{"id":28,"date":"2025-10-14T19:10:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T19:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/?p=28"},"modified":"2025-10-14T19:11:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T19:11:26","slug":"proudhon-start-by-being-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/proudhon-start-by-being-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Proudhon: \u201cstart by being right\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article discusses various claims made against Proudhon by the likes of Engels, Schapiro, Draper and others. Some are correct (if usually exaggerated), most are false. It argues that any critique Proudhon should start by being accurate, something which should go without saying but all-too-often is ignored. It first appeared in Black Flag Anarchist Review <\/a><\/em>Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring 2025).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Proudhon: \u201cstart by being right\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I will start with an admission. Once, a long time ago, I wrote a letter to a Marxist paper angrily proclaiming how dare they use Proudhon to attack anarchism when he was not<\/em> an anarchist. Suffice to say, this just showed my ignorance \u2013 not least in being unaware of the source of the article\u2019s attacks, it being a rehash of Hal Draper rather than some original piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily it remained unsent (not least because it got a bit long\u2026) for I made a terrible mistake \u2013 I took the time to read Proudhon. This was driven by my work on An Anarchist FAQ<\/em> and the need to present anarchist views on capitalism. As many have noted, unlike Marxism, there is not a huge amount of anarchist writings on economics. The exception is Proudhon, particularly in the 1840s. So I read the first two Memoirs<\/em> on property (as translated by Tucker) and these opened my eyes. I then moved onto volume 1 of System of Economic Contradictions<\/em> and, while hard going in certain chapters (whose relevance to analysing capitalism is hard to grasp), it was not the book I had been led to think it was by Marxist accounts. All this motivated me to work on Property is Theft!<\/em>[1]<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>and whilst working on other projects, I have kept an interest on Proudhon ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mention this to put the following discussions in context for it is all too easy to think that just become someone proclaims something it means they know what they are talking about, particularly if they have academic credentials. Worse, it is all too easy to assume that they are being accurate and would not just distort or make things up. Even \u201cpeer review\u201d can mean little, if the subject is relative obscure and the peers in question know little about the subject and assume an honesty which may, with a little investigation, be proven to be lacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So nothing should be taken for granted when reading about Proudhon (or anarchism in general). If a claim looks strange, it is always worthwhile investigating whether it is actually true or not. If a reference is provided, I\u2019ve discovered it is always wise to check the source to confirm that it is as suggested (I\u2019ve found that in far too many cases it does not). However, I appreciate \u2013 from experience! \u2013 that this can be time consuming and difficult to do as the material can be hard to access. Still, it should be done. Distortions, however, can sometimes have an element of truth about them. This makes them plausible \u2013 as will be shown, Proudhon did<\/em> write \u201cAll this democracy disgusts me\u201d and he was<\/em> anti-Semitic. However, context and accuracy matter<\/em>. This may involve discussing unpleasant subjects but that does not mean allowing inaccuracies or exaggerations to go unchallenged. Doing so may see the accusation of \u201capologetics\u201d levelled but that would be a superficial response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet criticism can be valid in spite of this. Marxists, for example, never note that the valid criticisms they make of Proudhon \u2013 his racism, sexism, opposition to strikes[2]<\/a> \u2013 are those made by later anarchists. They also rarely criticise him on any substantial aspect of his ideas, preferring to recount flaws in his personality. Rarely is any context presented, such as noting that his (measured) support for small-scale property was reflective of his era (and that he was resolutely in favour of collective property where appropriate), nor any alternative (if Proudhon is to be denounced for opposing forced collectivisation of peasants, then that should be clearly stated). Nor do they mention the overlap in Proudhon\u2019s disgraceful views with others of his time, including Marx and Engels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his marginal notes to The Poverty of Philosophy<\/em>, Proudhon wrote \u201cYou always joke beforehand: start by being right.\u201d This applies to the criticisms levelled at Proudhon I am about to discuss. There is plenty to criticise in his ideas and we should do so \u2013 but let us do so accurately<\/em>. We must reject invention, caricature and exaggeration when we discuss his ideas, we must provide the necessary context not to excuse, minimise or downplay things but to understand them and their relative importance within his ideas as a whole. If we \u201cstart by being right\u201d then our critique will be all the more valid and our understanding of his strengths and weaknesses will be stronger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Housing Question<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It is not only The Poverty of Philosophy<\/em> which saw the founders of Marxism distort Proudhon\u2019s ideas. While questionable commentary on Proudhon exists in Capital<\/em> and Theories of Surplus Value<\/em>, Engels\u2019 The Housing Question<\/em> is worth discussing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engels\u2019 1872 work is part of a polemic within German socialist circles and sought to defend the Marxist orthodoxy against those influenced by the French anarchist seeking \u201cto transplant the Proudhonist school to Germany\u201d. He also somewhat incredulously suggested that Marx had \u201cdelivered a decisive blow precisely to the Proudhonist ideas as far back as twenty-five years ago\u201d \u2013 if so, then why was he having to do so in 1872?[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engels suggests that Proudhon\u2019s aimed to solve the housing question involves a scheme in which the workers \u201cbecome part-owner\u201d of dwellings by \u201cpaying annual instalments\u201d via their rent. So, if a worker lives in a rented property then the rent they pay goes towards buying the house. For the amusement of his readers, he paints a picture of a worker moving from rented accommodation to rented accommodation and accruing a tiny fraction of each one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSupposing that on the day\u2026 when the redemption of rent dwellings is proclaimed, Peter is working in an engineering works in Berlin. A year later he is owner of, if you like, the fifteenth part of his flat consisting of a little room on the fifth floor of a house somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Hamburger Tor. He then loses his job and soon afterwards finds himself in a similar flat on the third floor of a house in the Pothof in Hanover with a wonderful view of the courtyard\u2026 Subsequent removals, such as nowadays are so frequent with workers, saddle him further\u2026 And now, of what use are all these shares in fiats to our Peter? Who is to give him the real value of these shares\u2026 when the redemption period has elapsed and rented flats are abolished, [and housing] belongs to perhaps three hundred part owners who are scattered all over the world?\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In this way \u201cthe individual worker<\/em> becomes owner of the dwelling\u201d in Proudhon\u2019s scheme.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given how obviously impractical this proposal is, the equally obvious question is: did Proudhon actually advocate such a scheme? Consulting the work and pages explicitly referenced by Engels[6]<\/a>, the answer is a resounding no<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201call payments made as rental shall be carried over to the account of the purchase of the property, at a price estimated at twenty times the annual rental.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery such payment shall purchase for the tenant a proportional undivided share in the house he lives in, and in all buildings erected for rental, and serving as a habitation for citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe property thus paid for shall pass under the control of the communal administration, which shall take a first mortgage upon it, in the name of all the tenants, and shall guarantee them all a domicile, in perpetuity, at the cost price of the building\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor repairs, management, and upkeep of buildings, as well as for new constructions, the communes shall deal with bricklayers companies or building workers associations, according to the rules and principles of the new social contract.