Mudabicara.com_ In social studies, especially regarding the ideology of anarchism, the name of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is certainly not foreign. He was the first to call himself “I am an anarchist”.
Then who exactly is Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, what is his life journey, what theories and social movements have he carried out.
Now mudabicara wants to review the theory of peaceful anarchism Pierre Joseph Proudhon. For more details, see the following reviews:
READ ALSO: Getting to Know the Thoughts of Emile Durkheim, the Father of Modern Sociology
A Brief About Pierre-Joseph Proudhon?
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was born on January 15, 1809 to a poor family in Besancon, France . His father was a brewer and tavern keeper. At the age of nine Proudhon worked as a cowherd in the Jura mountains.
Until the end of his life, Proudhon’s thoughts were not far from his past. He envisioned an ideal society as one in which peasants and small people lived in freedom, peace, and poverty with dignity.
As a young boy, Proudhon showed excellent academic ability. This was proven when he got a scholarship at one of the universities in Besancon.
Unfortunately, during the learning process Proudhon experienced economic difficulties, it forced him to work in one of the print media.
READ ALSO: What is Anarchism? Definition and Characteristics
However, working in print media made him learn many things from Latin, Greek and even Hebrew. In addition, he also met one of the utopian socialist thinkers named Charles Fourier.
With experience working in print media, he ventured to establish a media company, although in the end it failed due to lack of management.
Even so, did not quickly make him give up. He continued his interest in writing mainly related to French prose. His writings also received the attention of various figures such as Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve, and Baudelaire.
In 1838, with the ability to write he obtained the Suard pension. A scholarship for talented young people in France to study at a higher level.
View of Life and Politics
The scholarship gives Proudhon the opportunity to study in Paris . In 1839 he wrote a treatise L’Utilité de la célébration du dimanche, which contained the seeds of his revolutionary ideas.
In 1840 he wrote his first important book entitled Qu’est-ce que la proprieté ? ( What Is Property?, (1876). From the book came a surprising statement from him about, “I am an anarchist,” and, “Property is theft!”.
His analysis criticizes, not at the right of the farmer to own his land and the craftsman to own his tools, but to the type of property ownership in which one person exploits the labor of another.
His writing received criticism and he was sued for the statements in his book “ What Is Property ?. Although the first time he escaped, but in 1842, he was still tried in the publication of the next book entitled Avertissement aux proprietaires.
A book that contains provocation and propaganda about ownership. Although in the end the judge acquitted him because of Proudhon’s strong arguments and rationalizations .
READ ALSO: 10 Benefits of Learning Politics for Young People
In 1843, he went to Lyon to work as a clerk in a water transport company. There he meets a secret society of workers.
This association is called the Mutualists. The group that developed the protoanarchist doctrine that factories in the developing industrial age could be operated by workers’ associations.
That workers by economic action can change society not through violent revolution.
Proudhon accepts this group’s view and acknowledges Lyonnais’ working-class mentor. In the end he adopted the name Mutualism for his form of anarchism or more we know Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s theory of peaceful anarchism.
Towards Thinking Maturity
In addition, during his visit to Paris Proudhon met the Socialist feminist Flora Tristan, became acquainted with Karl Marx, Mikhail Bakunin and Aleksandr Herzen.
After a long struggle Proudhon wrote his third article on property, an article in the form of a letter to the Fourierist, M. Considerant. Again, his writings led him to come to court in Besancon, although in the end he remained acquitted.
In 1846, he criticized Marx for the organization of the Socialist movement , rejecting Marx’s authoritarian and centralist ideas.
The Economic Menderbitkan Sistem Kontradiksi , or Philosophy of Misery (1846; System of Economic Contradictions: or, The Philosophy of Poverty, 1888).
Then Marx responded with an article or book entitled La misère de la philosophie (1847; The Poverty of Philosophy, 1910).
Proudhon and the Revolutionary Movement of 1848
In February 1848, Proudhon left his post in Lyon and went to Paris, to begin the paper Le Représentant du people, in which he drew up a program of mutual financial cooperation among workers.
He believed that the cooperative relations program would transfer control of economic relations from the capitalist and the financier to the workers.
A major part of his plan was the establishment of banks to provide credit at very low interest rates and the issuance of “paper money” in lieu of gold-based money.
In February 1848, Proudhon took part in the Revolutionary Movement of 1848 which proclaimed the “first republic” of the new republic.
But he has doubts about the narrative of the new government. Because the Revolutionary Movement of 1848 pursued political reforms at the expense of socio-economic reforms, which according to Proudhon was fundamental.
During the Revolutionary Movement of 1848 , Proudhon made a splash with the public through his journalism. For two years he edited a total of four articles.
Beberapa artikel tersebut antara lain The Representative of the People (Februari 1848 – Agustus 1848); The People (September 1848 – June 1849); La Voix du Peuple (September 1849 – May 1850) in Le Peuple of 1850 (Juni 1850 – Oktober 1850).
Unfortunately, all of these articles received censorship and bans from the government.
Enter the Constituent Assembly of the Second Republic
In June 1848, Proudhon was elected to the Constituent Assembly of the Second Republic. However, this choice has limited him to criticize the government which tends to be authoritarian.
In addition, Proudhon attempted to establish a People’s Bank which would provide light credit to workers. According to him, workers should be paid according to the hours worked.
Despite sympathizing with the social injustice and psychological state of the demonstrators. Proudhon disapproves of the narrative of violence during the demonstrations of the Revolutionary Movement of 1848.
Proudhon personally visited the demonstrators to give them morale. For him his presence at the Bastille was “one of the most honorable acts of my life,”.
But in general during the turbulent events of 1848, Proudhon opposed the rebellion. He instead gave an opinion on peace, in accordance with his theory of peaceful anarchism.
