcock, Anarchist Reader , p. 139

14. General Idea ... 174

15. Ritter 280

16. DeLubac, Henri, The Unmarxian Socialist , p. 31

17. Federal Principle ... 45

18. Ibid 38

19. P.J. Proudhon ... 71

20. General Idea ... 206

21. Ibid 135

22. Federal Principle ... 9

23. op cit 80

24. Ibid 83

25. Ibid 85

26. Ibid 87

27. Selected Writings ... 62

28. op cit 216

29. Theory of Property in Lubac p. 177

30. General Idea ... 210

31. Selected Writings ... 57

32. op cit 222

33. Federal Principle ... p. 45

34. Ibid 46

35. Ibid 74 I)

*) The International of Social-Individualist Anarchism , ISIA, and the libertarian systems between advanced marxian social-democracy and advanced social liberalism on the Economical-Political Map (and a bit above), is mainly rooted back to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's research on an anarchist third social form between communism, in the meaning of state-socialism, and liberalism, in progressive direction medio 1800s. "... we must regard Proudhon as a social individualist ", see p. 99, George Woodcock: Anarchism, Penguin Books 1979.

The terms third alternative, road, way and social form may sometimes be used as labels on anarchism in general, but are usually referring to the social-individualist sector of the anarchist quadrant of the EP-map. Social-individualist anarchism may also be called just social anarchism, federalist or mutualist anarchism. However the word mutualism may also be used in a more narrow meaning, as a name of the libertarian co-operative movement, and may then sometimes have a more individualist approach. See http://www.anarchy.no/anarcho4.html .

In general anarchies very briefly defined are systems with significantly small rank and income differences, plus efficiency, i.e. significantly horizontally organized. State defined in a broad societal meaning is the opposite of this: A system with significantly large rank and/or incomedifferences, significantly vertically organized.

Furthermore it is clear that Proudhon's ideas of society and anarchist solutions are far from Murray Rothbard's "anarcho"capitalism/"free" marketers' ideas, i.e. individualism on the economical political map, outside the anarchist quadrant, located in the quadrant of liberalism on the map. "Anarcho"capitalism (and "free" markets) is - or most likely will end up in - economical plutarchy broadly defined, a.o.t. significantly large income-differences. Thus "anarcho"-capitalism is an oxymoron, it is not anarchism, but an extreme form of liberalism, far right on the economical-political map.

Proudhon, at least in the English translations used here, use the term "selfgovernment". Usually anarchists use the word government = state = archy = rule, i.e. over somebody, and a person cannot really rule (over) him/her-self. Thus "selfgovernment" is really a nonsensial word. Also "selfgovernment" is used of governments, i.e. regional government that have some autonomy, as say,  selfgovernment in Northern Ireland, and selfgovernment in the Kurdish Northern Iraq.

Thus the term "selfgovernment" is very ambiguous and should be avoided in anarchism. The www.anarchy.no usually makes use of the words selfadministration = autonomy narrowly defined, and selfmanagement = autogestion, instead. To avoid misun

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An anarchist classic and a contribution to the history of political economy.

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INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ORGANIZATION RESEARCH
http://www.anarchy.no/iifor.html - IIFOR P.B. 4777 Sofienberg N- 0506 Oslo - Norway

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Benjamin R. Tucker's basic ideas

An anarchist classic and a contribution to the history of political economy

Here we present the basic ideas of Benjamin Ricketson Tucker, excerpted from the book; Individual Liberty, Selections From the Writings of Benjamin R. Tucker, Vanguard Press, New York, 1926, Kraus Reprint Co., Millwood, NY, 1973, i.e. mainly a) State Socialism and Anarchism: How far they agree, and wherein they differ, and b) Property Under Anarchism.

Regarding a) it must be mentioned that Tucker mostly supports the "modified" labor theory of value of Josiah Warren (1798-1874) [i.e. the "cost principle", that really is not LTOV at all as defined in Marxism, but is more according with Pjotr Kropotkin (1842-1921), that rejected the LTOV and had ideas of political economy compatible with the marginal cost principle, see Modern Science and Anarchism. For an updated summary of anarchist political economy and economics, of course not based on the LTOV, see General theory.]

Regarding b) it must be mentioned that it is clear from the text and other writings from Tucker, that when he writes about "property", he most likely means "possession", not capitalistic or statist property, following Proudhon's hypothesis that "property is theft", see Proudhon's basic ideas. Tucker was the first to translate into English Proudhon's What is Property.

It is also interesting that when Tucker writes about law and order in an anarchist society, based on juries, he indicates only one set of laws, not several. We have also quoted statements from Liberty and Property and Anarchism and Crime, from the same book.

