Pierre-Joseph Proudhon ( 15/1/1809 -19/1/1865) - To be Governed

Pierre Joseph Proudhon was a French politician,  socialist /printer and philosopher. A member of the French Parliament, the socio-economic system which he expoused is generally called mutualism. Proudon was the first man to call himself an anarchist", holding that "Anarchy is Order", inspiring the famous symbol the anarchist circled-A symbol. He is regarded as a forerunner and prominent influence on individualist anarchism.

Proudhon’s view of the ideal anarchist society, which he expanded upon in The Principle of Federation, consists of a world without nation-states or borders, with political authority decentralized by a system of independent federated communities, with contracts amongst the parties replacing state-backed laws. It is a government of no one, a self-regulating system in which no individual has power over others. Workers, either individually or collectively, would take control over their own affairs, coming together to coordinate when necessary. 

One person claiming authority over others, Proudhon argued, is an inherently oppressive form of despotism. No one has the right to rule and be obeyed, or to impose penalties for disobedience. Relations between individuals need to be made consensual and be based on principles of mutual aid.

In a statement traditionally misattributed to Karl Marx, Proudhon argued that “property is theft!”  He thought that privately-owned productive resources, insofar as their ownership could always be traced back to some act of arbitrary violence, were all stolen goods. Proudhon believed that the state was inherently unjust, too, as it provided violent security for the owners of capital and tended to violate the individual freedom of its citizens. 
Proudhon, was born in Besançon,the son of a cooper and tavern keeper, Proudhon’s early life was marked by poverty. Although his family’s poverty forced him to leave education and work as a cattle herd, his intellectual brilliance did not go unnoticed, winning him a scholarship to the prestigious college in Besançon. Proudhon’s time at the college ignited a lifelong passion for learning, although he was forced to leave early to help support his family by training as a printer. While training as an apprentice printer, the autodidact Proudhon taught himself Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, all of which helped him succeed in his new profession. Working as a printer also gave the young Proudhon access to local intellectuals, most notably the utopian socialist Charles Fourier, with whom he became lifelong friends. 

A prolific author, Proudhon printed many books, the most notable of which are Philosophy of Misery and What is property? The latter is famous for the quote, "Property is theft; property is liberty: these two propositions stand side by side in my System of Economic Contradictions and both are true". Since Proudhon made the statement, the passage has been misrepresented and distorted by crypto- Bolshevik collectivisations masquerading as anarchists, who quote only the first three words, excluding the reference to liberty.
His influence in France was immense, and his theories played a great part in the First International and the Paris Commune, in French syndicalism and in contemporary movements for currency reform. As a writer he was admired by Baudelaire, Saint-Beuve, and Victor Hugo; as a thinker he was respected by Tolstoy, Amiel, and Madame d'Agoult. Marx knew him, and it was around the rivalry of these two strong personalities that the leverages between libertarian and authoritarian socialism, developed in the first international, was crystallized.
He was a leading member of the International Working Men's Association after becoming involved with radicals at Paris. A major dispute broke out between Proudon and Karl Marx, splitting the international between anarchists and Marxists. Proudhon favoured worker co-operatives and a financial system similar to credit unions free from usury. He held that such as social revolution could be made peacefully. 

Proudhon made his biggest impact on the public during the Second Republic through his journalism. He was connected with four different newspapers: La Représentant du Peuple (February 1848 - August 1848); Le Peuple (September 1848 - June 1849); La Voix du Peuple (September 1849 - May 1850); Le Peuple de 1850 (June 1850 - October 1850).

His polemical writing style, combined with his perception of himself as a political outsider, produced a cynical, combative journalism which alienated some, but appealed to many French workers. In his numerous articles he criticized the policies of the government and continued to propose the reform of credit and exchange.

To realize his plan, he attempted to establish a popular bank (Bank du Peuple) early in 1849, but despite numerous adherents (perhaps as many as 13,267--mostly workers), receipts were meager (about 17,993F) and the whole enterprise was essentially stillborn. 

Proudhon failed to get elected to the constituent assembly in April 1848, though his name appeared on the ballots in Paris, Lyon, Besançon, and Lille. He was successful, however, in the complementary elections held on June 4, and was therefore a deputy during the debates over the National Workshops. Proudhon had never advocated such workshops, accurately perceiving them as essentially charity institutions which did not directly attack the problems of the economic system, but he opposed their elimination unless some economic assurances could be given to the workers who relied on them for subsistence.

Proudhon's actions and writings over the years have been controversial.He also was sexist and an anti-Semitic. For Proudhon, the Jew was the "source of evil," as "incarnated in the race of Shem" (Césarisme et christianisme, 1 (1832),  He accused the Jews of "having rendered the bourgeoisie, high or low, similar to them, all over Europe" (De la justice dans la Révolution et dans l'Eglise (1858),  In his "diary," published posthumously, he called them an "unsociable race, obstinate, infernal… the enemy of mankind. We should send this race back to Asia, or exterminate it" 

Proudhon's unremitting hatred of the Jews was probably influenced by his  friend Fourier, but above all by his own xenophobic passion for France, which he saw as "invaded by the English, Germans, Belgians, Jews," and other foreigners (France et Rhin (1867),

Thrust into the public sphere by tumultuous events of 1848, Proudhon desired to influence national socioeconomic policy, but he proved to be an ineffective political actor. As he himself perceptively noted in 1850, he was basically a "man of polemics, not of the barricades."

Proudhon was shocked by the violence of the June Days. He visited the barricades personally to acquaint himself with the events that were unfolding and reflected in 1855 that his presence at the Bastille at this time was "one of the most honorable acts of my life." But in general during the tumultuous events of 1848, Proudhon opposed insurrection and preached peaceful conciliation, a stance that was in accord with his lifelong stance against violence. He never fully approved of the revolts and demonstrations of February, May, or June, 1848, though he sympathetically portrayed the social and psychological injustices that the insurrectionaries had been forced to endure, and argued that the forces of reaction were the responsible parties for the occurrence of these tragic events.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon died on Jan. 19, 1865.in Passy.on  19 January 1865  disappointed that his non-violent economic revolution did not appear to be making the sort of progress he believed not merely desirable, but inevitable. Like Marx, he was convinced that capitalism would be but a brief way station on the road to a socialist society. Nonetheless, he remained hopeful that the world would eventually come to its senses and recognise the deep truth within those three words…Property is theft. He was buried in Paris at the cemetery of Montparnasse

I will end with the following much quoted passage which many years later shows how well he wrote.It has an almost poetical quality to it and still raises pertinent questions for the times we live in today.

To Be Governed

“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."