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Note well that in Proudhon\u2019s scheme that housing is \u201cunder the control of the communal administration\u201d and that the tenant gains \u201ca proportional undivided share in the house he lives in, and in all buildings erected for rental, and serving as a habitation for citizens.\u201d In short, the aim is to achieve social<\/em> ownership of housing and the rent paid does not accrue ownership to the individual worker but rather the commune (after all, unlike the individual worker, housing does not move). So, clearly, the worker gains access to all<\/em> such social housing in every<\/em> commune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should be noted that, Proudhon makes the same suggestion for land and once the rent paid equalled its price it \u201cshall revert immediately to the commune, which shall take the place of the former proprietor, and shall share the fee-simple and the economic rent with the farmer.\u201d Then \u201call the communes of the Republic shall come to an understanding for equalising among them the quality of tracts of land, as well as accidents of culture. The part of the rent to which they are entitled upon their respective territories shall serve for compensation and for general insurance.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engels, in short, either cannot understand Proudhon\u2019s argument or deliberately seeks to distort it. The answer seems to be the latter for in 1851 he accurately noted that Proudhon\u2019s scheme meant \u201cconverting interest payments into repayments, all real wealth being concentrated in the hands of the State or the communes\u201d and suggests that \u201cit takes far too long\u201d as these are \u201csystematically protracted measures, extending over 20 or 30 years\u201d.[9]<\/a> He summarises his take on Proudhon\u2019s ideas as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cProudhon has now also come to the conclusion that the true meaning of property rights lies in the disguised confiscation of all property by a more or less disguised State, and that what abolition of the State really means is intensified state centralisation.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

While clearly ignoring Proudhon\u2019s arguments for decentralisation, Engels does however recognise that his argument was for social<\/em> rather than individual ownership. He also quotes Proudhon in the notes of an aborted review around the same time: \u201cWith every instalment of rent the tenant will acquire a proportional and joint share in the house he occupies and in the totality of all buildings let for rent and serving as dwellings for the citizens. Property thus paid for will pass by degrees into the hands of the communal administration.\u201d[11]<\/a> So Engels did<\/em> know what Proudhon had actually advocated but decided to distort his ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engels also takes the time to repeat all the standard Marxist nonsense about Proudhon, for example that he had \u201can aversion to the industrial revolution\u201d and wished \u201cto drive the whole of modern industry out of the temple\u201d. He suggests that Proudhon\u2019s use of the term the \u201cproductivity of capital\u201d was \u201can absurdity that Proudhon takes over uncritically from the bourgeois economists\u201d and that he \u201cdiffers from the bourgeois economists in that he does not approve of this \u2018productivity of capital\u2019, but on the contrary, discovers in it a violation of \u2018eternal justice\u2019\u201d as it \u201cis this productivity which prevents the worker from receiving the full proceeds of his labour\u201d. It would be abolished by \u201clowering the rate of interest by compulsory legislation\u201d.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is strange to read Engels proclaim that Proudhon \u201caversion\u201d to industry when earlier he had noted \u201cAssociation in big industry<\/em>. Here, then, compagnies ouvri\u00e8res<\/em> [workers companies]\u2026 This is the solution to the deux probl\u00e8mes: celui de la force collective, et celui de la division du travail<\/em> [two problems: that of collective force, and that of the division of labour].\u201d[13]<\/a> In terms of \u201cthe productivity of capital\u201d, yes, Proudhon did use the term but only to proclaim that the theory is a \u201cfiction\u201d as \u201call value is born of labour\u201d and so contrasts the \u201cthe theory of the real productivity of labour\u201d with \u201cthat of the fictitious productivity of capital\u201d. Engels seems to think that proclaiming something a fiction equates to \u201cuncritically\u201d taking it over. This, for Proudhon, does<\/em> violate justice as this requires that \u201call labour must leave a surplus, all wages be equal to product\u201d so it appears that he is to be mocked for opposing the exploitation of labour by capital.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The notion of justice has been one which has driven many socialists and working people to change society and it does Engels little favours to mock it so. Needless to say, he adds that \u201cthis justice is still called \u2018eternal justice\u2019\u2026 later on, nothing more is said about eternity, but the idea remains in essence\u201d[15]<\/a> and so he appears unaware that Proudhon used the term just once (and ironically at that) in System of Economic Contradictions<\/em> compared to four times by Marx in The Poverty of Philosophy<\/em>. As it stands, developments in biological science have indicated that a sense of justice is a product of our evolution and so it is Engels and Marx who have been judged wrong by history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Engels claimed that Proudhon had in 1851 appropriated, without acknowledgement, Marx\u2019s ideas as his own. In a letter to Marx, he proclaimed that he was \u201cconvinced\u201d that the Frenchman had read The Communist Manifesto <\/em>and Marx\u2019s The Class Struggles in France <\/em>as \u201cour premises on the decisive historical initiative of material production, class struggle, etc., largely adopted\u201d and a \u201cnumber of points were indubitably lifted from them \u2013 e.g., that a gouvernement <\/em>is nothing but the power of one class to repress the other, and will disappear with the disappearance of the contradictions between classes\u201d.[16]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The claim is false \u2013 Proudhon had concluded that the state was an instrument of class power before the Manifesto<\/em> was penned.[17]<\/a> In 1846 he had noted that the state was \u201cinevitably enchained to capital and directed against the proletariat. No political reform can solve this contradiction\u2026 The problem before the labouring classes, then, consists, not in capturing, but in subduing both power and monopoly\u2026 generating from the bowels of the people\u2026 a greater authority, a more potent fact, which shall envelop capital and the State and subjugate them.\u201d[18]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suffice to say, very little of what Marx and Engels proclaimed against Proudhon can be taken at face value and without taking the trouble of verifying whether it is accurate or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engels does make a valid point when he noted \u201cthe fact that one cannot see how [in General Idea<\/em>] the factories are to be transferred from the hands of the manufacturers to the compagnies ouvri\u00e8res<\/em>, since interest and land rent are to be abolished, but not profit (for there will still be competition).\u201d[19]<\/a> Given Proudhon\u2019s position that labour is the source of value and that wages must equal product, he did not think that lowering interest rates would do this directly but rather allow workers to get sufficient credit to create their own companies and so secure the \u201cfull proceeds\u201d of their labour by abolishing wage-labour. Of course, once workers associations had displaced capitalist firms, all their earnings would technically be \u201cprofit\u201d (i.e., surplus over costs) as labour would not long be bought and so no longer be a cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This does not mean that Proudhon\u2019s solution to the housing question cannot be questioned. It is reformist in nature and dependent on the State being pressured into passing the appropriate legislation as well as a transformation in the nature of the local council. Kropotkin\u2019s position of immediate expropriation of housing by the tenants (and of workplaces by their workers) is more straightforward. However, rather than critique Proudhon\u2019s policy for being too slow, The Housing Question<\/em> saw Engels knowingly misrepresent it. If Proudhon really was the dunce Marx and Engels liked to portray him, such shameful activities would not have to be sunk to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hal Draper on Proudhon: anatomy of a smear<\/strong>[20]<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For some, the verdict of history is of little consequence. Marxists in particular seem unconcerned that every mainstream Marxist movement and revolution has become authoritarian, at its worse dictatorial, at its best bureaucratic. Rather than socialism, state-capitalism has been created time and time again. Whether it is nationalisation within the bourgeois State or turning a whole economy over to the bureaucracy, the anarchist vision of a self-managed socialist society and economy has never happened via the Marxist route in spite of the latter\u2019s oft-repeated claim of a common goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some, however, have not this dent their enthusiasm. Hal Draper is often pointed to as defending \u201creal\u201d Marxism, as Alan Johnson put it: \u201cDemocratic Marxism: The Legacy of Hal Draper\u201d.