Both Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) and Tucker (1854-1939) agreed with much of the basic of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's (1809-1865) social individualist libertarian federalism, but they developed anarchist political economy in different directions, Bakunin to the left towards collectivist anarchism, and Tucker to the right towards individualist anarchism, see the four main tendencies of anarchism. From 1881-1908 Benjamin Tucker published the anarchist journal Liberty with the telling subtitle The Mother, not the Daughter of Order.

It must also be mentioned that the economic theories of Tucker are a bit outdated, a.o.t. neglecting authoritarian coercive market failures and how to deal with it. Furthermore Tucker's attack on Kropotkin's theories of communist anarchism for not being anarchist, is exaggerated, and not accepted by the Anarchist International. But this criticism of communism by Tucker is mainly valid for non-anarchist semi-libertarian/semi-democratic systems such as so called 'anarchist' communism, platformism, and council communism, in reality different forms of Marxian collectivism, i.e. Marxism - and thus not anarchism, see System theory. State socialism is the same as Marxism on the economic-political map, see System theory.

Tucker was an individualist anarchist, and as indicated above placed to the right of Proudhon on the economic-political map, see System theory, but he was still a significant socialist. Individualist anarchism is socialism plus autonomy, both significant, see the Individualist Anarchist International. Thus, Tucker's ideas of political economy must no be mixed up with so called 'anarcho-capitalism'; capitalism is practically certain economical plutarchy, and thus 'anarcho-capitalism' = 'anarchy-plutarchy', is practically certain an oxymoron, and thus not anarchism, i.e. scientific. 'Anarcho-capitalism' is in reality an extreme form of liberalism, capitalist individualism, located outside the quadrant of anarchism on the economic-political map, see System theory.

Included in this document is also a comment by IIFOR about the situation in USA, related to a note in the book Individual Liberty. Individualist anarchism, whith Tucker as a main theorist historically, is a part of the theoretical and practical framework of the Anarchist International. At the founding congress of the world wide AI-network in 1998, i.e. the International Anarchist Congress - the 5th Anarchist Biennial, the following was declared:

The Anarchist International is a global, undogmatic, free thinking, nonsectarian modern anarchist international, with sections for anarchoindividualist, anarchocollectivist, social individualist and mutualist anarchist and anarchocommunist  as well as green/ecoanarchist, anarchosyndicalist and anarchafeminist anarchists... We are commune or communist anarchists regarding the long term aim, the anarchist ideal. We are individualist anarchists in individual matters and collectivist anarchists in collective matters and social-individualist, including mutualist, anarchists in practical libertarian policy of today. We are anarcho-syndicalists in industrial and work matters, green/eco-anarchists regarding environmental questions, and anarcha-feminists in gender matters.

In addition to the global sections/organizations of the Anarchist International, i.e. the different Internationals, the AI-network is based on regional anarchist confederations, and anarchist federations of countries. However the number of libertarians defining themselves as mainly individualist anarchists, are today relatively few, compared to the other sections of the Anarchist International. Most networkmembers/subscribers of the Anarchist International define themselves mainly as social individualist anarchists, also with a green libertarian tendency. Two main theorists of social individualist anarchism historically is Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Ragnar Frisch (1895-1973), see Proudhon's basic ideas and Frisch's basic ideas.

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State Socialism and Anarchism:
How far they agree, and wherein they differ.

This essay, which is the clearest statement on the subject that has ever been produced, was written by Mr. Tucker in 1886, in response to an invitation from the editor of the North American Review to furnish him a paper on Anarchism. It was accepted, announced for publication, and was paid for; but it was never printed in that magazine, and, after numerous letters of inquiry had been sent, the manuscript was returned to the author, although the editor of the Review volunteered the declaration that it was the ablest article that he had received during his editorship. It appeared as the leading article in " Instead of a Book ," and, after forty years, it is still easily the most important thing in the present volume:

Probably no agitation has ever attained the magnitude, either in the number of its recruits or the area of its influence, which has been attained by Modern Socialism, and at the same time been so little understood and so misunderstood, not only by the hostile and the indifferent, but by the friendly, and even by the great mass of its adherents themselves. This unfortunate and highly dangerous state of things is due partly to the fact that the human relationships which this movement - if anything so chaotic can be called a movement - aims to transform, involve no special class or classes, but literally all mankind; partly to the fact that these relationships are infinitely more varied and complex in their nature than those with which any special reform has ever been called upon to deal; and partly to the fact that the great moulding forces of society, the channels of information and enlightenment, are well-nigh exclusively under the control of those whose immediate pecuniary interests are antagonistic to the bottom claim of Socialism that labor should be put in possession of its own.

