[618] Except the Saint-Simonians nobody seems to have conceived of the State’s responsibility for a nation’s productive forces. List refers to them sympathetically, especially to those who, like Michel Chevalier, “sought to discover the connection of these doctrines with those of the premier schools, and to make their ideas compatible with existing circumstances” (National System, p. 287). But List differs from them in his love of individual liberty and in the importance which he attaches to moral, political, and intellectual liberty as elements of productive efficiency.
[619] Philosophie du Progrès, Œuvres, vol. xx, p. 19: “Growth is essential to thought, and truth or reality whether in nature or in human affairs is essentially historical, at one time advancing, at another receding, evolving slowly, but always undergoing some change.” In his Contradictions économiques he defines social science as “the systematised study of society, not merely as it was in the past or will be in the future, but as it is in the present in all its manifold appearances, for only by looking at the whole of its activities can we hope to discover intelligence and order.” (Vol. i, p. 43.) “If we apply this conception to the organisation of labour we cannot agree with the economists when they say that it is already completely organised, or with the socialists when they declare that it must be organised, but simply that it is gradually organising itself; that is, that the process of organisation has gone on since time immemorial and is still going on, and that it will continue to go on. Science should always be on the look-out for the results that have already been achieved or are on the point of realisation.” (Vol. i, p. 45.)
[620] A vigorous exposition of his other ideas is given in Bouglé’s La Sociologie de Proudhon (Paris, 1911).
[621] The following are Proudhon’s principal works: 1840, Qu’est-ce que la Propriété? (studies in ethics and politics); 1846, Système des Contradictions économiques (the “philosophy of destitution”); 1848, Organisation du Crédit et de la Circulation et Solution du Problème social; 1848, Résumé de la Question sociale, Banque d’Échange; 1849, Les Confessions d’un Révolutionnaire; 1850, Intérêt et Principal (a discussion between M. Bastiat and M. Proudhon); 1858, De la Justice dans la Révolution et dans l’Église (three volumes); 1861, La Guerre et la Paix; 1865, De la Capacité politique des Classes ouvrières. Our quotations are taken from the Œuvres complètes, published in twenty-six volumes by Lacroix (1867-70).
[622] “Do you happen to know, madam, what my father was? Well, he was just an honest brewer whom you could never persuade to make money by selling above cost price. Such gains, he thought, were immoral. ‘My beer,’ he would always remark, ‘costs me so much, including my salary. I cannot sell it for more.’ What was the result? My dear father always lived in poverty and died a poor man, leaving poor children behind him.” (Letter to Madame d’Agoult, Correspondance, vol. ii, p. 239.)
[623] It has been said that Proudhon borrowed this formula from Brissot de Warville, the author of a work entitled Recherches philosophiques sur le Droit de Propriété et sur le Vol, considérés dans la Nature et dans la Société. It was first published in 1780, and reappeared with some modifications in vol. vi, pp. 261 et seq., of his Bibliothèque philosophique du Législateur (1782). But this is a mistake. Proudhon declares that the work was unknown to him (Justice, vol. i, p. 301); and, moreover, the formula is not there at all. Brissot’s point of view is entirely different from Proudhon’s. The former believes that in a state of nature the right of property is simply the outcome of want, and disappears when that want is satisfied; that man, and even animals and plants, has a right to everything that can satisfy his wants, but that the right disappears with the satisfaction of the want. Consequently theft perpetrated under the pressure of want simply means a return to nature. The rich are really the thieves, because they refuse to the culprit the lawful satisfaction of his needs. The result is a plea for a more lenient treatment of thieves. But Brissot is very careful not to attack civil property, which is indispensable for the growth of wealth and the expansion of commerce, although it has no foundation in a natural right (p. 333). There is no mention of unearned income. Proudhon, on the other hand, never even discusses the question as to whether property is based upon want or not. He would certainly have referred to this if he had read Brissot.
[624] Contradictions, vol. i, pp. 219, 221.
[625] Résumé de la Question sociale, p. 29. We meet with the same idea in other passages. “Property under the influence of division of labour has become a mere link in the chain of circulation, and the proprietor himself a kind of toll-gatherer who demands a toll from every commodity that passes his way. Property is the real thief.” (Banque d’Échange, p. 166.) We must also remember that Proudhon did not consider that taking interest was always illegal. In the controversy with Bastiat he admits that it was necessary in the past, but that he has found a way of getting rid of it altogether.
[626] We must distinguish between this and Marx’s doctrine. Marx believed that all value is the product of labour. Proudhon refuses to admit this. He thinks that value should in some way correspond to the quantity of labour, but that this is not the case in present-day society. Marx was quite aware of the fact that Proudhon did not share his views (see Misère de la Philosophie). Proudhon follows Rodbertus, who taught that the products only and not their values are provided by labour.
[627] Propriété, 1er Mémoire, pp. 131-132. It is true that Proudhon adds that without land and capital labour would be unproductive. But he soon forgets his qualifications when he proceeds to draw conclusions, especially when he comes to give an exposition of the Exchange Bank, where we meet with the following sentence: “Society is built up as follows: All the raw material required is gratuitously supplied by nature, so that in the economic world every product is really begot of labour, and capital must be considered unproductive.” Elsewhere he writes: “To work is not necessarily to produce anything.” (Solution du Problème social, Œuvres, vol. vi, pp. 361 et seq., and p. 187.)