[21]<\/a> Considered a scholar of note amongst many Marxists, libertarians are less impressed for Draper\u2019s dislike \u2013 hatred \u2013 of anarchism is quickly seen from his writings. Indeed, it is not hard to conclude that his lifework sought what most people would consider the impossible \u2013 namely, portraying a movement with a legacy of centralised, bureaucratic and authoritarian structures as genuinely democratic while painting another with a legacy of federal, participatory and self-managed organisations as secretly aiming for tyranny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson suggests that Hal Draper \u201clooked at\u201d the \u201celitism and authoritarianism\u201d of those Marx attacked, including \u201cProudhon (\u2018all this democracy disgusts me\u2019).\u201d[22]<\/a> This echoes David McNally\u2019s pamphlet Socialism from Below<\/em>[23]<\/a>,<\/em> which likewise proclaimed that Proudhon \u201cviolently opposed democracy. \u2018All this democracy disgusts me\u2019, he wrote.\u201d Both repeat Draper himself, who in his 1966 pamphlet The Two Souls of Socialism <\/em>included a chapter entitled \u201cThe Myth of Anarchist \u2018Libertarianism\u2019\u201d in which we find Proudhon\u2019s \u201cviolent opposition\u201d to \u201cany and every idea of the right to vote, universal suffrage, popular sovereignty, and the very idea of constitutions. (\u2018All this democracy disgusts me \u2026 What would I not give to sail into this mob with my clenched fists!\u2019).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Draper makes many claims against Proudhon and Bakunin (Kropotkin is thankfully excluded from his tender mercies), so many it would be difficult to address them all. Some are valid, like those on Proudhon\u2019s disgusting sexism, others are exaggerated, such as those on his anti-Semitism, and others incomplete or misrepresentative. Many, however, are simply false. Here we discuss the claims on democracy by means of the quote happily repeated by his apostles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Draper made it difficult to confirm his claim. Under \u201cA Few References,\u201d he helpfully proclaims \u201c[f]or Proudhon, see the chapter in J.S. Schapiro\u2019s Liberalism and the Challenge of Fascism<\/em>, and Proudhon\u2019s Carnets<\/em>.\u201d The latter run into multiple volumes and hundreds of pages. Schapiro is somewhat easier as he does appear to reference his quotes and claims in his attempt to paint the Frenchman as a proto-fascist. Thus we find on page 350:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cProudhon\u2019s contempt and hatred of democracy overflowed all decent bounds, and he descended to a degree of disgusting vilification, reached only by the fascists of our day. \u2018All this democracy disgusts me,\u2019 he wrote. \u2018It wishes to be scratched where vermin causes itching, but it does not at all wish to be combed or to be deloused. What would I not give to sail into this mob with my clenched fists!\u2019\u201d (Correspondance<\/em> XI: 197)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Suffice to say, his account is distinctly flawed \u2013 at best, it is selective; at worse, knowingly false. Refuting Schapiro\u2019s work could be done by presenting the multitude of pro-democracy quotes and arguments by Proudhon which he studiously ignores but it is sufficient to look at this single quote \u2013 the one repeated in part by Draper, McNally and Johnson \u2013 to see his dishonesty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it stands, Proudhon did not write the quote provided for Schapiro combines three separate sentences into one passage without indicating any missing text nor that they appear on different pages (197 and 198). Context is likewise removed, along with the awkward fact that Proudhon is referring to different things on the two pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These sentences come from a private letter written on 18 September 1861 which starts by bemoaning how others on the left were attacking him as \u201ca false democrat<\/em>, a false friend of progress, a false republican\u201d due to his critical position on Polish independence. Unlike most of the rest of the French left (\u201cthe democracy,\u201d to use the term of the period), Proudhon opposed the creation of a Polish state. His reason is summarised in his letter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWhat is worse is that M. \u00c9lias Regnault\u2026 not responding to any of the impossibilities<\/em> of reconstitution which I indicated, none the less persists in demanding the reestablishment of Poland<\/em>, on the pretext that nobilitarian [nobiliaire<\/em>], Catholic, aristocratic Poland, divided into castes, has a life of its own, and that it has the right to live this life regardless<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In other words, Proudhon is indicating that an independent Poland, as demanded by \u201cthe democracy\u201d in France, would not<\/em> be a democracy but rather a regime ruled by a nobility living on the backs of the peasantry (Schapiro notes Proudhon\u2019s opposition to Polish independence but does not explain the reasoning for this). He then starts the next paragraph with these much repeated words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cAll this democracy disgusts me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Once this context is provided, it becomes clear that Proudhon is using his justly famous talent for irony against those on the left who violate their own stated democratic principles by supporting the creation of a feudal regime \u2013 if this<\/em> is democracy, Proudhon was saying, then it disgusts him. This becomes clear from the rest of his paragraph:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cAll this democracy disgusts me<\/strong>. Reason serves no purpose with it, nor principles, nor facts. It does not matter to it that it contradicts itself with every step. It has its hobby-horses, its tics and its fancies; it wants to be scratched where the maggots itch, but it will not hear of comb nor scrubbing<\/strong>; it resembles that beggar saint who, gnawed alive by maggots, put them back into his wounds when they escaped.\u201d (bold<\/strong> indicates words quoted by Schapiro)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Schapiro removes without indicating most of this paragraph, including the key words that \u201cit [the democracy] contradicts itself with every step.\u201d He thus completely obscures Proudhon\u2019s point, namely that these French democrats are contradicting their own claimed principles by supporting the creation of an aristocratic and caste-divided regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, by selective quoting, Proudhon\u2019s arguments for<\/em> democracy \u2013 in which he wishes the democrats would be consistently in favour of democracy \u2013 are turned into their opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final sentence quoted by Schapiro appears on the next page. Rather than discussing democracy, Proudhon is referring to something else:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cCertain patriots<\/em> have formed a small conspiracy to stop the sale of my pamphlets. On this matter, it has been said that I was a secret agent of the Empire<\/em>; tomorrow, when they read my theory of taxation crowned by a council of State, they will say that I am a conservative, a proprietor, an Orleanist, a bourgeois!\u2026. Fortunately, all that outcry will not make me change my mind. But what can you expect from a so-called progressive democracy, which is more fanatical, upon each appearance of an ideal, than the Inquisition?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes I really want to fall upon this bunch of sods<\/strong> [cette tourbe<\/em>] with fists flying<\/strong>; what do you think? Is it not time to avenge common sense, and to pull the republican idea from the jaws of this hydra, which terrifies writers and honest people! Come on, TWITS, YOU are a disgrace to the human mind! It is because of you that France today lags behind other nations!\u201d (bold<\/strong> indicates words quoted by Schapiro)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So Schapiro\u2019s \u201cthis mob\u201d is not<\/em> referring to the people exercising their democratic rights but rather a group opposed to Proudhon\u2019s ideas. Mob may be an acceptable translation of \u201ctourbe\u201d but not in this context, with its hoped for connotations of democracy being dismissed as \u201cmob rule.