Chapter 10. P. J. Prqudhon

¹ Preface to Qu'est-ce que la Propriété? p. v (1841 edition).

²De la Justice (1868 edition), vol. 1, p. 103: ‘J'ai eu le rare avantage, si c'en est un, de naître peuple, d'apprendre ce qui a fait le peuple tel qu'il est aujourd'hui, et de rester peuple.’

³Théorie de la Propriété, pp. 215–216.

¹Qu'est-ce que la Propriété? p. 270.

² The character of Proudhon has been most admirably portrayed in anticipation by Molière:

Et ne faut-il pas bien que monsieur contredise,
À la commune voix veut-on qu'il se reduise,
Et qu'il ne fasse pas éclater en tous lieux
L'esprit contrariant qu'il a reçu des cieux?
Le sentiment d'autrui n'est jamais pour lui plaire;
Il prend toujours en main l'opinion contraire;
Et penserait paraître un homme de commun,
Si l'on voyait qu'il fût de l'avis de quelqu'un.
L'honneur de contredire a pour lui tant de charmes,
Qu'il prend, contre lui-même, assez souvent les armes,
Et ses vrais sentimens sont combattus par lui,
Aussitôt qu'il les voit dans la bouche d'autrui.

(Le Misanthrope, ii. 5.)

³Les Confessions d'un Révolutionnaire (1851 edition), p. 88.

⁴Systèmes des Contradictions Economiques (1846 edition), vol. 2, p. 364.

⁵Contradictions Economiques, vol. 2, p. 379.

⁶Ibid. p. 355.

⁷General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century (English translation), p. 120.

⁸Contradictions Economiques, vol. 2, p. 396. The whole passage recalls the ‘flytings’ of early Scots literature.

¹Les Confessions d'un Révolutionnaire, p. 147.

¹Théorie de la Propriété, pp. 52, 206.

¹Qu'est-ce que la Propriété? pp. 1–2.

²Contradictions Economiques, vol. 2, p. 328.

¹Théorie de la Propriété, p. 211.

² This is a typical Proudhonian attitude. Fourier was ‘ce reveur que personne jusqu'à ce jour ne me semble avoir compris’ (De la Création de l'Ordre dans l'Humanité, p. 85). Needless to say, Adam Smith did not grasp the significance of what he said about Division of Labour (ibid. p. 300).

³Qu'est-ce que la Propriété? p. 63.

⁴Ibid. p. 33.

¹Qu'est-ce que la Propriété? p. 130.

²Ibid. p. 146.

³Ibid. p. 158.

¹Qu'est-ce que la Propriété? pp. 117–125, especially p. 121.

²Théorie de la Propriété, p. 17.

³Qu'est-ce que la Propriété? pp. 163–164.

⁴Ibid. p. 189.

⁵Ibid. pp. 280–281.

¹Qu'est-ce que la Propriété? p. 309.

²Contradictions Economiques, vol. 1, p. 187.

³Ibid. vol. 1, p. 16.

⁴Ibid. vol. 2, p. 235.

¹Contradictions Economiques, vol. 2, pp. 253–258.

²Théorie de la Propriété, p. 128.

³Ibid. Mostly from pp. 135–138.

⁴Ibid. p. 150.

¹Théorie de la Propriété, p. 203.

²Ibid. p. 167.

³Ibid. p. 208.

⁴Le Droit au Travail (1850 edition), p. 49. The words which follow are almost equally significant: ‘comme l'antagoniste dont l'absence ferait tomber le travail dans l'inertie et la mort.’

⁵De le Justice, vol. 1, p. 236.

⁶Théorie de la Propriété, p. 208.

¹General Idea of the Revolution (English translation), p. 211.

² On ‘Justice’ as an ultimate standard, see concluding chapter, pp. 493–4.

³De la Justice, vol. 1, p. 43.

⁴Ibid. p. 216.

⁵ Ibid. p. 224. ‘Justice’ is so much the whole of Proudhon, and the definition of this Idée princesse, as he poetically calls it, is so artificial that the original may be given: ‘c'est le respect, spontanément éprouvé et réciproquement garanti, de la dignité humaine, en quelque personne et dans quelque circonstance qu'elle se trouve compromise, et à quelque risque que nous expose sa détense.’

It is perhaps somewhat outside our territory, but it may be worth noting that when Proudhon endeavours to adhere to his definition, he tends to interpret it as an injunction to behave as other people expect us to behave, or as they would like us to behave. Whatever the moralists may say, this is a poor guide through life. There is an illuminating and highly curious passage in De la Justice, vol. 3, pp. 166–167, in which he explains that slavery, war, usury, polygamy, continence and theft are things of naught; they are but accidents. Justice alone matters, that is to say, respecting others as we would wish to be respected if we were in their place. He cites a primitive oriental world of polygamy and concubines, in which the woman, accepting her inferiority, makes no complaint on the subject, and is proud only of her high purchase price. What is justice in these circumstances? It is that the man should treat his wives and concubines, as he would wish to be treated by his owner, if he were a concubine; and justice for the concubine is that she should conduct herself towards her ‘chef,’ as she would like her concubines to conduct themselves, if she were the supreme overlord. All this tends to be rather confused, especially in the gender of the pronouns, and it might require a considerable effort of imagination on the part of the concubine; but it would seem to indicate that if in this happy society, the ‘chef’ liked his concubines to enjoy a whipping every morning, then (as an act of justice, and in order to pay him that respect which they would like paid to themselves if, etc., etc.), they should endeavour to find as much enjoyment as possible in the performance of the rite. In the words of a forgotten insured person, ‘If this is justice, I am no judge.’

¹De la Capacité Politique des Classes Ouvrières (edition 1868), p. 122.

