Property Is Theft!
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Revolutionary anarchism bases itself on Proudhon’s distinction between property and possession.231 It shares his vision of an economy based on socialisation of the means of production, use rights and workers’ association. Kropotkin’s co-founder of the newspaper Freedom, Charlotte M. Wilson, made the link clear:Proudhon’s famous dictum, ‘Property is theft’, is the key to the equally famous enigma... ‘From each according to his capacities, to each according to his needs’... as long as land and capital are un-appropriated, the workers are free, and that, when these have a master, the workers also are slaves... Anarchism proposes, therefore,—1. That usufruct of instruments of production—land included—should be free to all workers, or groups of workers. 2. That the workers should group themselves, and arrange their work as their reason and inclination prompt... 3. That the necessary connections between the various industries and branches of trade should be managed on the same voluntary principle.232
Revolutionary anarchism nevertheless differed from that of Proudhon in three areas.
First, its proponents rejected Proudhon’s support for patriarchy in the family as being inconsistent with the libertarian principles he advocated against capitalism and the state.233 This was an obvious self-contradiction, which anarchists have critiqued by means of the very principles Proudhon himself used to criticise the state and capitalism. Joseph Déjacque, for example, wrote a critique of Proudhon’s sexist views in 1857, urging him to renounce “this gender aristocracy that would bind us to the old regime.”234 André Léo, a feminist libertarian and future Communard, pointed out the obvious contradiction in 1869: “These so-called lovers of liberty, if they are unable to take part in the direction of the state, at least they will be able to have a little monarchy for their personal use, each in his own home... Order in the family without hierarchy seems impossible to them—well then, what about in the state?”235
Second, they rejected Proudhon’s reformism and transformed his call for a “revolution from below” into a literal support for a social revolution (insurrections, general strikes and other activities which reflect the popular understanding of “revolution”). Bakunin, while “convinced that the co-operative will be the preponderant form of social organisation in the future” and could “hardly oppose” their creation under capitalism, argued that Proudhon’s hope for gradual change by means of mutual banking and the higher efficiency of workers’ co-operatives was unlikely to be realised as it did “not take into account the vast advantage that the bourgeoisie enjoys against the proletariat through its monopoly on wealth, science, and secular custom, as well as through the approval—overt or covert but always active—of States and through the whole organisation of modern society. The fight is too unequal for success reasonably to be expected.”236 Thus capitalism “does not fear the competition of workers’ associations—neither consumers’, producers’, nor mutual credit associations—for the simple reason that workers’ organisations, left to their own resources, will never be able to accumulate sufficiently strong aggregations of capital capable of waging an effective struggle against bourgeois capital.”237
Having found reformism insufficient, the revolutionary anarchists stressed the need for what would now be termed a syndicalist approach to social change.238 Rather than seeing workers co-operatives and mutual banks as the focus for social transformation, unions came to be seen as the means of both fighting capitalism and replacing it. They took Proudhon’s dual-power strategy from 1848 and applied it in the labour movement with the long term aim of smashing the state and replacing it with these organs of popular power.239
Third, they rejected Proudhon’s anti-communism and advocated distribution according to need rather than deed. That is, the extension of the critique of wage-labour into opposition to the wages-system.240
The rationale behind this change was straightforward. As Kropotkin explained, “this system of remuneration for work done” was contradictory and unjust. Not only do deeds not correlate with needs (most obviously, children, the ill and elderly cannot be expected to work as much as others) it was also “evident that a society cannot be based on two absolutely opposed principles, two principles that contradict one another continually.” How can labour-money be advocated “when we admit that houses, fields, and factories will no longer be private property, and that they will belong to the commune or the nation?” Abolition of property in the means of production cannot co-exist with property in the products of labour created by their use. This suggested that, to be consistent, anarchists must pass from mutualism and collectivism to communism, distribution according to need rather than deed.241 Most anarchists then, and now, concurred.
Ultimately, though, Proudhon and the likes of Bakunin and Kropotkin had more in common than differences. His ideas were the foundation upon which revolutionary anarchism was built. Bakunin “reaped the harvest sown by Proudhon—the father of anarchism—filtering, enriching and surpassing it”242 and “Proudhon’s thought found a strong echo in revolutionary syndicalism.”243
Finally, it should be noted that revolutionary anarchism developed independently from Proudhon’s mutualism in at least three cases. Joseph Déjacque drew libertarian communist conclusions from Proudhon’s work in the 1850s. Bakunin developed Proudhon’s ideas in a similar direction after 1864 while Eugene Varlin “seems to have moved independently towards his collectivist position.”244 So while Bakunin’s ideas were quickly adopted by working class militants familiar with Proudhon across Europe, even without him Proudhon’s legacy was evolving in the direction of revolutionary collectivism in the 1860s. Indeed, it could be argued that Bakunin and his ideas became so influential in the IWMA because he was part of a general development within Internationalist circles which he simply helped.
