Pierre-joseph proudhon anarchism
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
French politician, philosopher, anarchist and socialist (–)
For the biography by George Woodcock, see Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (Woodcock biography).
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (,[1]; French:[pjɛʁʒozɛfpʁudɔ̃]; 15 January – 19 January ) was a French anarchist, socialist, philosopher, and economist who founded mutualist philosophy and is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism".[2] He was the first person to call himself an anarchist,[3][4] using that term, and is widely regarded as one of anarchism's most influential theorists.
Proudhon became a member of the French Parliament after the Revolution of , whereafter he referred to himself as a federalist.[5] Proudhon described the liberty he pursued as the synthesis of community and individualism. Some consider his mutualism to be part of individualist anarchism[6][7] while others regard it to be part of social anarchism.[8][9][10]
Proudhon, who was born in Besançon, was a printer who taught himself Latin in order to better print books in the language.
His best-known assertion is that "property is theft!", contained in his first major work, What Is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and Government (Qu'est-ce que la propriété? Recherche sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement), published in The book's publication attracted the attention of the French authorities.
It also attracted the scrutiny of Karl Marx, who started a correspondence with its author.
The two influenced each other and they met in Paris while Marx was exiled there. Their friendship finally ended when Marx responded to Proudhon's The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty with the provocatively titled The Poverty of Philosophy. The dispute became one of the sources of the split between the anarchist and Marxist wings of the International Working Men's Association.
Some such as Edmund Wilson have contended that Marx's attack on Proudhon had its origin in the latter's defense of Karl Grün, whom Marx bitterly disliked, but who had been preparing translations of Proudhon's work.[11][12][13]
Proudhon favored workers' councils and associations or cooperatives as well as individual worker/peasant possession over private ownership or the nationalization of land and workplaces.
Proudhon biography meaning In the widening recognition of mutual interests, government becomes unnecessary. Despite this, Proudhon was taught literacy skills by his mother, who would later secure a bursary so he could attend the city college in Mutualism As an anarchist, Proudhon rejected the state and believed it could be abolished through non-violent action. Later anarchism and syndicalism were largely influenced by Proudhon's doctrines, as was the populist movement in Russia.He considered social revolution to be achievable in a peaceful manner. Proudhon unsuccessfully tried to create a national bank, to be funded by what became an abortive attempt at an income tax on capitalists and shareholders. Similar in some respects to a credit union, it would have given interest-free loans.[14] After the death of his follower Mikhail Bakunin, Proudhon's libertarian socialism diverged into individualist anarchism, collectivist anarchism, anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism, with notable proponents such as Carlo Cafiero, Joseph Déjacque, Peter Kropotkin and Benjamin Tucker.[10]
Biography
Early life and education
Proudhon was born in Besançon, France, on 15 January at 23 Rue du Petit Battant in the suburb of Battant.
His father Claude-François Proudhon, who worked as a brewer and a cooper, was originally from the village of Chasnans, near the border with Switzerland. His mother Catherine Simonin was from Cordiron.
Claude-François and Catherine had five boys together, two of whom died at a very young age. Proudhon's brothers Jean-Etienne and Claude were born in and respectively and both maintained a very close relationship with Proudhon.
As a boy, he mostly worked in the family tavern, helped with basic agricultural work and spent time playing outdoors in the countryside.
Although Proudhon received no formal education as a child, he was taught to read by his mother, who had him spelling words by age three. The only books that Proudhon was exposed to until he was 10 were the Gospels and the Four Aymon Brothers and some local almanacs. In , Proudhon's mother began trying to get him admitted into the city college in Besançon.
The family was far too poor to afford the tuition, but with the help of one of Claude-François' former employers, she managed to gain a bursary which deducted francs a year from the cost. Proudhon was unable to afford basic things like books or shoes to attend school which caused him great difficulties and often made him the object of scorn by his wealthier classmates.
Despite this, Proudhon showed a strong will to learn and spent much time in the school library with a pile of books, exploring a variety of subjects in his free time outside of class.
Entrance into the printing trade
In , Proudhon began an apprenticeship at a printing press in the house of Bellevaux in Battant. On Easter of the following year, he transferred to a press in Besançon owned by the family of one of his schoolmates, Antoine Gauthier.
Proudhon biography meaning in urdu Pierre Joseph Proudhon - Key takeaways Proudhon was the first person to refer to themselves as an anarchist. Learn more about citation styles Citation styles Encyclopedia. Bakunin and Herzen, on the other hand, eventually became Proudhon's most important disciples. However, when tasked with answering how society should be organised in a world where everyone is free to follow their moral law, Proudhon proposed mutualism.Besançon was an important center of religious thought at the time and most of the works published at Gauthier were ecclesiastical works. During the course of his work, Proudhon spent hours every day reading this Christian literature and began to question many of his long-held religious beliefs which eventually led him to reject Christianity altogether.
In his first book, What is Property?, he revealed that his religious journey began with Protestantism and ended with being a Neo Christian.[20][21]
Over the years, Proudhon rose to be a corrector for the press, proofreading publications. By , he had become more interested in social issues than in religious theory.
Biography examples: Proulx, Monique He believed communism to be authoritarian and that it forced the individual to submit. Mutualism is a distinct branch of anarchism and libertarian socialism that Proudhon created. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list.
Of particular importance during this period was his encounter with Charles Fourier, who in came to Gauthier as a customer seeking to publish his work Le Nouveau Monde Industriel et Sociétaire. Proudhon supervised the printing of the book, which gave him ample opportunity to talk with Fourier about a variety of social and philosophical issues.