\u201d Rather, here it means not \u201cthe people\u201d but \u201cthis bunch of contemptible people\u201d\u2013 a \u201chydra\u201d from whose \u201cjaws\u201d Proudhon sought to \u201cpull the republican idea from\u201d!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schapiro again quotes out of context to turn a paragraph in which Proudhon clearly displays his support for democracy into its opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schapiro in his preface writes an \u201cexhaustive examination of [Proudhon\u2019s] writings convinced the author, reluctantly to be sure, that Proudhon was a harbinger of fascism in its essential outlook and its sinister implications.\u201d (ix)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, it is his selective quoting which is exhausting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nowhere does he mention Proudhon\u2019s support for workers\u2019 associations or that he seemed to have coined the phrase \u201cindustrial democracy.\u201d Nowhere does he note Proudhon\u2019s critique of \u201cdemocracy\u201d is rooted in an awareness that the liberal democracy Schapiro appears to champion is bourgeois<\/em> democracy and, as such, simply not that democratic. Nowhere does he mention Proudhon\u2019s advocacy of election, mandates and recall, his demand that power be decentralised and decentred into the hands of the working class in what he termed a \u201clabour democracy\u201d in 1864:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThus, no longer do we have the abstraction of people\u2019s sovereignty as in the \u201893 Constitution and the others that followed it, and in Rousseau\u2019s Social Contract<\/em>. Instead it becomes an effective sovereignty of the labouring masses which rule and govern\u2026 I declare here and now that the labouring masses are actually, positively and effectively sovereign: how could they not be when the economic organism \u2014 labour, capital, property and assets \u2014 belongs to them entirely\u201d[24]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There are, in short, many forms of democracy. Some are Jacobin \u2013 centralised, top-down and inherently bourgeois. Others are libertarian \u2013 federalist, bottom-up and inherently working class. Schapiro seemed unaware of the difference. The bourgeoisie like to portray opposition to its form of democracy \u2013 which is little more than electing masters \u2013 as being anti-democratic. Marxists like Draper mimic both this portrayal and this form of centralised quasi-democracy, even if they drape it with a red flag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schapiro seems to have a thesis in need of bolstering, so he was far from \u201creluctantly\u201d cherry-picking from Proudhon\u2019s voluminous works \u2013 presumably secure in the knowledge that few English-language scholars would be familiar enough with the originals to protest nor have the time to track down, verify and contextualise every one of his many claims. More, the American anarchist movement was small and easily ignored, particularly in academic circles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schapiro\u2019s thesis may appear plausible to those with little or no awareness of Proudhon\u2019s ideas, particularly given that he was far from a consistent libertarian (most obviously, his defence of patriarchy and his occasional public expressions of anti-Semitism) and his (unfounded) reputation of being \u201ccontradictory.\u201d Likewise, his ideas developed over his lifetime and how he presented aspects of his ideas changed as circumstances changed (mostly obviously, in response to the failure to the 1848 Revolution). Moreover, libertarian socialist ideas can initially appear confusing given their challenge to the dominant assumptions within society. All this aided Schapiro in his task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, refuting Schapiro\u2019s claims \u2013 with multiple false, cherry-picked, incomplete claims on nearly every page \u2013 is<\/em> time consuming: look what is required to debunk a single quote provided by him as evidence. Other claims are just as resource intensive to debunk, if not more so.[25]<\/a> Little wonder his work has never been fully challenged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given how Draper systematically addressed every perceived slight against Marx in exhausting detail (at least to his own satisfaction, if not others), his use of Schapiro\u2019s work seems hypocritical. At best, he made no attempt to verify the account he recommended and embraced a work which chimed with his own prejudices. At worse, Draper checked and like Schapiro knowingly distorted Proudhon\u2019s ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either way, Draper is responsible for spreading a distortion across the left \u2013 a distortion mindlessly repeated to this day. In this he follows his heroes Marx[26]<\/a> and Engels, whose distortions are likewise repeated as if they were the considered conclusions of disinterested seekers of the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proudhon, to be sure, was a flawed individual with some very repulsive views on a few subjects \u2013 like all of us, he was a child of his time (and his bigotries, whether we like it or not, were all too reflective of the French working class of the time, his class). He had his periods of pessimism, his moments of hope. At times he fell below what we would expect, at others far above. In this he is like any other thinker, Marx included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let him be criticised for what he actually argued rather than practice invention. While we hope Marxists will rise to this challenge, we will not hold our breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, we anarchists are not \u201cProudhonians\u201d nor \u201cBakuninists\u201d nor \u201cKropotkinites\u201d and so do not hero-worship our comrades past. We criticise them when they are not consistent libertarians or when they are wrong. Proudhon, for all his flaws, defined much of what anarchism is, laid its foundations if you like, yet rather than attack these core elements of his theory, the likes of Draper concentrate of those few aspects (if actually accurate) which later anarchists reject or are (more often than not) simply false to paint a radically false picture of Proudhon and by implication anarchism as such<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let them critique anarchism, not a straw man of their own liking \u2013 perhaps then we can start to build a socialist movement fit for the 21st<\/sup> century, one which learns from the past rather than repeating it. And let us simply reply to those who reference Schapiro or Draper with the words \u201cYou are not even wrong\u201d \u2013 and move on to more fruitful tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proudhon\u2019s Anti-Semitism<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There is no denying that Proudhon held anti-Semitic views, the question is how central they are to his ideas. For some, they are fundamental to his ideology and so, rather than an anarchist, he was in fact a Nazi. A recent attempt to suggest this was published in Anarchist Studies<\/em>, namely Dominique F. Miething\u2019s \u201cReview Article: Antisemtism in the anarchist tradition\u201d.[27]<\/a> Unsurprisingly, seeing Proudhon labelled a Nazi in the leading academic journal on Anarchism did make me write a short reply but unfortunately no space could be found for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to make of such claims? As Schapiro noted, a few Nazis did try to claim Proudhon as a precursor but why the word of a Nazi should be taken seriously is hard to grasp. That they would seek to appropriate Proudhon is understandable \u2013 Marx hated him, his reputation as a socialist could be used to bolster Nazi phoney radicalism, the lack of general awareness of his actual<\/em> ideas, his traditional views on marriage, and so on \u2013 but why we should favour their interpretation over that of, say, Peter Kropotkin, Gustav Landauer, Rudolf Rocker, Sam Dolgoff \u2013 all of whom Miething admits \u201cbattled antisemitism\u201d[28]<\/a> \u2013 and Daniel Gu\u00e9rin is difficult to grasp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the argument? Miething notes that Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Krier in his 2009 book Sozialismus f\u00fcr Kleinb\u00fcrger : Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Wegbereiter des Dritten Reiches<\/em> shows as \u201cone of its core claims\u2026 the pervasiveness of anti-Jewish sentiment in Proudhon\u2019s thought\u201d, that his \u201cresearch proves that the bulk of Proudhon\u2019s anti-Jewish statements is not found in posthumously published material, but in books published in his lifetime\u201d, with this \u201cculminating in a notebook entry, which Proudhon added on December 26, 1847: \u2018The Jew is the enemy of humankind. This race must be sent back to Asia or be exterminated. By steel or by fire or by expulsion the Jew must disappear.