CONCLUSION
PROUDHON’S INFLUENCE WAS significant during the nineteenth century. Sadly, his ideas are not acknowledged as much as they should be given their impact and how they laid the basis for modern anarchism.
Anarchists, though, are not Proudhonists, Bakuninists, Kropotkinites, or whoever-ists. We reject the idea of calling ourselves after individuals. However, we can and do acknowledge the contributions of outstanding thinkers and activists, people who contribute to the commonwealth of ideas which is anarchism. Seen in this light, Proudhon (for all his faults) should be remembered as the person who laid the foundations of anarchism. His libertarian socialism, his critique of capitalism and the state, his federalism, advocacy of self-management and change from below, defined what anarchism is.
In terms of his critique of capitalism, most of it holds up well. Workers are still exploited at the point of production and this can only be stopped by abolishing wage-labour. Landlords are still parasites, interest still bleeds dry those subject to it. Capitalism has proven itself to be the efficient machine for increasing inequality by exploiting the many that Proudhon analysed. As far as his anti-statism goes, his analysis of the state as an instrument of minority class rule still rings true as does his insights that centralised structures result in rule by the few and are simply not reflexive of, nor accountable to, the public in any meaningful way. His denunciations of executive power and the unitaire State as a new form of royalty have been confirmed time and time again. His critique of State socialism, his prediction that it would be just another form of wage-labour with the state replacing the boss, has been more than confirmed, not to mention his fear that it would become little more than a dictatorship by a party rather than a genuine worker democracy.
While we should not slavishly copy Proudhon’s ideas, we can take what is useful and, like Bakunin, Kropotkin and others, develop them further in order to inspire social change in the 21st century. His vision of a decentralised, self-managed, federal socialist society and economy has obvious relevance today. Centralised political and economic systems have been tried and failed. His continued emphasis on working class autonomy and self-emancipation, of building the new world in the heart of the old, are core libertarian principles.
Iain McKay
www.anarchistfaq.org.uk
PROUDHON:
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
PIERRE-JOSEPH PROUDHON WAS BORN ON 15TH OF JANUARY 1809 IN THE town of Besançon in Franche-Comté, a province in the east of France bordering the Jura region of Switzerland. Almost unique for his time, he was a major socialist thinker who was working class and he declared that his aim was to work “for the complete liberation of [his] brothers and comrades.”246 He lived in a period of massive social and economic change. The industrialisation of France was beginning (its full flowering came in the 1860s), he grew up surrounded by those who had taken part in the Revolution of 1789, experienced the July Revolution of 1830 and saw the birth of the French labour and socialist movements in the 1830s. All these influenced his ideas.
After a brief period at the college in Besançon he was forced to leave school before completing his baccalaureate in order to support his family. In 1828 he became a working compositor; later he rose to be a corrector for the press. The following year he met utopian socialist Charles Fourier when supervising the printing of his Le Nouveau Monde Industriel et Sociétaire. Having several discussions with Fourier, he later recounted that for “six whole weeks” he was “the captive of this bizarre genius.”247 While rejecting Fourier’s utopian visions of perfect and regulated communities in favour of a “scientific socialism,”248 he had a lasting influence as can be seen in many of Proudhon’s works.
The turning point in Proudhon’s life came when, in 1838, he was awarded a scholarship to study in Paris by the Besançon Academy. The following year saw him write the treatise On The Utility of Sunday Observance from the Viewpoints of Public Hygiene, Morality and Civic and Family Relations. However, 1840 saw him produce the work that ensured his lasting fame: What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government. This work was to encapsulate the core themes of his life’s work—liberty, social justice, the iniquities of capitalist property rights, the epochal importance of socialism and his theory of anarchism. It caused a sensation and Proudhon was soon recognised as a leading light of the French, indeed international, socialist movement. It also resulted in the public prosecutor sending a recommendation to the Minister of Justice that a case be launched against him. Fortunately for Proudhon, leading economist Jérome-Adolphe Blanqui was approached by the Minister over the book’s seditious nature. Blanqui had been assigned the book to review and while disagreeing with it, declared it was a philosophical work which would appeal only to “high intelligences and cultivated minds.”249 This verdict was accepted and Proudhon was spared prosecution.
What is Property? was quickly followed by two more works. In 1841 he wrote his Second Memoir on property (Letter to M. Blanqui) were he developed his ideas in a reply to comments made by Blanqui. His Third Memoir (Warning to Proprietors) was published in 1842 and answered criticisms by a follower of Fourier. This work was seized by the Besançon public prosecutor and Proudhon was charged with “1, Attacking Property; 2, Troubling the public peace by exciting mistrust or hatred of the citizens against one or more persons; 3, Exciting hatred and mistrust of the King’s Government; 4, Outrage to the Catholic religion.”250 Proclaiming his work too hard to follow and not wishing to imprison someone due to misunderstanding their ideas, the jury refused to convict Proudhon.