Almost the only persons who may be said to comprehend even approximately the significance, principles, and purposes of Socialism are the chief leaders of the extreme wings of the Socialistic forces, and perhaps a few of the money kings themselves. It is a subject of which it has lately become quite the fashion for preacher, professor, and penny-a-liner to treat, and, for the most part, woeful work they have made with it, exciting the derision and pity of those competent to judge. That those prominent in the intermediate Socialistic divisions do not fully understand what they are about is evident from the positions they occupy. If they did; if they were consistent, logical thinkers; if they were what the French call consequent men, - their reasoning faculties would long since have driven them to one extreme or the other.

For it is a curious fact that the two extremes of the vast army now under consideration, though united, as has been hinted above, by the common claim that labor shall be put in possession of its own, are more diametrically opposed to each other in their fundamental principles of social action and their methods of reaching the ends aimed at than either is to their common enemy, the existing society. They are based on two principles the history of whose conflict is almost equivalent to the history of the world since man came into it; and all intermediate parties, including that of the upholders of the existing society, are based upon a compromise between them. It is clear, then, that any intelligent, deep-rooted opposition to the prevailing order of things must come from one or the other of these extremes, for anything from any other source, far from being revolutionary in character, could be only in the nature of such superficial modification as would be utterly unable to concentrate upon itself the degree of attention and interest now bestowed upon Modern Socialism.

The two principles referred to are Authority and Liberty , and the names of the two schools of Socialistic thought which fully and unreservedly represent one or the other of them are, respectively, State Socialism and Anarchism. Whoso knows what these two schools want and how they propose to get it understands the Socialistic movement. For, just as it has been said that there is no half-way house between Rome and Reason, so it may be said that there is no half-way house between State Socialism and Anarchism. There are, in fact, two currents steadily flowing from the center of the Socialistic forces which are concentrating them on the left and on the right; and, if Socialism is to prevail, it is among the possibilities that, after this movement of separation has been completed and the existing order have been crushed out between the two camps, the ultimate and bitterer conflict will be still to come.

In that case all the eight-hour men, all the trades-unionists, all the Knights of Labor, all the land nationalizationists, all the greenbackers, and, in short, all the members of the thousand and one different battalions belonging to the great army of Labor, will have deserted their old posts, and, these being arrayed on the one side and the other, the great battle will begin. What a final victory for the State Socialists will mean, and what a final victory for the Anarchists will mean, it is the purpose of this paper to briefly state.

To do this intelligently, however, I must first describe the ground common to both, the features that make Socialists of each of them.

The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his "Wealth of Nations," - namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy.

This seems to have been done independently by three different men, of three different nationalities, in three different languages: Josiah Warren, an American; Pierre J. Proudhon, a Frenchman; Karl Marx, a German Jew. That Warren and Proudhon arrived at their conclusions singly and unaided is certain; but whether Marx was not largely indebted to Proudhon for his economic ideas is questionable. However this may be, Marx's presentation of the ideas was in so many respects peculiarly his own that he is fairly entitled to the credit of originality.

That the work of this interesting trio should have been done so nearly simultaneously would seem to indicate that Socialism was in the air, and that the time was ripe and the conditions favorable for the appearance of this new school of thought. So far as priority of time is concerned, the credit seems to belong to Warren, the American, - a fact which should be noted by the stump orators who are so fond of declaiming against Socialism as an imported article. Of the purest revolutionary blood, too, this Warren, for he descended from the Warren who fell at Bunker Hill.

From Smith's principle that labor is the true measure of price - or, as Warren phrased it, that cost is the proper limit of price - these three men made the following deductions: that the natural wage of labor is its product; that this wage, or product, is the only just source of income (leaving out, of course, gift, inheritance, etc.); that all who derive income from any other source abstract it directly or indirectly from the natural and just wage of labor; that this abstracting process generally takes one of three forms, - interest, rent, and profit; that these three constitute the trinity of usury, and are simply different methods of levying tribute for the use of capital; that, capital being simply stored-up labor which has already received its pay in full, its use ought to be gratuitous, on the principle that labor is the only basis of price; that the lender of capital is entitled to its return intact, and nothing more; that the only reason why the banker, the stockholder, the landlord, the manufacturer, and the merchant are able to exact usury from labor lies in the fact that they are backed by legal privilege, or monopoly; and that the only way to secure labor the enjoyment of its entire product, or natural wage, is to strike down monopoly.

