[648] Organisation du Credit et de la Circulation, p. 131. Elsewhere: “To adopt Hegelian phraseology, the community is the first term in social development—the thesis; property the contradictory term—the antithesis. The third term—the synthesis—must be found before the solution can be considered complete.” (Propriété, 1er Mémoire, p. 202.) That term will be possession pure and simple—the right of property with no claim to unearned income. “Get rid of property, but retain the right of possession, and this very simple change of principle will result in an alteration of the laws, the method of government, and the character of a nation’s economic institutions. Evil of every kind will be entirely swept away.” Proudhon employed Hegelian terminology as early as 1840, four years before Karl Grün’s visit to Paris. For Proudhon’s relation to Grün see Sainte-Beuve’s P. J. Proudhon.
[649] Justice dans la Révolution, vol. i, pp. 182-183.
[650] Ibid., p. 269. “It is easy to show how the principle of mutual respect is logically convertible with the principle of reciprocal service. If men are equal in the eyes of justice they must also have a common necessity, and whoever would place his brothers in a position of inferiority, against which it is the chief duty of society to fight, is not acting justly.”
[651] This idea of mutual service is further developed, especially in Organisation du Crédit et de la Circulation (Œuvres, vol. vi, pp. 92-93), and in Idée générale, p. 97.
[652] That is how the problem is put in the preface to the first Mémoire.
[653] Contradictions, vol. ii, p. 414.
[654] Le Droit au Travail et le Droit de Propriété, pp. 4, 5, 58 (1848).
[655] Every historian is agreed on this point, which Louis Blanc has dealt with at great length in his Histoire de la Révolution de 1848 (chap. 11). The testimony of contemporaries, especially Lamartine in his Histoire de la Révolution de 1848 (vol. ii, p. 120), is also very significant. “These national workshops were placed under the direction of men who belonged to the anti-socialist party, whose one aim was to spoil the experiment, but who managed to keep the sectaries of the Luxembourg and the rebels of the clubs apart until the meeting of the National Assembly. Paris was disgusted with the quantity and the character of the work accomplished, but it little thought that these men had on more than one occasion defended and protected the city. Far from being in the pay of Louis Blanc, as some people seem to think, they were entirely at the beck and call of his opponents.” É. Thomas in his Histoire des Ateliers nationaux (pp. 146-147) relates how Marie sent for him on May 23 and secretly asked him whether the men in the workshops could be relied upon. “Try to get them strongly attached to you. Spare no expense. If there is any need we shall give you plenty of money.” Upon Thomas asking what was the purpose of all this, Marie replied: “It is all in the interest of public safety. Make sure of the men. The day is not far distant when we shall need them in the streets.”
[656] These addresses were afterwards published in a volume entitled Le Droit au Travail.
[657] Louis Blanc, Histoire de la Révolution de 1848, vol. ii, p. 135.