But how can we reform the present system or replace it by a better? Herein lies the difficulty. Born twenty years earlier, Proudhon, like many others, would perhaps have invented a Utopia. But what was possible in 1820 was no longer so twenty years later. Public opinion was already satiated with schemes of reform. Owen, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Cabet, and Louis Blanc had each in his turn proposed a remedy. The fancy of reformers had roamed at will over the whole wide expanse of possible reforms. Proudhon was well acquainted with all these efforts, and had come to the conclusion that they were all equally useless. Hence he turns out to be a critic of the socialists as well as of the economists.
Proudhon attempts the correction of the vices of private property without becoming a party to what he calls the “crass stupidity of socialism.” Every Utopian scheme is instinctively rejected. He cares nothing for those who view society as they do machinery and think that an ingenious trick is all that is needed to correct all anomalies and to reset the machine in motion. To him social life means perpetual progress.[619] He knows that time is required for the conciliation of those social forces that are warring against one another. He was engrossed with his attempt to find a solution for this difficult problem when the Revolution of 1848 broke out, and Proudhon, suddenly thrown into action, finds himself forced to express his ideas in a concrete form, such that all could understand. The critic has to try his hand at construction, and almost despite himself he outlines another Utopia in his Exchange Bank.
Other writers had sought a solution in the complete overthrow of the present methods of production and distribution. But Proudhon thought it lay in improved circulation. It was an ingenious idea, and it deserves mention in a history of economic doctrines because of the truth, mingled with error, which it contains, and because it has become the type of a series of similar projects. It is upon this conception that we wish to dilate here. Leaving aside his other ideas, which are no whit less interesting, we shall treat of Proudhon the philosopher, moralist, and political theorist only in so far as these have influenced Proudhon the economist.[620]
I: CRITICISM OF PRIVATE PROPERTY AND SOCIALISM
The work that first brought Proudhon to the notice of the public was a book published in 1840 entitled Qu’est-ce que la Propriété? Proudhon was then thirty-one years of age.[621] Born at Besançon, he was the son of a brewer,[622] and was forced to earn his living at an early age. He first became a proof-corrector, and then set up as a printer on his own account. Despite hard work he became a diligent reader, his only guide being his insatiable thirst for knowledge. The sight of social injustice had sent the iron into his soul. Economic questions were faced with all the ardour of youth, with all the enthusiasm of a man of the people speaking on behalf of his brothers, and with all the confidence of one who believes in the convincing force of logic and common sense. All this is very evident in his brilliantly imaginative work. Mingled with it is a good deal of that provoking swagger which was noted by Sainte-Beuve as one of his characteristics, and which appears in all his writings.
Throughout this treatise from first page to last there periodically flashes one telling phrase which sums up his whole argument, “Property is theft.”[623]
The question then arises as to whether Proudhon regards all property as theft. Does he condemn appropriation, or is it the mere fact of possession that he is inveighing against? This is how the public at large have viewed it, and it would be useless to deny that Proudhon owes a great deal to this interpretation, and the consequent consternation of the bourgeoisie. But his meaning is quite different. Private property in the sense of the free disposal of the fruits of labour and saving is in his opinion of the very essence of liberty. At bottom this is nothing more than man’s control over himself.[624] But why attack property, then? Property is attacked because it gives to the proprietor a right to an income for which he has not worked. It is not property as such, but the right of escheat, that forms the butt of Proudhon’s attack; and following the lead of Owen and other English socialists, as well as the Saint-Simonians, he directs his charges against that right of escheat which, according to circumstances and the character of the revenue, is variously known as rent, discount, money interest, agricultural privilege, sinecure, etc.[625]
Like every socialist, Proudhon considered that labour alone was productive.[626] Land and capital without labour were useless. Hence the demand of the proprietor for a share of the produce as a return for the service which his capital has yielded is radically false. It is based upon the supposition that capital by itself is productive, whereas the capitalist in taking payment for it literally receives something for nothing.[627]