It must not be inferred that either Warren, Proudhon, or Marx used exactly this phraseology, or followed exactly this line of thought, but it indicates definitely enough the fundamental ground taken by all three, and their substantial thought up to the limit to which they went in common. And, lest I may be accused of stating the positions and arguments of these men incorrectly, it may be well to say in advance that I have viewed them broadly, and that, for the purpose of sharp, vivid, and emphatic comparison and contrast, I have taken considerable liberty with their thought by rearranging it in an order, and often in a phraseology, of my own, but, I am satisfied, without, in so doing, misrepresenting them in any essential particular.

It was at this point - the necessity of striking down monopoly - that came the parting of their ways. Here the road forked. They found that they must turn either to the right or to the left, - follow either the path of Authority or the path of Liberty. Marx went one way; Warren and Proudhon the other. Thus were born State Socialism and Anarchism.

First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice .

Marx, its founder, concluded that the only way to abolish the class monopolies was to centralize and consolidate all industrial and commercial interests, all productive and distributive agencies, in one vast monopoly in the hands of the State. The government must become banker, manufacturer, farmer, carrier, and merchant, and in these capacities must suffer no competition. Land, tools, and all instruments of production must be wrested from individual hands, and made the property of the collectivity. To the individual can belong only the products to be consumed, not the means of producing them. A man may own his clothes and his food, but not the sewing-machine which makes his shirts or the spade which digs his potatoes. Product and capital are essentially different things; the former belongs to individuals, the latter to society. Society must seize the capital which belongs to it, by the ballot if it can, by revolution if it must.

Once in possession of it, it must administer it on the majority principle, though its organ, the State, utilize it in production and distribution, fix all prices by the amount of labor involved, and employ the whole people in its workshops, farms, stores, etc. The nation must be transformed into a vast bureaucracy, and every individual into a State official. Everything must be done on the cost principle, the people having no motive to make a profit out of themselves. Individuals not being allowed to own capital, no one can employ another, or even himself. Every man will be a wage-receiver, and the State the only wage-payer. He who will not work for the State must starve, or, more likely, go to prison. All freedom of trade must disappear. Competition must be utterly wiped out. All industrial and commercial activity must be centered in one vast, enormous, all-inclusive monopoly. The remedy for monopolies is monopoly .

Such is the economic programme of State Socialism as adopted from Karl Marx. The history of its growth and progress cannot be told here. In this country the parties that uphold it are known as the Socialistic Labor Party, which pretends to follow Karl Marx; the Nationalists, who follow Karl Marx filtered through Edward Bellamy; and the Christian Socialists, who follow Karl Marx filtered through Jesus Christ.

What other applications this principle of Authority, once adopted in the economic sphere, will develop is very evident. It means the absolute control by the majority of all individual conduct. The right of such control is already admitted by the State Socialists, though they maintain that, as a matter of fact, the individual would be allowed a much larger liberty than he now enjoys. But he would only be allowed it; he could not claim it as his own. There would be no foundation of society upon a guaranteed equality of the largest possible liberty. Such liberty as might exist would exist by sufferance and could be taken away at any moment. Constitutional guarantees would be of no avail. There would be but one article in the constitution of a State Socialistic country: "The right of the majority is absolute."

The claim of the State Socialists, however, that this right would not be exercised in matters pertaining to the individual in the more intimate and private relations of his life is not borne out by the history of governments. It has ever been the tendency of power to add to itself, to enlarge its sphere, to encroach beyond the limits set for it; and where the habit of resisting such encroachment is not fostered, and the individual is not taught to be jealous of his rights, individuality gradually disappears and the government or State becomes the all-in-all. Control naturally accompanies responsibility. Under the system of State Socialism, therefore, which holds the community responsible for the health, wealth, and wisdom of the individual, it is evident that the community, through its majority expression, will insist more and more in prescribing the conditions of health, wealth, and wisdom, thus impairing and finally destroying individual independence and with it all sense of individual responsibility.

Whatever, then, the State Socialists may claim or disclaim, their system, if adopted, is doomed to end in a State religion, to the expense of which all must contribute and at the altar of which all must kneel; a State school of medicine, by whose practitioners the sick must invariably be treated; a State system of hygiene, prescribing what all must and must not eat, drink, wear, and do; a State code of morals, which will not content itself with punishing crime, but will prohibit what the majority decide to be vice; a State system of instruction, which will do away with all private schools, academies, and colleges; a State nursery, in which all children must be brought up in common at the public expense; and, finally, a State family, with an attempt at stirpiculture, or scientific breeding, in which no man and woman will be allowed to have children if the State prohibits them and no man and woman can refuse to have children if the State orders them. Thus will Authority achieve its acme and Monopoly be carried to its highest power.