These discussions left a strong impression on Proudhon and influenced him throughout his life. It was also during this time that Proudhon formed one of his closest friendships with Gustave Fallot, a scholar from Montebéliard who came from a family of wealthy French industrialists. Impressed by Proudhon's corrections of one of his Latin manuscripts, Fallot sought out his friendship and the two were soon regularly spending their evenings together discussing French literature by Michel de Montaigne, François Rabelais, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Denis Diderot and many other authors to whom Proudhon had not been exposed during his years of theological readings.
Decision to pursue philosophy and writing
In September , Proudhon became certified as a journeyman compositor.
The period following this was marked by unemployment and poverty, with Proudhon travelling around France (also briefly to Neuchâtel, Switzerland) where he unsuccessfully sought stable employment in printing and as a schoolteacher. During this period, Fallot offered financial assistance to Proudhon if he came to Paris to study philosophy.
Proudhon accepted his offer despite concerns about how it might disrupt his career in the printing trade. He walked from Besançon to Paris, arriving in March at the Rue Mazarin in the Latin Quarter, where Fallot was living at the time. Proudhon began mingling amongst the circle of metropolitan scholars surrounding Fallot, but he felt out of place and uncomfortable amidst people who were both wealthier and more accustomed to scholarly debate.
Ultimately, Proudhon found that he preferred to spend the majority of his time studying alone and was not fond of urban life, longing to return home to Besançon. The cholera outbreak in Paris granted him his wish as Fallot was struck with the illness, making him unable to financially support Proudhon any longer. After Proudhon left, he never saw Fallot (who died in ) again.
However, this friendship was one of the most important events in Proudhon's life as it is what motivated him to leave the printing trade and pursue his studies of philosophy instead.
After an unsuccessful printing business venture in , Proudhon decided to dedicate himself fully to scholarly pursuits.
He applied for the Suard Pension, a bursary that would enable him to study at the Academy of Besançon. Proudhon was selected out of several candidates primarily due to the fact that his income was much lower than the others and the judges were extremely impressed by his writing and the level of education he had given himself while working as an artisan.
Proudhon arrived in Paris towards the end of autumn in
Early writings
In , the Academy of Besançon held an essay competition on the subject of the utility of the celebration of Sunday regarding hygiene, morality and the relationship of the family and the city.
Proudhon biography meaning in english 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. Proudhon was also the first writer deliberately to accept the title of anarchist, which he did in As an anarchist, Proudhon believed that the state should not manage the property and that the state should be overthrown. Proudhon proposed mutualism as a way in which society should be structured.Proudhon's entry, titled De la Célébration du dimanche, essentially used the essay subject as a pretext for discussing a variety of political and philosophical ideas and in it one can find the seeds of his later revolutionary ideas. Many of his ideas on authority, morality and property disturbed the essay judges at the Academy and Proudhon was only awarded the bronze medal (something in which Proudhon took pride because he felt that this was an indicator that his writing made elite academics uncomfortable).
In , Proudhon published his first work Qu'est-ce que la propriété?, or What Is Property? His third memoir on property was a letter to the Fourierist writer Considérant, published in under the title Warning to Proprietors.
Proudhon was tried for it at Besançon, but he was acquitted when the jury found that they could not condemn him for a philosophy that they themselves could not understand.[31] In , he published the Système des contradictions économiques ou Philosophie de la misère (The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty) which prompted a book-length critique from Karl Marx entitled The Poverty of Philosophy, commencing a rift between anarchism and Marxism and anarchists and Marxists that would be continued by the Bakuninists and collectivist anarchists (the followers of Mikhail Bakunin) in the First International and that lasts to this day.[31]
For some time, Proudhon ran a small printing establishment at Besançon, but without success.
Afterwards, he became connected as a kind of manager with a commercial firm in Lyon, France. In , he left this job and finally settled in Paris, where he was now becoming celebrated as a leader of innovation.
Biography in a sentence Mustafa Dzhemilev. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, Proust, Marcel — As reason develops, criticism, protest, and rebellion arise.In this year, he also became a Freemason.[32]
Proudhon also engaged in an exchange of published letters between and with the French Liberal School economist Frédéric Bastiat discussing the legitimacy of interest.[33] As Robert Leroux argued, Bastiat had the conviction that Proudhon's anti-interest doctrine "was the complete antithesis of any serious approach".[34] Proudhon famously lost his temper and declared to Bastiat: "Your intelligence is asleep, or rather it has never been awake.
You are a man for whom logic does not exist. You do not hear anything, you do not understand anything. You are without philosophy, without science, without humanity. Your ability to reason, like your ability to pay attention and make comparisons is zero. Scientifically, Mr. Bastiat, you are a dead man."[35]
In Spain, Ramón de la Sagra established the anarchist journal El Porvenir in La Coruña in which was inspired by Proudhon's ideas.[36] Catalan politician Francesc Pi i Margall became the principal translator of Proudhon's works into Spanish[37] and later briefly became President of Spain in while being the leader of the Federal Democratic Republican Party.
According to George Woodcock, "[t]hese translations were to have a profound and lasting effect on the development of Spanish anarchism after , but before that time Proudhonian ideas, as interpreted by Pi, already provided much of the inspiration for the federalist movement which sprang up in the early s".[38] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "[d]uring the Spanish revolution of , Pi i Margall attempted to establish a decentralized, or 'cantonalist,' political system on Proudhonian lines".[36]
Later life and death
Proudhon died in Passy on 19 January and was buried in Paris at Montparnasse cemetery.[39]