The principle of authority occupied a prominent place in the socialistic schemes of Saint-Simon and Louis Blanc. The former planned a religious society in which the priests should exercise undisputed sway over the production and distribution of goods, assigning to each member of the society his proper rank and rewarding him in proportion to his services. The latter expressly demanded a strong government, in order that it might be able to transform the economic life of the people by the erection of social workshops, although a large amount of local self-government was in the end to be allowed to each group of workers. Fourier did not explicitly reject the principle of authority, but contrived a system in which it should be easy and natural to rule and to be ruled, in so far as any ruling was necessary. There existed in his mind still a large and compact social organization. He made war, not on authority in itself, but upon all restraint placed on the desires and passions of man. He thought a natural combination of these rendered compulsion unnecessary. There was thus room left for another advance in the development of French socialism. A problem which had not as yet been attempted, was to unite absolute and unqualified individualism with perfect justice in the production of goods, and[125] in their distribution. Does not this imply a contradiction? Can there be such a thing as individualistic socialism? or socialistic individualism? Can collectivism and anarchy obtain in the same group of people? Do they not mutually exclude each other? What matter! The task must be tried; and a man appeared on the scene who delighted in contradictions, and thought that truth sprang out of their union. This man was Proudhon. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was born July 15, 1809, in Besan?on, of humble parents. His father was a cooper, while his mother was a bright and vigorous country girl. He was of the people, the masses, and he spoke of it freely as an advantage. Proudhon professed that he always remained one of them and thus knew their life. It was early necessary that he should assist in his support, and this he did by agricultural labor, in particular by guarding the cows as they pastured on the mountains of the Jura. Later he became a waiter in a restaurant. Time was, however, found for the school and the college, where he distinguished himself for unusual talents and carried off a large number of prizes and honors. The public library furnished him with reading-matter, so that he read a large number of books before he was fourteen. He used to call for as many as six books at a time. At the age of nineteen Proudhon was compelled to leave the college in order to assist his father, whose business had fallen into a sad condition. He learned the printer’s trade and soon became a corrector in a publishing house of some note, which became to him a school. The house published a large number of theological works, which he perused so carefully that it was afterwards supposed that he had studied at a theological[126] seminary. He learned Hebrew when they published a Bible with an interlinear translation. The result was that he was able to contribute a number of theological articles to the “Encyclopédie Catholique.”
The Académie de Besan?on having honors and prizes to distribute, proposed every year a subject for an essay. In 1839 the subject was “The Utility of the Celebration of Sunday.” Proudhon competed for the prize, but was not successful, although the book met with some praise, and passed through two editions in two years. He had, however, already been fortunate enough to secure a pension of 1500 francs, which had been founded to encourage literature and science, and placed in charge of the Académie. Besides his work demonstrating the utility of the observation of Sunday, Proudhon had written several essays of more or less merit on comparative philology, and he was considered a very promising young man. But he was thinking all this time of means to elevate the laboring classes. When he solicited the votes of the Académie for the pension, he told them plainly that it was his intention to direct his studies towards the means of ameliorating the physical, moral, and intellectual condition of the most numerous and the poorest class. In a letter to Paul Ackermann, a distinguished man of letters, with whom he had formed a connection, he wrote as follows, concerning the congratulations he had received on being awarded the pension: “I have received the congratulations of more than two hundred people. Why do you think that people felicitate me? Because it is almost certain that I shall attain honors equal to those which the Jouffroys, the Pouillets have obtained, and perhaps, I am told, even greater honors. No one has come to me and said: ‘Proudhon,[127] you ought before everything else to devote yourself to the cause of the poor, to the enfranchisement of the little ones, to the instruction of the people. You will perhaps be an abomination to the rich and powerful; pursue your way as a reformer regardless of persecutions, of calumny, of sorrow, and of death itself.’”[118]
About this time he founded a printing establishment in his native city, which appears never to have flourished greatly. He had already taken up the study of political economy, in addition to theology and philology, to both of which he hereafter devoted comparatively little attention. One of his first instructors in his new study was the able economist, Pellegrino Rossi. His economic studies bore fruit in 1840, in his work on property, “Qu’est-ce que la Propriété?”[119]—“What is Property?” A startling answer to the question is given—viz., “Property is theft” and “Property-holders are thieves.”
The work marks a new epoch in the history of socialism, on several accounts. First, he attacks in it directly the chief support of individualism and the greatest obstacle to the realization of communism—private property. Others had proposed phalansteries, religious sects, and social workshops, all presupposing the abolition of private property; but Proudhon was the first to attempt to prove directly and scientifically that private property per se was a monstrosity—was robbery. Again, he set an example of harsh and rude attacks on classes and institutions, which modern social democrats have not been slow to follow. He[128] could easily have expressed the thought which he wished to convey otherwise than by using the word “theft,” but he preferred the cruel, biting expression. Likewise, in condemning the God of the theologians, he cried out, “God is the evil!” (“Dieu c’est le mal!”) Very likely he simply meant to condemn certain ideas concerning God, but it was not at all necessary for him to use an expression sure to give offence and pain to many good people. In the same way he was not content to call property-holders thieves. He says elsewhere that the “proprietor is essentially a libidinous animal, without virtue and without shame.”