Such is the ideal of the logical State Socialist, such the goal which lies at the end of the road that Karl Marx took. Let us now follow the fortunes of Warren and Proudhon, who took the other road, - the road of Liberty.

This brings us to Anarchism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the State should be abolished .

When Warren and Proudhon, in prosecuting their search for justice to labor, came face to face with the obstacle of class monopolies, they saw that these monopolies rested upon Authority, and concluded that the thing to be done was, not to strengthen this Authority and thus make monopoly universal, but to utterly uproot Authority and give full sway to the opposite principle, Liberty, by making competition, the antithesis of monopoly, universal. They saw in competition the great leveler of prices to the labor cost of production. In this they agreed with the political economists. They query then naturally presented itself why all prices do not fall to labor cost; where there is any room for incomes acquired otherwise than by labor; in a word, why the usurer, the receiver of interest, rent, and profit, exists. The answer was found in the present one-sidedness of competition.

It was discovered that capital had so manipulated legislation that unlimited competition is allowed in supplying productive labor, thus keeping wages down to the starvation point, or as near it as practicable; that a great deal of competition is allowed in supplying distributive labor, or the labor of the mercantile classes, thus keeping, not the prices of goods, but the merchants' actual profits on them down to a point somewhat approximating equitable wages for the merchants' work; but that almost no competition at all is allowed in supplying capital, upon the aid of which both productive and distributive labor are dependent for their power of achievement, thus keeping the rate of interest on money and of house-rent and ground-rent at as high a point as the necessities of the people will bear.

On discovering this, Warren and Proudhon charged the political economists with being afraid of their own doctrine. The Manchester men were accused of being inconsistent. The believed in liberty to compete with the laborer in order to reduce his wages, but not in liberty to compete with the capitalist in order to reduce his usury. Laissez Faire was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for the gander, capital. But how to correct this inconsistency, how to serve this gander with this sauce, how to put capital at the service of business men and laborers at cost, or free of usury, - that was the problem.

Marx, as we have seen, solved it by declaring capital to be a different thing from product, and maintaining that it belonged to society and should be seized by society and employed for the benefit of all alike. Proudhon scoffed at this distinction between capital and product. He maintained that capital and product are not different kinds of wealth, but simply alternate conditions or functions of the same wealth; that all wealth undergoes an incessant transformation from capital into product and from product back into capital, the process repeating itself interminably; that capital and product are purely social terms; that what is product to one man immediately becomes capital to another, and vice versa ; that if there were but one person in the world, all wealth would be to him at once capital and product; that the fruit of A's toil is his product, which, when sold to B, becomes B's capital (unless B is an unproductive consumer, in which case it is merely wasted wealth, outside the view of social economy); that a steam-engine is just as much product as a coat, and that a coat is just as much capital as a steam-engine; and that the same laws of equity govern the possession of the one that govern the possession of the other.

For these and other reasons Proudhon and Warren found themselves unable to sanction any such plan as the seizure of capital by society. But, though opposed to socializing the ownership of capital, they aimed nevertheless to socialize its effects by making its use beneficial to all instead of a means of impoverishing the many to enrich the few. And when the light burst in upon them, they saw that this could be done by subjecting capital to the natural law of competition, thus bringing the price of its own use down to cost, - that is, to nothing beyond the expenses incidental to handling and transferring it. So they raised the banner of Absolute Free Trade; free trade at home, as well as with foreign countries; the logical carrying out of the Manchester doctrine; laissez faire the universal rule. Under this banner they began their fight upon monopolies, whether the all-inclusive monopoly of the State Socialists, or the various class monopolies that now prevail.

Of the latter they distinguished four of principal importance: the money monopoly, the land monopoly, the tariff monopoly, and the patent monopoly.

First in the importance of its evil influence they considered the money monopoly, which consists of the privilege given by the government to certain individuals, or to individuals holding certain kinds of property, of issuing the circulating medium, a privilege which is now enforced in this country by a national tax of ten per cent., upon all other persons who attempt to furnish a circulating medium, and by State laws making it a criminal offense to issue notes as currency. It is claimed that the holders of this privilege control the rate of interest, the rate of rent of houses and buildings, and the prices of goods, - the first directly, and the second and third indirectly.