\u2019\u201d[29]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Miething admits, that entry was unknown until the 1960s when Proudhon\u2019s Carnets<\/em> (Notebooks<\/em>) began to be published. To say that it came as a shock is an understatement. Unsurprisingly, this horrific rant is much quoted but often in misleading contexts. This warrants a digression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marxist Internet Archive includes it with the comment \u201cProudhon\u2019s privately expressed thoughts were elaborated on in the same year as this entry by his follower Alphonse Toussenel in his \u2018Les Juifs, Rois de l\u2019Epoque,\u2019 The Jews, Kings of the Era<\/em>.\u201d[30]<\/a> Sadly, the minimal research needed to determine that Troussenel was a follower of Fourier rather than Proudhon and that his book was published two years before<\/em> this rant was penned was not done. It also failed to note Marx on this work:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cParis was flooded with pamphlets \u2014 La dynastie Rothschild<\/em>, Les juifs rois de l\u2019epoque<\/em>, etc. \u2014 in which the rule of the finance aristocracy was denounced and stigmatised with greater or less wit.\u201d[31]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Also unmentioned is that a few years earlier Engels had suggested that the \u201csuccess\u201d of a crude anti-Semitic text entitled Rothschild I. King of the Jews<\/em> \u201cshows how much this was an attack in the right direction\u201d and that the \u201chatred against Rothschild and the money lords is enormous\u201d.[32]<\/a> But then, neither were publicly vocal on the evils of anti-Semitism \u2013 just as they failed to challenge Proudhon\u2019s very public sexism. As such, the following claim is simply wishful thinking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cMany of the left intellectuals Marx and Engels most strongly criticised had antisemitic or proto-antisemitic leanings:\u2026 the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the co-operative socialist Charles Fourier, the radical philosopher Eugen D\u00fchring, the insurrectionist socialist Louis-Auguste Blanqui, and the revolutionary anarchist and pan-Slavist, Mikhail Bakunin. Marx\u2019s and Engels\u2019 criticisms of these and like-minded authors were directed in part at their anti-Jewish prejudices and more especially at the political and intellectual limitations of which these prejudices were symptomatic. These critiques indicate how actively and purposefully Marx and Engels confronted anti-Judaic and antisemitic currents running through the \u2018left\u2019.\u201d[33]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Surely these writers must<\/em> know that that Marx and Engels made no <\/em>mention of these author\u2019s anti-Semitism when they attacked them? I am sure they sincerely wish it were true, but no evidence is presented because none exists. Indeed, Marx published anti-Semitic reports in Neue Rheinische Zeitung <\/em>(NRZ) during the 1848 Revolution as well as his own and Engels\u2019 anti-Semitic comments[34]<\/a> \u2013 and it is worth noting \u201cthe stream of vituperation [of Jewish people] that runs for decades through the private correspondence of Engels and Marx.\u201d[35]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other authors state that Proudhon \u201cwas one of Karl Marx\u2019s most important critics. His publicly expressed anti-Jewish sentiments were relatively mild, but his private sentiments were violent. The following entries from Proudhon\u2019s notebooks, which were published in 1961, are instructive\u201d[36]<\/a> and the Carnets<\/em> entry is provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The use of \u201cinstructive\u201d as well as \u201centries\u201d (rather than entry) are significant as the impression is given that this was a common feature of Proudhon\u2019s notebooks. Yet, as one expert on Proudhon notes, expressions of anti-Semitism \u201cremain rare in the Carnets<\/em>: a dozen for all eleven Notebooks\u201d and this entry is \u201cmoreover unique\u201d. Proudhon, he adds, \u201cdid not hesitate to say publicly what he thought of the Jews\u201d[37]<\/a> (or on any other subject, for that matter). So if this were more than a one-off rant he would have not hesitated to let the public know. What motivated this horrific rant is unknown (although his emotional state may be guessed as his mother had died ten days before) but given that this infamous entry starts with \u201cWrite an article against this race\u201d and this never appeared, it would suggest that it was soon forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While not stopping that entry from being abhorrent, this context is required simply to have an accurate understanding of the situation. Taking of accuracy, it should also be noted that Proudhon was not<\/em> \u201cone of Karl Marx\u2019s most important critics\u201d \u2013 he never mentioned Marx publicly and privately only a few times (twice in letters and four times in his Carnets<\/em>).[38]<\/a> He did write a letter to Marx rejecting his call to work together[39]<\/a> but this hardly qualifies \u2013 no more than suggesting \u201cMarx is the tapeworm of socialism\u201d (Carnets<\/em>, 24 September 1847).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least the source of this rightly infamous quote is acknowledged. The same cannot be said of others. Hal Draper sought to dismiss a comparison to Marx\u2019s numerous private anti-Semitic comments by arguing that Proudhon \u201cadvocated a pure-and-simple Hitlerite extermination of the Jews\u201d and \u201ca program<\/em> of government persecution of Jews in mass pogroms as well as physical extermination.\u201d To equate the two is \u201cvile slander.\u201d[40]<\/a> Thus, a one-off rant in a private notebook, unread by anyone for over 100 years, becomes a \u201cprogram<\/em>\u201d. Not that his readers would know that as Draper keeps its source hidden, presumably because few would consider it as constituting any sort of programme if they were aware of the facts.[41]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps unsurprisingly Draper does not mention that a leading socialist of the period who did call publicly<\/em> for the extermination of whole peoples, Engels (as published by Marx). Engels looked forward to when \u201cthe Austrian Germans and the Magyars will gain their freedom and take a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians<\/em>. The general war which will then break out will scatter this Slav Sonderbund, and annihilate all these small pig-headed nations even to their very names<\/em>.\u201d The \u201cnext world war will not only cause reactionary classes and dynasties to disappear from the face of the earth<\/em>, but also entire reactionary peoples<\/em>. And that too is an advance.\u201d[42]<\/a> This call was no one-off:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cAnd one day we shall take a bloody revenge on the Slavs<\/em> for this cowardly and base betrayal of the revolution\u2026 the Czechs, the Croats and the Russians can be certain of the hatred of the whole of Europe and the bloodiest revolutionary war of the whole West against them<\/em>\u2026 hatred of the Russians<\/em> was, and still is, the first revolutionary passion of the Germans; that since the revolution a hatred of the Czechs and the Croats has been added to this\u2026 we can only secure the revolution against these Slav peoples by the most decisive acts of terrorism\u2026 We shall fight \u2018an implacable life-and-death struggle\u2019 with Slavdom, which has betrayed the revolution; a war of annihilation and ruthless terrorism, not in the interests of Germany but in the interests of the revolution!\u201d[43]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For Draper these peoples were \u201cnationalities, or Balkanized fragments of nationalities. which were then acting as stooges for pro-czarist Pan-Slavism\u201d and so presumably deserved to be wiped out.[44]<\/a> Karl Kautsky, in contrast, had the honesty to admit that Engels \u201cproclaimed that, except for the Poles, the Slavs were all by nature counter-revolutionary, and therefore they had to be fought not merely in the present situation, which found them in the camp of the counter-revolution. No, they had to be exterminated<\/em>. Brotherhood with them was precluded; the only thing to do was to fight against them until they were annihilated.\u201d[45]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, almost everything Marxists denounce Proudhon for can be found in Marx and Engels \u2013 even the support for slave-holding States in wars (although it must be stressed that was not<\/em> Proudhon\u2019s position during the American Civil War[46]<\/a>). Engels favoured America against Mexico in the 1846-8 war over Texas because it \u201cwas waged simply and solely in the interests of civilization<\/em>\u201d. However, this \u201cexample was even less cogent as far as the argument about \u2018civilization\u2019 was concerned. The immigrants from the United States who rose against Mexico in 1836 were planters, owners of Negro slaves<\/em>, and their main reason for revolting was that slavery had been abolished in Mexico in 1829\u2026<\/em> These features of the Mexican-American conflict show now inappropriate, in fact perverse, was Engels\u2019 illustration.