Proudhon From Prisoner To Prisoner
In 1849 Proudhon was sentenced to 3 years in prison for criticizing Louis-Napoleon who was then President of the Republic. Louis-Napoleon claims to be Emperor Napoleon III.
Although in prison his friends were allowed to visit him, sometimes Proudhon could even go out for walks. While in prison he wrote his two most important books entitled Confessions d’un révolutionnaire (1849) and Idée générale de la révolution au XIXe siècle (1851 ).
This paper presents more fully what his vision and ideals are about a federal world society without borders or national states.
READ ALSO: What is Fascism? Definition and Characteristics
After his release from prison in 1852 Proudhon was under constant police surveillance, a logical consequence of which he could not publish a single article.
In 1858, he tried to persuade publishers to publish his three-volume masterpiece De la justice dans la Révolution et dans l’église, in which he compared the theory of humanist justice with the transcendental assumptions of the church.
After the book was published, it was confiscated. This resulted in Proudhon fleeing to Belgium but he was caught and sentenced to prison and then exiled until 1862.
In exile Proudhon continued to develop his critique of nationalism and his ideas about a world federation embodied in Du Principe fédératif, 1863.
After returning from exile , Proudhon began to gain influence from the workers on mutualist ideas. His last work was De la capacité politique des class ouvrières (1865) which discussed the development of the theory that workers must liberate themselves through economic action.
Proudhon’s Thoughts and Works
Proudhon was the first theorist to call himself an “anarchist.” He says, in The Federal Principle that the “idea of anarchy” in politics is as rational and positive as any other.
Pierre Joseph Proudhon’s theory of peaceful anarchism is a way of changing collective ownership of the means of production. For him, if the industrial function takes over from the political function, then only business transactions will produce social order.
Proudhon’s early works analyzed the nature and problems of capitalist economy. Although he was highly critical of capitalism, he also objected to contemporary socialists who idolized association.
In a series of comments, from What is a Property? (1840) through the posthumously published Théorie de la proprieté ( Theory of Property, 1863-1864).
Proudhon states that “property is theft. “possession is impossible,” “property is despotism,” and “property is liberty.”
These phrases, aroused the attention of propagandist slogans even though the true nature of his thinking was the theory of peaceful anarchism.
By “property is theft,” Proudhon refers to the landowners or capitalists who he believes stole profits from the workers.
READ ALSO: Understanding the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Max Weber
Proudhon views the capitalist employee as “subordinated, exploited, the permanent condition of which is obedience” (General Ideas of the Revolution).
In the Theory of Property, he states that property is the only force that can act as a counterweight to the State.
Proudhon defended the notion of property as theft and at the same time he offered a new definition of freedom which became a bulwark against the pervasive power of the state.
In asserting that “possession is freedom”, Proudhon refers not only to the products of individual labour, but also to the houses and tools of the farmer or craftsman, and the income received by selling his goods.
Proudhon regards labor as the only legitimate source of property; what a person produces belongs to him and anything outside of it is not his.
Socialist Libertarian Proudhon
Proudhon was a libertarian socialist. He advocates collective ownership of the means of production and self-management of capitalist ownership of the means of production.
He was not a communist in fact he rejected the ownership of the products of labor by society. The argument is clear in What is a Property? that while “rights to facilities are general”, “rights to products are exclusive”.
He proposed that users should have the means of production under the supervision of society, with community organizing to “regulate the market.”
Proudhon calls this ownership-use “ownership”, and the economic system is mutualism.
Proudhon bases his arguments against land and capital rights on morality, economics, politics, and individual freedom.
One of these arguments would be to avoid social instability. Because a capital will create a cycle of debt that ultimately defeats the capacity of labor to pay it off.
READ ALSO: Getting to know Auguste Comte's work: Course of Positive Philosophy
Another argument is that rights to land and capital result in “despotism” and turn workers into slaves.
Property, acting with exception and encroachment, while the population is increasing, has become the principle of life and the definitive cause of all revolutions. The wars of religion, and the wars of conquest, when they ceased from the extermination of the races, were only accidental disturbances, which were soon corrected by the mathematical development of the life of nations. The fall and death of society is caused by the accumulated power possessed by property. Proudhon, What is Property?
Proudhon opposed both capitalism and state ownership of property. For proudhon ownership of “property” must be distributed evenly and limited in size to those actually used by individuals, families and worker associations.
He defended inheritance “as one of the foundations of family and society but refused to extend this beyond private ownership to the means of labor, which are owned by workers’ associations.
The Theory of Peaceful Anarchism Pierre Joseph Proudhon
Proudhon adopted the term “mutualism” to brand his theory of peaceful anarchism which involves control over the means of production by workers.
In the scheme, craftsmen, farmers, and self-employed cooperatives will trade their products in the market. Factories and other large workplaces will be run by ‘labor associations’ operating on the principles of direct democracy.
There would be no states, instead, societies would be organized by federations of “free communes” (in French, the word “communes” refers to local municipalities).
In 1863 Proudhon said: “All the economic ideas I have developed over the past twenty-five years can be summed up in the word: agricultural-industrial federation.
READ ALSO: What Is a Participatory Leadership Style? Definition, Characteristics and Benefits
All my political ideas boil down to the same formula: political federation or decentralization.
In principle, Proudhon’s concept of revolution does not require violent upheaval or civil war. Rather, it is more about the transformation of society through monetary reform, the formation of cooperatives and the formation of workers’ associations.
Although Proudhon was an independent thinker and had no intention of creating a philosophical system, his ideas remained the single most important influence in France.
His ideas were important to the founding of the First International Workers’ Association even though it was dissolved by the ideological feud between the Marxists and the anarchist followers of Proudhon’s student Mikhail Bakunin .