For, say Proudhon and Warren, if the business of banking were made free to all, more and more persons would enter into it until the competition should become sharp enough to reduce the price of lending money to the labor cost, which statistics show to be less than three-fourths of once per cent. In that case the thousands of people who are now deterred from going into business by the ruinously high rates which they must pay for capital with which to start and carry on business will find their difficulties removed. If they have property which they do not desire to convert into money by sale, a bank will take it as collateral for a loan of a certain proportion of its market value at less than one per cent. discount. If they have no property, but are industrious, honest, and capable, they will generally be able to get their individual notes endorsed by a sufficient number of known and solvent parties; and on such business paper they will be able to get a loan at a bank on similarly favorable terms.

Thus interest will fall at a blow. The banks will really not be lending capital at all, but will be doing business on the capital of their customers, the business consisting in an exchange of the known and widely available credits of the banks for the unknown and unavailable, but equality good, credits of the customers and a charge therefor of less than one per cent., not as interest for the use of capital, but as pay for the labor of running the banks. This facility of acquiring capital will give an unheard of impetus to business, and consequently create an unprecedented demand for labor, - a demand which will always be in excess of the supply, directly to the contrary of the present condition of the labor market. Then will be seen and exemplification of the worlds of Richard Cobden that, when two laborers are after one employer, wages fall, but when two employers are after one laborer, wages rise.

Labor will then be in a position to dictate its wages, and will thus secure its natural wage, its entire product. Thus the same blow that strikes interest down will send wages up. But this is not all. Down will go profits also. For merchants, instead of buying at high prices on credit, will borrow money of the banks at less than one per cent., buy at low prices for cash, and correspondingly reduce the prices of their goods to their customers. And with the rest will go house-rent. For no one who can borrow capital at one per cent. with which to build a house of his own will consent to pay rent to a landlord at a higher rate than that. Such is the vast claim made by Proudhon and Warren as to the results of the simple abolition of the money monopoly.

Second in importance comes the land monopoly, the evil effects of which are seen principally in exclusively agricultural countries, like Ireland. This monopoly consists in the enforcement by government of land titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and cultivation. It was obvious to Warren and Proudhon that, as soon as individualists should no longer be protected by their fellows in anything but personal occupancy and cultivation of land, ground-rent would disappear, and so usury have one less leg to stand on. Their followers of today are disposed to modify this claim to the extent of admitting that the very small fraction of ground-rent which rests, not on monopoly, but on superiority of soil or site, will continue to exist for a time and perhaps forever, though tending constantly to a minimum under conditions of freedom. But the inequality of soils which gives rise to the economic rent of land, like the inequality of human skill which gives rise to the economic rent of ability, is not a cause for serious alarm even to the most thorough opponent of usury, as its nature is not that of a germ from which other and graver inequalities may spring, but rather that of a decaying branch which may finally wither and fall.

Third, the tariff monopoly, which consists in fostering production at high prices and under unfavorable conditions by visiting with the penalty of taxation those who patronize production at low prices and under favorable conditions. The evil to which this monopoly gives rise might more properly be called mis usury than usury, because it compels labor to pay, not exactly for the use of capital, but rather for the misuse of capital. The abolition of this monopoly would result in a great reduction in the prices of all articles taxed, and this saving to the laborers who consume these articles would be another step toward securing to the laborer his natural wage, his entire product.

Proudhon admitted, however, that to abolish this monopoly before abolishing the money monopoly would be a cruel and disastrous police, first, because the evil of scarcity of money, created by the money monopoly, would be intensified by the flow of money out of the country which would be involved in an excess of imports over exports, and, second, because that fraction of the laborers of the country which is now employed in the protected industries would be turned adrift to face starvation without the benefit of the insatiable demand for labor which a competitive money system would create. Free trade in money at home, making money and work abundant, was insisted upon by Proudhon as a prior condition of free trade in goods with foreign countries.

Fourth, the patent monopoly, which consists in protecting inventors and authors against competition for a period long enough to enable them to extort from the people a reward enormously in excess of the labor measure of their services, - in other words, in giving certain people a right of property for a term of years in laws and facts of Nature, and the power to exact tribute from others for the use of this natural wealth, which should be open to all. The abolition of this monopoly would fill its beneficiaries with a wholesome fear of competition which would cause them to be satisfied with pay for their services equal to that which other laborers get for theirs, and to secure it by placing their products and works on the market at the outset at prices so low that their lines of business would be no more tempting to competitors than any other lines.

The development of the economic programme which consists in the destruction of these monopolies and the substitution for them of the freest competition led its authors to a perception of the fact that all their thought rested upon a very fundamental principle, the freedom of the individual, his right of sovereignty over himself, his products, and his affairs, and of rebellion against the dictation of external authority. Just as the idea of taking capital away from individuals and giving it to the government started Marx in a path which ends in making the government everything and the individual nothing, so the idea of taking capital away from government-protected monopolies and putting it within easy reach of all individuals started Warren and Proudhon in a path which ends in making the individual everything and the government nothing. If the individual has a right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny.