\u201d He also supported \u201cthe energetic Yankees\u201d who had \u201csnatched [\u2018magnificent California\u2019] from the lazy Mexicans<\/em>, who did not know what to do with it.\u201d[47]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could go on but there is very little point as the anarchist critique of Marxism is not based on the personal bigotries of Marx and Engels. That this is primarily the typical Marxist one of anarchism is<\/em> of note \u2013 and can be dismissed with a simple people in glass houses should not throw stones<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After this somewhat lengthy aside, I return to Miething. There is a contradiction in his suggestion that Proudhon\u2019s anti-Semitism is \u201comnipresent\u201d and \u201cthe pervasiveness of anti-Jewish sentiment in Proudhon\u2019s thought\u201d while, at the same time, acknowledging that these are \u201cseemingly occasional hostile remarks.\u201d Property is Theft!<\/em> has a single anti-Semitic remark out of over 700 pages. Including everything else I\u2019ve read by and about him, the number increases but it is still less than 20 out of thousands of pages. If, as Kier does, you go through all of Proudhon\u2019s voluminous writings you could produce a pamphlet of quotes: but compared to \u2013 in the Lacroix edition \u2013 the 26 volumes of Proudhon\u2019s Oeuvres Compl\u00e8tes<\/em>, 8 volumes of posthumously published writings and the 14 volumes of correspondence, plus the hundreds of pages of his notebooks and other writings, it would small. Yes, they would span his whole life, but they would still be \u201coccasional\u201d by any objective measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miething states that \u201cmost all element central to antisemitism could have been detected from early on\u201d and presents a list of works. It is useful to evaluate a few of the claims to indicate their worth.[48]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of \u201cthe association of Jews with money, speculation and exploitation\u201d, he references What is Property?<\/em> in which there is one<\/em><\/strong> sentence that states \u201cancient and modern Jews\u201d \u2013 amongst others \u2013practice theft \u201cby cheating\u2026 by swindling\u2026 by abuse of trust, and\u2026 by games and lotteries.\u201d[49]<\/a> This sentence, perhaps needless to say, is irrelevant to his argument and his analysis of how exploitation occurs under capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same can be said for the other work indicated, Manuel du Sp\u00e9culateur \u00e0 la Bourse<\/em> (1857), which mentions Jews twice in over 500 pages, once in the way suggested. What is more important \u2013 a single anti-Semitic remark made in passing or the many pages on workers\u2019 associations that book? I think sensible readers would agree it is the latter and reflects the aim of the work. Significantly, this work did not suggest \u201call authority\u2026 as being under secret Jewish control\u201d[50]<\/a> but rather that \u201c[i]n a society based on the principle of inequality of conditions, government, whatever it may be, feudal, theocratic, bourgeois, imperial, is reduced, in the last analysis, to a system of insurance of the class which exploits and owns against that which is exploited and owns nothing.\u201d[51]<\/a> This repeats a similar class analysis of the Stare made in other works, including System of Economic Contradictions<\/em> and General Idea of the Revolution<\/em>.[52]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for \u201ca belief in Jews as inventors of constitutions, as protectors of political authority\u201d, this appears to refer to Proudhon\u2019s discussion of the 1848 Constitution in Confessions of a Revolutionary<\/em>. It is an interesting<\/em> take on it, given what Proudhon suggests that the origins of political authority are in religious authority and uses the Biblical account of the history of ancient Israel as evidence. Is referencing the Old Testament anti-Semitic? This chapter is in Property is Theft!<\/em> so readers can make their own judgment on the matter.[53]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of \u201ca V\u00f6lkisch<\/em>, racist and xenophobe notion of citizenship\u201d, this is hard to square with Proudhon\u2019s comment that there \u201cwill no longer be nationality, no longer fatherland, in the political sense of the words: they will mean only places of birth. Whatever a man\u2019s race or colour, he is really a native of the universe; he has citizen\u2019s rights everywhere.\u201d[54]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As is well known, the Nazis took their inspiration for their race laws from the United States. Proudhon, discussing race in America, publicly stating the need to \u201cfree the blacks and give them citizenship\u201d for the \u201cfederative principle here appears closely linked to those of the social equality of races and the balance of fortunes. The political problem, the economic problem and the problem of races are one and the same problem, to be solved by the same theory and the same jurisprudence.\u201d He opposed calls to deport the Slaves to Africa, stating they had \u201cacquired the right of use and of habitation on American soil\u201d. Moreover, \u201cthe principle of equality before the law must have as a corollary, 1) the principle of equality of races, 2) the principle of equality of conditions, 3) that of ever more approached, although never achieved, equality of fortunes\u201d In short, \u201cmust not all Anglo-Saxons, those of the North and those of the South, receive them in comradeship and welcome them as fellow citizens, equals and brothers? Now the consequence of that measure will be granting to blacks hitherto kept in servitude, along with freedmen, equal political rights.\u201d In addition, economic reform was necessary and so it was \u201cprudent and just that [the American State] also bestows upon them land and ownership.\u201d[55]<\/a> It is doubtful that any Nazi would approve of any of this or his hope that races intermingle and interbreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this sample, I would say that the notion it is \u201cclear that the French thinker\u2019s seemingly occasional hostile remarks agglomerate into a fully-fledged antisemetic worldview, undergirding everything from his critique of authority to his eventual embrace of patriotism\u201d is hard to maintain.[56]<\/a> Besides, with the popular prejudices of the time, there was no reason for Proudhon to hide his views. Ater all, he had no qualms about exposing his sexism nor his views on subjects \u2013 like Poland \u2013 where he took an unpopular position. If, as suggested, Proudhon\u2019s anti-Semitism was a defining feature of his views then he left his readers with only occasional and in passing remarks to work this out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply put, you could read most of Proudhon\u2019s works \u2013 especially his most famous \u2013 and not come across a single anti-Semitic (or anti-feminist, for that matter) remark (if they were removed, it would not be noticed nor impact on the arguments made). This is not to excuse them but simply to put them in context. For the actual Nazi, anti-Semitism is violent, fanatical and open. Nazis are aggressively and obsessively anti-Semitic and cannot address any topic without returning again and again to how the Jews are to blame for whatever is wrong in society. Such remarks are not passing nor limited to a sentence or two in a book of hundreds of pages, a few letters or a handful of entries in private notebooks. The two are hardly equivalent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of this is to suggest that Proudhon was not anti-Semitic. He was and this is shown by his occasional public and private remarks. However, these repulsive views are not fundamental to his ideas and can be ignored without impacting his argument. As such, his politics and programme cannot be considered anti-Semitic \u2013 despite his personal bigotries. The latter are in contradiction to the former, meaning that the best of Proudhon can be used to critique the worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proudhon\u2019s anti-Semitism, like his sexism, reflected the culture of his time. He used many of the words, expressions, assumptions and stereotypes then commonplace. However, whilst this is acknowledged for others it is usually not for Proudhon. So, we read of how \u201cthe reader is subjected to excerpts taken out of context which depend for their effect on Marx and Engels\u2019 frequent resort to the kinds of racial and ethnic terminology which were common in their day and therefore are no indication of the specific views of the writer<\/em>\u201d, that their works \u201care full of the language which was typical of the period\u201d and how Rosdolsky\u2019s comments were \u201ca reaction to the language of the NRZ which meant something quite different in 1948 than it did one hundred years later.