His next major work was published in the following year. On the Creation of Order in Humanity adapted Fourier’s “serial method” and was an attempt to develop a comprehensive social science premised on Fourier’s antirationalist social theory and Auguste Comte’s philosophy of history. He later admitted that this work was not successful, but it discussed a set of themes he was to return to again and again. Proudhon also moved to Lyons, serving for several years as an office manager for a water transport firm. This allowed him to travel and he frequently stayed in Paris, where Marx, Bakunin, and Herzen visited him to discuss ideas. In Lyons, he became part of the flourishing radical scene and met with its revolutionary silk-weavers who called themselves Mutualists and argued for a form of associational socialism based on producer co-operatives and credit unions. They had a significant influence on Proudhon, reflected by “his preoccupation at this period with the idea of an association of workers.”251 These influences and thoughts were publicly expressed in 1846 with the publication of the two volume System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Misery in which he proclaimed his own ideas mutualism.
In October 1847 Proudhon settled in Paris again, hoping to start a newspaper. When the 1848 Revolution broke out, he helped build barricades and set the type for the first republican proclamation. A group of workers, fresh from the barricades and still armed with muskets, visited Proudhon and asked that he resume his plan to publish a newspaper. He agreed and Le Répresentant du Peuple (The Representative of the People) was born, its masthead proclaiming “What is the producer? Nothing! What should he be? Everything!”252 This was the first of four newspapers Proudhon edited during the revolution, all with “People” in their name and all suppressed by the state.253
Fearing, rightly, that the Republicans had “made a revolution without an idea”254 Proudhon used his articles to comment on events, criticise the policies of the government and stress the need to go beyond mere political reform as this could never solve problems whose roots were primarily economic. Socioeconomic change was essential.255 His first major works after the revolution included an analysis of its causes and meaning and a critique of (statist) democracy, subsequently published as Solution of the Social Problem. These were quickly followed by the Organisation of Credit and Circulation in which he argued that a Bank of Exchange was required to both solve the economic problems facing France and secure the end of capitalism.
However, it was the various incarnations of his newspapers that Proudhon made his greatest impact on the public and by the end of 1848 he was being read by 40,000 mostly working-class readers.256 These articles present a libertarian, albeit reformist,257 analysis of the revolution and how to solve its problems. This clarified his own ideas, as it forced him to present positive ideas to change society for the better, as well as enriching anarchist theory for later libertarians to build upon.
In April 1848 he stood as a candidate in the elections for the Constituent Assembly with his name appearing on the ballots in Paris, Lyon, Besançon, and Lille. He proclaimed in his election manifesto that he regarded “Property is theft!” as “the greatest truth of the century” and that “the negation of property is necessary for the abolition of misery, for the emancipation of the proletariat.”258 Unsuccessful, he was not deterred and ran in the complementary elections held on June 4th and was duly elected.259 He later recalled:When I think of everything that I have said, written and published over these past ten years regarding the State’s role in society, bringing the authorities to heel and government’s disqualification from revolution, I am tempted to believe that my election in June 1848 was the result of some incomprehension on the part of the people… I may have appeared momentarily to the society which I take for my judge and the authorities with whom I want no truck, as a formidable agitator.260
Following the June Days, Proudhon’s paper was temporarily suppressed when he demanded immediate economic relief for the working class and appealed directly to the National Guard for support. Viewed by conservatives as a leading member of the left, his proposals for reform were condemned on the floor of the assembly by Adolphe Thiers. Proudhon responded on July 31st with a three-and-a-half-hour speech that stressed “social liquidation” was needed and that the end of property was the real meaning of the
revolution. He was defiant in the face of hecklers: “When I say WE, I identify myself with the proletariat; when I say YOU, I identify you with the bourgeois class.”261 Only one representative, a socialist worker from Lyons, supported Proudhon and a motion of censure was passed (with socialists like Louis Blanc and Pierre Leroux voting for it). Even Marx had to (grudgingly) admit that “his attitude in the National Assembly merits nothing but praise.”262
When La Représentant du Peuple was allowed to reappear in August and “What is the capitalist? Everything! What should he be? Nothing!” was added to its masthead.263 The repression did not dull its social criticism, with Proudhon on fine ironic form with the searing The Malthusians attacking bourgeois hypocrisy and laissez-faire capitalism. It was soon, however, completely suppressed, but Proudhon himself could not be prosecuted because he enjoyed parliamentary immunity.