Hence the necessity of abolishing the State. This was the logical conclusion to which Warren and Proudhon were forced, and it became the fundamental article of their political philosophy. it is the doctrine which Proudhon named An-archism, a word derived from the Greek, and meaning, not necessarily absence of order, as is generally supposed, but an absence of rule. The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that "the best government is that which governs least," and that that which governs least is no government at all. Even the simple police function of protecting person and property they deny to governments supported by compulsory taxation. Protection they look upon as a thing to be secured, as long as it is necessary, by voluntary association and cooperation for self-defence, or as a commodity to be purchased, like any other commodity, of those who offer the best article at the lowest price.

In their view it is in itself an invasion of the individual to compel him to pay for or suffer a protection against invasion that he has not asked for and does not desire. And they further claim that protection will become a drug in the market, after poverty and consequently crime have disappeared through the realization of their economic programme. Compulsory taxation is to them the life-principle of all the monopolies, and passive, but organized, resistance to the tax- collector they contemplate, when the proper time comes, as one of the most effective methods of accomplishing their purposes.

Their attitude on this is a key to their attitude on all other questions of a political or social nature. In religion they are atheistic as far as their own opinions are concerned, for they look upon divine authority and the religious sanction of morality as the chief pretexts put forward by the privileged classes for the exercise of human authority. "If God exists," said Proudhon, "he is man's enemy." And in contrast to Voltaire's famous epigram, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him," the great Russian Nihilist, Mikhail Bakunin, placed this antithetical proposition: "If God existed, it would be necessary to abolish him." But although, viewing the divine hierarchy as a contradiction of Anarchy, they do not believe in it, the Anarchists none the less firmly believe in the liberty to believe in it. Any denial of religious freedom they squarely oppose.

Upholding thus the right of every individual to be or select his own priest, they likewise uphold his right to be or select his own doctor. No monopoly in theology, no monopoly in medicine. Competition everywhere and always; spiritual advice and medical advice alike to stand or fall on their own merits. And not only in medicine, but in hygiene, must this principle of liberty be followed. The individual may decide for himself not only what to do to get well, but what to do to keep well. No external power must dictate to him what he must and must not eat, drink, wear, or do.

Nor does the Anarchistic scheme furnish any code of morals to be imposed upon the individual. "Mind your own business" is its only moral law. Interference with another's business is a crime and the only crime, and as such may properly be resisted. In accordance with this view the Anarchists look upon attempts to arbitrarily suppress vice as in themselves crimes. They believe liberty and the resultant social well-being to be a sure cure for all the vices. But they recognize the right of the drunkard, the gambler, the rake, and the harlot to live their lives until they shall freely choose to abandon them.

In the matter of the maintenance and rearing of children the Anarchists would neither institute the communistic nursery which the State Socialists favor nor keep the communistic school system which now prevails. The nurse and the teacher, like the doctor and the preacher, must be selected voluntarily, and their services must be paid for by those who patronize them. Parental rights must not be taken away, and parental responsibilities must not be foisted upon others.

Even in so delicate a matter as that of the relations of the sexes the Anarchists do not shrink from the application of their principle. They acknowledge and defend the right of any man and woman, or any men and women, to love each other for as long or as short a time as they can, will, or may. To them legal marriage and legal divorce are equal absurdities. They look forward to a time when every individual, whether man or woman, shall be self-supporting, and when each shall have an independent home of his or her own, whether it be a separate house or rooms in a house with others; when the love relations between these independent individuals shall be as varied as are individual inclinations and attractions; and when the children born of these relations shall belong exclusively to the mothers until old enough to belong to themselves.

Such are the main features of the Anarchistic social ideal. There is wide difference of opinion among those who hold it as to the best method of obtaining it. Time forbids the treatment of that phase of the subject here. I will simply call attention to the fact that it is an ideal utterly inconsistent with that of those Communists who falsely call themselves Anarchists while at the same time advocating a regime of Archism fully as despotic as that of the State Socialists themselves. And it is an ideal that can be as little advanced by Prince Kropotkine as retarded by the brooms of those Mrs. Partingtons of the bench who sentence them to prison; an ideal which the martyrs of Chicago did far more to help by their glorious death upon the gallows for the common cause of Socialism than by their unfortunate advocacy during their lives, in the name of Anarchism, of force as a revolutionary agent and authority as a safeguard of the new social order. The Anarchists believe in liberty both as an end and means, and are hostile to anything that antagonizes it.