\u201d[57]<\/a> If only that author had applied this position consistently\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suffice to say, Proudhon\u2019s personal bigotries played no role in the subsequent development of anarchism (needless to say, a single, private, unrepeated and unread until the 1960s rant played none<\/em>). Ultimately, I take the judgement of the likes of Gustav Landauer, Daniel Gu\u00e9rin and Rudolf Rocker over that of a few members of the Nazi party and those whose claims are less than convincing upon investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Organisation of Credit<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Proudhon is often portrayed as a one-trick pony for whom credit reform was the be-all and end-all of his ideas. This is nonsense and shows a shocking ignorance of his ideas (being ignorant of Proudhon\u2019s works \u2013 or anarchism\u2019s \u2013 has never given anyone pause before they expound upon them). This can be seen in Meithing\u2019s \u201cReview Essay\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cNeumann and Massing were among the first after Marx to point to Proudhon\u2019s fixation on the sphere of circulation when criticising the workings of capitalism, and that he lacked an understanding that exploitation happens through the generation of surplus value in the sphere of production.\u201d[58]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Yet before 1848, credit played no great role in his ideas. A chapter on it appeared in the second volume of System of Economic Contradictions<\/em> but the focus of that work was a critique of capitalism with repeated, albeit passing, references to \u201cthe organisation of labour\u201d as a goal. This was seen as a solution to numerous issues related to production<\/em> \u2013 the division of labour, collective force, exploitation and wage-labour. This built upon his earlier analysis in What is Property?<\/em> which explained how exploitation occurred because the boss appropriated the \u201ccollective force\u201d workers produced within production<\/em>. To suggest that Proudhon did not understand that surplus value was generated \u201cin the sphere of production\u201d simply shows an ignorance of his ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can be seen in Neumann\u2019s work, whom Miething quotes indirectly. Yes, Neumann did suggest that \u201c[i]n singling predatory capital, National Socialism treads in the footsteps of Proudhon, who, in his Id\u00e9e g\u00e9n\u00e9rale de la R\u00e9volution au dix-neuvi\u00e8me si\u00e8cle<\/em>, demanded the liquidation of the Banque de France and its transformation into an institution of \u2018public utility\u2019 together with a lowering of interest to one-half or one-fourth of 1 per cent\u201d. Yet that work argued for much more, including \u201cCapitalist and landlord exploitation stopped everywhere, wage-labour abolished\u201d by means of workers associations in which \u201call positions are elective\u201d and where \u201cthe collective force, which is a product of the community, ceases to be a source of profit to a small number of managers and\u2026 becomes the property of all the workers\u201d while \u201cthe division of labour can no longer be a cause of degradation for the worker.\u201d[59]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neumann proclaimed that \u201cNational Socialist anti-capitalism has always exempted productive capital, that is, industrial capital, from its denunciations and solely concentrated on \u2018predatory\u2019 (that is, banking) capital.\u201d[60]<\/a> If he were better acquainted with Proudhon\u2019s ideas he would have known that the General Idea of the Revolution<\/em> repeated his critique of industrial capital which had begun in What is Property?<\/em> and continued in System of Economic Contradictions<\/em> as well as the alternative of association. That Miething references Neumann suggests he is equally ignorant on how Proudhon\u2019s critique of capitalism began within<\/em> and extended from<\/em> the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As noted, 1848 saw a change in rhetoric with the raising of the need for \u201cthe organisation of credit\u201d. This reason for this is no great mystery \u2013 the outbreak of the 1848 Revolution meant that practice came to the fore rather than analysis. The \u201corganisation of credit\u201d was viewed as the means<\/em>, the \u201corganisation of labour\u201d remained the end. Proudhon makes this very point in his letter to Louis Blanc in the early days of Revolution:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cYour plan to organise national workshops contains an authentic idea, one that I endorse, for all my criticisms\u2026 all the workshops are owned by the nation, even though they remain and must always remain free\u2026 By virtue of its over-arching mandate, the Exchange Bank is the organisation of labour\u2019s greatest asset\u2026 it should then be my honour to put before you a project relating both to the course to be followed and to the new form of society to be defined and created among the workers.\u201d[61]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For Proudhon, rejecting organisation of labour by the State, labour has to organise itself<\/em>. You cannot predetermine the actual forms of a free society, they need to grow organically based on real needs and interests. All you can do is present the principles \u2013 democratic workers associations, federalism, etc. \u2013 and a means of achieving it. Rejecting revolutionary means (expropriation), there is only one way of doing so \u2013 the organisation of credit to enable workers to buy their means of production, allowing associations (co-operatives) to form, displacing capitalist firms and ending wage-labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much for \u201cthe \u2018missing link\u2019\u2026 between Proudhon\u2019s approach to economic questions and National Socialist ideology \u2013 specifically, the link between the French thinker\u2019s highly moralising critique of \u2018interest\u2019 and the Nazi party\u2019s antisemitic call for the \u2018breaking of interest slavery\u2019 as laid out in its twenty-five-point Program of 1920.\u201d[62]<\/a> Yet rather than reflecting Proudhon\u2019s anti-Semitic tendencies, as Miething suggests, the \u201corganisation of credit\u201d was seen as the means to achieve the \u201corganisation of labour\u201d required to abolish wage-labour and exploitation, address the negative effects of the division of labour, and so on. In other words, achieve a transformation of production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, you can say this was an optimistic strategy, that capitalism cannot be reformed away so easily, but it is a strategy based on an awareness that exploitation occurred in production by means of wage-labour and that it was to be abolished by association. Proudhon was very clear that under capitalism the workers have \u201csold their arms and parted with their liberty\u201d for \u201cthe capitalist\u2026 has paid nothing for that immense power which results from the union of workers and the convergence and harmony of their efforts\u2026 by their formation into a workshop\u201d and so \u201c[u]nder the regime of property, the surplus of labour, essentially collective, passes entirely\u2026 to the proprietor.\u201d [63]<\/a> Indeed, no one who had read<\/em> him could claim otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, the premise of the claims made in this \u201creview essay\u201d are demonstrably false \u2013 easily so. Nazism no more trod \u201cin the footsteps of Proudhon\u201d in economic terms than when he called for \u201cthe free and universal commingling of races under the law of contract only\u201d.[64]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

End Notes<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Property is Theft! A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology<\/em> (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2011).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> There is an irony in the defenders of Lenin and Trotsky denouncing Proudhon for his opposition to strikes when the regime their heroes ruled used troops to break strikes, declaring martial law and shooting strikers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Marx-Engels Collected Works<\/em> (MECW<\/em>) 23: 238, 317.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> MECW<\/em> 23: 328.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> MECW<\/em> 23:238, 386.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> MECW<\/em> 23: 387.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> \u201cGeneral Idea of the Revolution\u201d, Property is Theft!<\/em>, 576.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> \u201cGeneral Idea of the Revolution\u201d, 578-9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> MECW<\/em> 38: 421-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a> MECW<\/em> 38: 418.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/a> MECW<\/em> 31: 560.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]<\/a> MECW<\/em> 23: 325, 331.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[13]<\/a> MECW<\/em> 38: 414-5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[14]<\/a> Syst\u00e8me des contradictions \u00e9conomiques<\/em> (Paris: Guillaumin et Cie, 1846) I: 16, 18, 305.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[15]<\/a> MECW<\/em> 23: 378.