CHAPTER VII.
PROUDHON.
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 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 Besançon, 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 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 Besançon 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, 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 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 Besançon: “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 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]