I should not undertake to summarize this altogether too summary exposition of Socialism from the standpoint of Anarchism, did I not find the task already accomplished for me by a Brilliant French journalist and historian, Ernest Lesigne, in the form of a series of crisp antithesis; by reading which to you as a conclusion of this lecture I hope to deepen the impression which it has been my endeavor to make.

"There are two Socialisms.
One is communistic, the other solidaritarian.
One is dictatorial, the other libertarian.
One is metaphysical, the other positive.
One is dogmatic, the other scientific.
One is emotional, the other reflective.
One is destructive, the other constructive.
Both are in pursuit of the greatest possible welfare for all.
One aims to establish happiness for all, the other to enable each to be
happy in his own way.
The first regards the State as a society sui generis , of an especial essence,
the product of a sort of divine right outside of and above all society,
with special rights and able to exact special obediences; the second
considers the State as an association like any other, generally managed
worse than others.
The first proclaims the sovereignty of the State, the second recognizes no
sort of sovereign.
One wishes all monopolies to be held by the State; the other wishes the
abolition of all monopolies.
One wishes the governed class to become the governing class; the other wishes
the disappearance of classes.
Both declare that the existing state of things cannot last.
The first considers revolutions as the indispensable agent of evolutions; the
second teaches that repression alone turns evolutions into revolution.
The first has faith in a cataclysm.
The second knows that social progress will result from the free play of
individual efforts.
Both understand that we are entering upon a new historic phase.
One wishes that there should be none but proletaires.
The other wishes that there should be no more proletaires.
The first wishes to take everything away from everybody.
The second wishes to leave each in possession of its own.
The one wishes to expropriate everybody.
The other wishes everybody to be a proprietor.
The first says: 'Do as the government wishes."
The second says: 'Do as you wish yourself.'
The former threatens with despotism.
The latter promises liberty.
The former makes the citizen the subject of the State.
The latter makes the State the employee of the citizen.
One proclaims that labor pains will be necessary to the birth of a new world.
The other declares that real progress will not cause suffering to any one.
The first has confidence in social war.
The other believes only in the works of peace.
One aspires to command, to regulate, to legislate.
The other wishes to attain the minimum of command, of regulation, of legislation.
One would be followed by the most atrocious of reactions.
The other opens unlimited horizons to progress.
The first will fail; the other will succeed.
Both desire equality.
One by lowering heads that are too high.
The other by raising heads that are too low.
One sees equality under a common yoke.
The other will secure equality in complete liberty.
One is intolerant, the other tolerant.
One frightens, the other reassures.
The first wishes to instruct everybody.
The second wishes to enable everybody to instruct himself.
The first wishes to support everybody.
The second wishes to enable everybody to support himself.
One says:
The land to the State
The mine to the State
The tool to the State
The product to the State
The other says:
The land to the cultivator.
The mine to the miner.
The tool to the laborer.
The product to the producer.
There are only these two Socialisms.
One is the infancy of Socialism; the other is its manhood.
One is already the past; the other is the future.
One will give place to the other.

Today each of us must choose for the one or the other of these two Socialisms, or else confess that he is not a Socialist."

POSTSCRIPT

Forty years ago, when the foregoing essay was written, the denial of competition had not yet effected the enormous concentration of wealth that now so gravely threatens social order. It was not yet too late to stem the current of accumulation by a reversal of the policy of monopoly. The Anarchistic remedy was still applicable.

Today the way is not so clear. The four monopolies, unhindered, have made possible the modern development of the trust, and the trust is now a monster which I fear, even the freest banking, could it be instituted, would be unable to destroy. As long as the Standard Oil group controlled only fifty millions of dollars, the institution of free competition would have crippled it hopelessly; it needed the money monopoly for its sustenance and its growth. Now that it controls, directly and indirectly, perhaps ten thousand millions, it sees in the money monopoly a convenience, to be sure, but no longer a necessity. It can do without it. Were all restrictions upon banking to be removed, concentrated capital could meet successfully the new situation by setting aside annually for sacrifice a sum that would remove every competitor from the field.

If this be true, then monopoly, which can be controlled permanently only for economic forces, has passed for the moment beyond their reach, and must be grappled with for a time solely by forces political or revolutionary. Until measures of forcible confiscation, through the State or in defiance of it, shall have abolished the concentrations that monopoly has created, the economic solution proposed by Anarchism and outlined in the forgoing pages - and there is no other solution - will remain a thing to be taught to the rising generation, that conditions may b

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