This reveals another side of Proudhon’s character. He felt for the poor, but he hated the rich as a class, if not individually. He tells us himself that he first experienced a feeling of shame on account of poverty, but finding existence intolerable while tormented by such a humiliating feeling, he succeeded in transforming it into hate and anger. Afterwards his hatred turned into contempt and he became calmer, though it is probable that he always retained a certain bitterness of feeling. He writes to the Académie de Besan?on: “When I sought to become your pensioner, I was full of hate for that which exists and of projects of destruction. My hatred of privilege and of the authority of man was without measure. Perhaps I was sometimes wrong in confounding in my indignation persons and things; at present I only know how to despise and complain. In order to cease to hate, it was only necessary for me to understand.”[120]
In the third place, this book is remarkable, because so many modern socialistic schools can be traced back[129] to it. The ideas of the anarchists of France at the present time are well presented in it. We also find in it a good presentation of that part of Marx’s doctrine of value which treats of labor-time as the measure of value, and the portion of the products which the capitalist takes under the name of profits as robbery. Marx developed it, and doubtless understood its import better than Proudhon, but nevertheless the germs of his most important theory are very plainly contained in this work on Property.[121]
Finally, the essay on Property is important because it led socialists and even political economists to a revision of their theories and a more careful observation of facts. Louis Blanc discouraged fantastical and supernatural schemes of reform; but the sharp, cutting criticism of Proudhon, directed now against the communists, now against the Saint-Simonians and Fourierists, now against the political economists, rendered them impossible. High-priests and revealers of visions could henceforth count on no favor on the part of the laborers.
Proudhon disposed of his printing establishment in 1843, but at such a loss as to leave him in debt to the amount of 7000 francs, which, however, he was finally able to pay. His next business enterprise was the formation of a connection with a company which was engaged in transportation on the Saone and the Rhone. This occupation lasted five years, but he did not, in[130] the meantime, cease his literary labors. In 1846 he published his “Système des Contradictions économiques ou Philosophie de la Misère.”[122] If the work, “Qu’est-ce que la Propriété?” ranks first in importance of all his works, this certainly occupies the second place. It contains a sharp criticism of socialistic and economic theories, which he opposes to one another, and shows that they are mutually destructive. Here, as elsewhere, no one has doubted the merit of his criticism. He adopted as the motto of the book “Destruam et ?dificabo”—“I will destroy and I will build up again.” He was powerful as a destroyer, but weak as a constructor. He could not keep the second part of his promise. He had become imperfectly acquainted with the Hegelian logic at second-hand through Carl Grün, who became his translator, and he sought to unite contradictories, “thesis” and “antithesis,” into a “synthesis.” But Hegel is not an author whom a Frenchman is likely to understand, and Proudhon did not succeed well in the use of his logical method.
Proudhon took no part in the Revolution of February, as he was not a politician, holding that all forms of government were equally vicious, and it was of little importance whether this or that party triumphed. He held himself aloof from any participation in the events which were transpiring until the political revolution was past, in order then to make his power more effectually felt in the settlement of social questions. In April he became editor of the Représentant du Peuple, and in June he was elected, by a large majority, to the Constituent Assembly as one of the representatives[131] of the Departement de la Seine. After he had seen the various social parties retire, defeated, from the scene, one after another, it became his turn to present positive measures of social reform. He had combated all socialistic sects, while maintaining persistently his position as a friend of the poor. What had he to offer, now that he had assisted to overthrow every plan of improvement which had been proposed? On the 31st of July he brought forward his scheme of organization of credit, which would guarantee labor to all in the only effectual way, as it would furnish every one with the instruments of labor. What this was we will consider presently. It is only necessary to state that it was rejected by the overwhelming majority of 691 to 2.[123] He attempted the execution of his plan without the aid of the state, by the erection of a bank, which failed about April 1, 1849, after an existence of a few weeks. Thus ended the attempt of the last great French socialist to carry out a scheme of social and economic regeneration. Proudhon’s paper was suppressed, but it reappeared twice under different names, before the arrest and sentence of its editor to three years’ imprisonment for breaking the press-laws terminated its existence. During his imprisonment he wrote his “La Révolution Sociale Démontrée par le Coup d’état du 2 Décembre”—“The Social Revolution Demonstrated by the Coup d’état of 2d December” (1851). This created a sensation, and six editions were sold in less than six months.[124] His imprisonment terminated on the 4th of June, 1852, and he retired to private life. He had[132] been married in 1850 to the daughter of a merchant, and it is said that his conduct as a husband and a father was exemplary. It is necessary to mention only one other work which he wrote—viz., “De la Justice dans la Révolution et dans l’église”—which appeared in 1858.[125] He shows in this book that outside of the Catholic Church and Christianity there is no God, no theology, no religion, and no faith. Has Proudhon become a Catholic and a conservative? By no means. He immediately proceeds to demonstrate that the Church is ever in conflict with justice. The book was seized eight days after its appearance, its author tried, and sentenced to a fine of 4000 francs and to three years’ imprisonment, which he escaped by flight to Belgium, where he remained until an amnesty in 1860 allowed him to return to France. He died in Passy in 1865.
It is necessary to dwell more at length on three points in Proudhon’s teachings—viz., his ideas concerning property, government, and positive reform.
“Property is theft,” says Proudhon. Every argument brought forward to sustain it destroys the institution. Some seek to justify it by the theory of occupation, in accordance with which theory that which belongs to no one becomes the property of him who takes possession of it.[126] But if this be admitted, then property depends upon the accidents of number of population and extent of territory. Those who are born too late will be property-less. However, if the soil originally belonged to no private[133] individual it must have belonged to all collectively, and all will not and cannot renounce their right to this common possession. If I fashion a plough it is mine, because I made it. Who made the earth? God. Well, let him then demand a rent for it—let him take his own. But this he will not do. His gifts are free. We see that the theory of occupation presupposes common property, and that cannot be surrendered any more than life or liberty.
The second theory of property is the labor theory. But this theory likewise destroys property. That only is mine which I produce. The earth is mine only so long as I cultivate it. The moment another labors on my farm it becomes his property. Again, labor presupposes the instruments of labor, and where is one to obtain these in ............