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[16]<\/a> MECW <\/em>38: 434\u20135.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[17]<\/a> Engels does not explain where Proudhon would have come across these works, given he did not read German.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[18]<\/a> Syst\u00e8me <\/em>I: 363-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[19]<\/a> MECW<\/em> 38: 38: 419.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[20]<\/a> \u201cHal Draper on Proudhon: Anatomy of a Smear\u201d, Anarcho-Syndicalist Review<\/em> No. 77 (Fall 2019)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[21]<\/a>, Mark Cowling and Paul Reynolds (eds.), Marxism, the Millennium and Beyond<\/em> (New York: Palgrave, 2000]).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[22]<\/a> Johnson, 202.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[23]<\/a> Socialism from Below: The History of an Idea <\/em>(ISO, 1984).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[24]<\/a> \u201cThe Political Capacity of the Working Classes\u201d, Property is Theft!<\/em>, 760-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[25]<\/a> For example, see \u201cProudhon on Race and the Civil War: Neither Washington nor Richmond,\u201d Anarcho-Syndicalist Review<\/em> 60 (Summer 2013).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[26]<\/a> \u201cThe Poverty of (Marx\u2019s) Philosophy,\u201d Anarcho-Syndicalist Review <\/em>70 (Summer 2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[27]<\/a> Anarchist Studies<\/em> 26:1 (Spring 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[28]<\/a> Miething, 108.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[29]<\/a> Miething, 105-6<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[30]<\/a> https:\/\/www.marxists.org\/reference\/subject\/economics\/proudhon\/1847\/jews.htm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[31]<\/a> \u201cThe Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850\u201d, MECW<\/em> 10: 51.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[32]<\/a> MECW<\/em> 6: 62-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[33]<\/a> Robert Fine and Philip Spencer, Antisemitism and the left: On the return of the Jewish question<\/em> (Manchester University Press, 2017), 33.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[34]<\/a> Roman Rosdolsky, \u201cEngels and the \u2018Nonhistoric\u2019 Peoples: The National Question in the Revolution of 1848\u201d, Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory<\/em>, No. 18\/19 (1991), 191-207 (\u201cAppendix: The Neue Rheinische Zeitung<\/em> and the Jews\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[35]<\/a> Peter Fryer, \u201cEngels: A Man of his Time\u201d, The Condition of Britain: essays on Frederick Engels<\/em> (Pluto Press: London \/ East Haven, CT, 1996), John Lea and Geoff Pilling (eds.), 141.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[36]<\/a> Richard L. Rubenstein and John K. Roth, Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and its legacy<\/em> (Atlanta : John Knox Press, 1987), 71.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[37]<\/a> Pierre Haubtmann, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon : sa vie et sa pense\u0301e, 1809-1849<\/em> (Paris: Beauchesne, 1982), 758-9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[38]<\/a> Robert L. Hoffman, Revolutionary Justice: The Social and Political Theory of P.J. Proudhon<\/em> (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972), 100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[39]<\/a> This included in Property is Theft!<\/em> and often quoted in other works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[40]<\/a> Socialism From Below<\/em> (Alameda CA: Center for Socialist History, 2001), 156.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[41]<\/a> This exchange, incidentally, took place in the same year Draper talked of Proudhon\u2019s \u201cHitlerite form of anti-Semitism\u201d (with quote) in his The Two Souls of Socialism<\/em> and he did not bother to inform his readers of the source of this repulsive view there either. (Draper, 10)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[42]<\/a> quoted by Rosdolsky, 86.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[43]<\/a> quoted by Rosdolsky, 85-6. It should be of note, surely, how often the Germanic peoples represented the interests of \u201ccivilisation\u201d or \u201cthe revolution\u201d for Engels, allowing him to justify and excuse their imperialism and colonialisation of other races \u2013 who should presumably express \u201cgratitude for the pains the Germans have taken to civilize the obstinate Czechs and Slovenes<\/em>\u201d (quoted by Rosdolsky, 100).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[44]<\/a> Draper, 155. Draper skilfully avoids these genocidal quotes in spite of reading the articles they appear in and Rosdolsky\u2019s study. The orthodox can be consoled that \u201cRosdolsky has produced an account which completely distorts the evidence.\u201d (Hal Draper and E Haberkern, Karl Marx\u2019s Theory of Revolution Volume 5: War and Revolution<\/em> [Delhi: Aakar Books, 2011], 190).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[45]<\/a> quoted by Rosdolsky, 90.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[46]<\/a> \u201cProudhon on Race and the Civil War: Neither Washington nor Richmond\u201d, Anarcho-Syndicalist Review <\/em>No. 60 (Summer 2013)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[47]<\/a> Rosdolsky, 159-60. Draper does not dwell on Engels\u2019 clearly racist statement, simply suggesting it \u201cwould be a digression here to demonstrate why what Engels was getting at was not an early variant of what came to be called \u2018Social Imperialism\u2019\u201d. (Draper and Haberkern, 71)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[48]<\/a> Miething, 106.It should be noted that some of his list reflect popular opinions\/bigotries of the time and in this Proudhon was reflecting his rural Catholic upbringing (as with his views on marriage and women).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[49]<\/a> What is Property?<\/em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 199.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[50]<\/a> Miething, 106.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[51]<\/a> Manuel du sp\u00e9culateur a la Bourse<\/em> (Paris: Garnier Fr\u00e8res, 1857), 138.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[52]<\/a> Property is Theft!<\/em>, 222, 226, 566, 571.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[53]<\/a> \u201cConfessions of a Revolutionary\u201d, Property is Theft!<\/em>, 429-30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[54]<\/a> \u201cGeneral Idea of the Revolution,\u201d 597.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[55]<\/a> \u201cDu Principe f\u00e9d\u00e9ratif\u201d, Oeuvres compl\u00e8tes de P.-J. Proudhon<\/em> (Paris: Lacroix, 1868) 8: 228, 232, 233, 234, 231.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[56]<\/a> Miething, 106.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[57]<\/a> Draper and Haberkern, 189, 204, 209.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[58]<\/a> Meithing, 106.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[59]<\/a> \u201cGeneral Idea of the Revolution\u201d, 596, 586.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[60]<\/a> Franz L. Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism <\/em>(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1944), 320.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[61]<\/a> Property is Theft!<\/em>, 296-7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[62]<\/a> Meithing, 106. Significantly, Meithing does not mention the any of the 25 points which are completely opposed to Proudhon\u2019s views \u2013 nor does he say whether its demands of \u201cnationalisation\u201d of trusts, land reform and abolition of \u201cunearned\u201d (non-labour) incomes should also be considered as \u201cantisemitic calls\u201d, perhaps for obvious reasons as they are likewise plundered insincerely from general socialist demands to gain popular support. Needless to say, the Nazi regime privatised<\/em> the nationalised firms it had inherited from the Weimar Republic, showing the worth of these points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[63]<\/a> \u201cSystem of Economic Contradictions\u201d, Property is Theft!<\/em>, 212, 253.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[64]<\/a> \u201cGeneral Idea of the Revolution\u201d, 596.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article discusses various claims made against Proudhon by the likes of Engels, Schapiro, Draper and others. Some are correct (if usually exaggerated), most are false. It argues that any critique Proudhon should start by being accurate, something which should go without saying but all-too-often is ignored. It first appeared in Black Flag Anarchist Review […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anarchisthistory","category-anarchists","category-proudhon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/29"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}