²Organisation du Crédit et de la Circulation, p. 119.

³Les Confessions d'un Révolutionnaire (1852 edition), p. 13

⁴Banque d'Échange, p. 219.

¹Contradictions Economiques, vol. 2, p. 126.

²Organisation du Crédit, especially pp. 90, 112, 114.

³Banque d'Échange, p. 218.

⁴Organisation du Crédit, p. 117.

⁵ This is admittedly a very inadequate account of all that Proudhon wrote on the subject of gratuitous credit and the means to attain it. But for our present purpose this is perhaps immaterial. All that really matters is the quite extraordinary importance Proudhon attached to getting rid of interest; the puerilities by which this end was to be attained have little significance or subsequent importance. Any reader who wishes to be further befuddled may refer to three pamphlets, Organisation du Crédit et de la Circulation, Banque d'Échange and Banque du Peuple, which, in the older editions of Proudhon, were published together in the volume bearing the title Solution du Problème Social. The subject is dealt with incidentally in many other places: it was one of the more active bees in Proudhon's bonnet.

⁶De la Capacité Politique des Classes Ouvrières, p. 77.

¹Contradictions Economiques (with much more to the same effect), vol. 1, pp. 189–200.

²Ibid. vol. 1, p. 248.

³De la Capacité Politique des Classes Ouvrières, p. 137.

⁴Les Confessions d'un Révolutionnaire (1851 edition), p. 12.

⁵Ibid. p. 31.

⁶Ibid. p. 239.

⁷General Idea of the Revolution, p. 146.

⁸Ibid. p. 258.

¹Les Confessions d'un Révolutionnaire, p. 99.

²General Idea of the Revolution, p. 208.

³Ibid., at greater length, p. 294.

⁴Les Confessions d'un Révolutionnaire, p. 34.

⁵Ibid. p. 79.

⁶Contradictions Economiques, vol. 1, pp. 282, 362.

¹Solution du Problème social, pp. 42–43.

²Théorie du mouvement constitutionel, p. 199.

³General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 138, 148.

⁴Solution du Problème social, p. 62.

⁵General Idea of the Revolution, p. 144.

⁶Solution du Problème social, pp. 50, 54.

⁷Ibid. p. 66.

⁸General Idea of the Revolution, p. 79.

⁹Ibid. p. 83.

¹General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 215–216.

²Ibid. p. 216. See also De la Capacité politique des Classes Ouvrières, p. 135.

³Ibid. p. 97.

⁴Les Confessions d'un Révolutionnaire, p. 236. Also Qu'est-ce que la Propriété? p. 301.

¹De la Capacité politique des Classes Ouvrières, p. 69.

²General Idea of the Revolution, p, 171.

³Ibid. pp. 205, 173.

⁴De la Capacité Politique des Classes Ouvrières, p. 144.

⁵Du Principe Fédératif, p. 78.

¹Du Principe Fédératif, pp. 61, 71.

²De la Capacité Politique des Classes Ouvrières, p. 226.

³Ibid. p. 230.

¹Contradictions Economiques, vol. 1, p. 51.

²Ibid. p. 60.

³Ibid. p. 64.

⁴Ibid. p. 69.

⁵De la Capacité Politique des Classes Ouvrières, p. 92.

⁶Ibid. p. 83.

⁷Célébration du Dimanche, p. 42.

⁸Contradictions Economiques, vol. 1, p. 93.

⁹Ibid. p. 138.

¹De la Justice, vol. 1, pp. 301–302.

²La Guerre et la Paix, vol. 2, p. 346.

³De la Justice, vol. 1, pp. 304–305.

⁴Théorie de la Propriété, p. 163.

¹Théorie du Mouvement Constitutionnel, p. 188.

² For this pleasing expression acknowledgments are due to Fontana and Prati, leaders of the Saint-Simonian Church in England.

³Contradictions Economiques, vol. 2, p. 357.

⁴ The question of feminism is fortunately somewhat off our path; but Proudhon is so intransigent on this question that a footnote may be pardoned. No one has ever, in modern times, declared more categorically and uncompromisingly that woman is in all respects an inferior animal. ‘L'être complet... c'est le mâle. La femme est un diminutif d'homme’ (De la Justice, vol. 4, p. 134). She is a kind of mean term between man and the rest of the lower creation: ‘une sorte de moyen terme entre lui et le reste du regne animal’ (vol. 4, p. 135). As to the function of woman in the scheme of things, Proudhon shares the Napoleonic view: ‘En elle-même, je parle toujours du physique, la femme n'a pas de raison d'être: c'est un instrument de reproduction’ (ibid.) Her inferiority is marked in every field. So far as physical strength is concerned, she is to man in the ratio of 2: 3. Dura lex, sed lex, if that is any consolation. In intelligence, she is also in the same ratio. Her valeur physique et intellectuelle is accordingly to that of man in the ratio of 4: 9. But that is not the end of the story. In morality, the situation is no better; we are still haunted by the 2: 3 ratio. ‘Par sa nature, la femme est dans un état de démoralisation constante.’ The final result of the calculation is that the Valeur totale of men to women is in the ratio of 3/2 × 3/2 × 3/2, or 27: 8. Plausible as the proposition may appear, it seems to call for a more rigorous proof than Proudhon offers. The feminist will find, scattered throughout the last volume of De la Justice, a wealth of chastening quotations from the Christian Fathers and other well-informed authorities. Proudhon would have agreed with the eighteenth-century melodramatic villain, who declaimed to the descending curtain:

He seldom errs,
Who thinks the worst he can of womankind.

¹De la Création de l'Ordre dans l'Humanité, p. 63.

²De la Justice, vol. 1, p. 199.

¹De la Justice, vol.2, p. 208.