[678] In the Idée générale de la Révolution au XIXe Siècle, p. 198: “The citizens of France have a right to demand and if need be to join together for the establishment of bakehouses, butchers’ shops, etc., which will sell them bread and meat and other articles of consumption of good quality at a reasonable price, taking the place of the present chaotic method, where short weight, poor quality, and an exorbitant price seem to be the order. For a similar reason they have the right to establish a bank, with the amount of capital which they think fit, in order to get the cash which they need for their transactions as cheaply as possible.”
[679] “Association avoids the waste of the retail system. M. Rossi recommends it to those small householders who cannot afford to buy wholesale. But this kind of association is wrong in principle. Give the producer, by helping him to exchange his products, an opportunity of supplying them with provisions at wholesale prices, or, what comes to the same thing, organise the retail trade so as to leave only just the same advantage as in the case of the wholesale transaction, and ‘association’ will be unnecessary.” (Idée générale de la Révolution, p. 92.)
[680] This system was criticised by Marx in his Misère de la Philosophie, published in 1847 (Giard and Brière’s edition, 1896, pp. 92 et seq.). A more recent and more complete exposition is given in Foxwell’s introduction to Anton Menger’s The Right to the Whole Produce of Labour, pp. lxv, etc.
[681] Mazel gave an exposition of his scheme in a series of pamphlets written in very bombastic language, but only of very slight interest to the economist. Another bank known as Bonnard’s Bank was established at Marseilles in 1838, and afterwards at Paris. The ideas are somewhat similar, but much more practical. Both branches are still in active operation. Proudhon refers to this bank in his Capacité politique des Classes ouvrières. Courcelle-Seneuil gives a very eulogistic account of it in his Traité des Banques, and in an article in the Journal des Économistes for April 1853. The modus operandi is explained in three brochures, which may be seen in the Bibliothèque Nationale. One of these is entitled Liste des Articles disponibles à la Banque; the other two describe the mechanism of the bank. Darimon, one of Proudhon’s disciples, in his work De la Réforme des Banques (Paris, Guillaumin, 1856), gives an account of a large number of similar institutions which were founded during this period. Several systems of the kind have also been discussed by M. Aucuy in his Systèmes socialistes d’Échange (Paris, 1907). But we cannot accept his interpretation of various points.
Bonnard’s Bank differs from the others in this way. The client of the bank, instead of bringing it some commodity or other which may or may not be sold by the bank, gets from the bank some commodity which he himself requires, promising to supply the bank with a commodity of his own production whenever the bank requires it. The bank charges a commission on every transaction. Its one aim is to bring buyer and seller together, and the notes are simply bills, payable according to the conditions written on them. But they cannot be regarded as substitutes for bank bills. Cf. Banque d’Échange de Marseille, C. Bonnard et Cie., fondée par Acte du 10 Janvier, 1849 (Marseilles, 1849).
[682] “I repudiate Mazel’s system root and branch,” he declares in an article contributed to Le Peuple of December 1848 (Œuvres, vol. xvii, p. 221). He also adds that when he wrote first he had no acquaintance of any kind with Mazel. “It was M. Mazel who on his own initiative revealed his scheme to me and gave me the idea.” In one of his projects, published on May 10, 1848, Proudhon seems inclined to adopt this idea, just for a moment at any rate. Article 17 seems to hint at this. “The notes will always be exchangeable at the bank and at the offices of members, but only against goods and services, and in the same way commodities and services can always be exchanged for notes.” (Résumé de la Question sociale, p. 41.) This article justifies the interpretation which Courcelle-Seneuil puts on it, in his Traité des Operations de Banque (9th ed., 1899, p. 470), and which Ott accepts in his Traité d’Économie sociale (1851), which, moreover, contains a profound analysis and some subtle criticism of Proudhon’s idea. But we think that this article was simply an oversight on Proudhon’s part; for beyond a formal refutation of Mazel’s idea there is no reference to it in any of his other works, not even in the scheme of the People’s Bank. Moreover, it seems to contradict the statement that the notes would be issued against commodities which had been actually sold and delivered, as well as other articles of the scheme—e.g. Article 30, dealing with buying and selling. It also conflicts with the idea that the discounting of goods is the prime and essential operation of the bank. In our opinion, Diehl in his book on Proudhon (P. J. Proudhon, Seine Lehre u. seine Leben, vol. ii, p. 183) is wrong in thinking that the Exchange Bank would issue notes against all kinds of goods without taking the trouble to discover whether they had been sold or not.
[683] Annales de l’Institut Solvay, vol. i, p. 19.
[684] Ibid., p. 25.
[685] Cf. Principes d’Orientation sociale, a résumé of Solvay’s studies in productivism and accounting (Brussels, 1904).
[686] Although Solvay’s scheme seems very different from Proudhon’s, it possesses features that received the highest commendation from the Luxembourg Commission. In L’Exposé général de la Commission de Gouvernement pour les Travailleurs, which appeared in Le Moniteur of May 6, 1848, we read: “When in the future association has become complete, there will be no need for notes even. Every transaction will be carried on by balancing the accounts. Book-keepers will take the place of collecting clerks. Money, both paper and metallic, is largely superfluous even in present-day society.” The author then proceeds to outline a scheme of clearing-houses.