Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist
1809 CE to 1865 CE
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (15 January 1809 – 19 January 1865) is a French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist.
He is a member of the French Parliament and the first person to call himself an "anarchist".
He is considered among the most influential theorists and organizers of anarchism.
After the events of 1848, he begins to call himself a federalist.
Proudhon, who was born in Besançon, is a printer who teaches 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 1840.
The book's publication attracts the attention of the French authorities.
It also attracts the scrutiny of Karl Marx, who starts a correspondence with its author.
The two influence each other: they meet in Paris while Marx is exiled there.
Their friendship finally ends 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 becomes one of the sources of the split between the anarchist and Marxian 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.
Proudhon favors workers' associations or cooperatives, as well as individual worker/peasant possession, over private ownership or the nationalization of land and workplaces.
He considers that social revolution could be achieved in a peaceful manner.
In The Confessions of a Revolutionary, Proudhon asserts that “Anarchy is Order Without Power”, the phrase which much later inspires, in the view of some, the anarchist circled-A symbol, today "one of the most common graffiti on the urban landscape."
(Marshall, Peter.
Demanding the Impossible.
Fontana, London.
1993. p. 558) He unsuccessfully tries to create a national bank, to be funded by what becomes an abortive attempt at an income tax on capitalists and stockholders.
Similar in some respects to a credit union, it would have given interest-free loans.
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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon formulates anarchism as a political theory in The Philosophy of Misery, arguing that property is theft.
The Mexican reform movement is inspired by the liberal political philosophies of European intellectuals, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and Pierre Joseph Proudhon, their views adopted by a group of Mexican intellectuals who share a strong commitment to moralize Mexican politics.
Benito Juárez, a Zapotec lawyer and politician and the most outstanding member of the group, goes with his colleagues into exile in Louisiana, where they draw up the Plan of Ayutla for the overthrow of Santa Anna.
As the plan gains broad-based support, the conspirators began to return to Mexico.
The Plan of Ayutla, initially drafted on February 24, 1854, by Colonel Florencio Villarreal, is proclaimed on March 1, 1854, in Ayutla, Guerrero, by General Juan Álvarez and seconded by moderate liberal politician Ignacio Comonfort.
The Plan not only aims at removing the dictator but also convening a constituent assembly in order to draft a federal constitution.
The working classes have abandoned their political neutrality
Disregarding Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's impassioned attack on communism, they had gradually been won over by the collectivist theories of Karl Marx and the revolutionary theories of Mikhail Bakunin, as set forth at the congresses of the International.
At these Labor congresses, the fame of which is only increased by the fact that they are forbidden, it had been affirmed that the social emancipation of the worker is inseparable from his political emancipation.
The union between the internationalists and the republican bourgeois has become an accomplished fact.
The Empire, taken by surprise, seeks to curb both the middle classes and the laboring classes, and forces them both into revolutionary actions.
There are multiple strikes.
The elections of May 1869, which take place during these disturbances, inflict upon the Empire a serious moral defeat.
In spite of the revival by the government of the cry of the "red terror", Émile Ollivier, the advocate of conciliation, is rejected by Paris, while forty irreconcilables and one hundred and sixteen members of the Third Party are elected.
Concessions have to be made to these, so by the senatus-consulte of September 8, 1869, a parliamentary monarchy is substituted for personal government.
On January 2, 1870, Ollivier is placed at the head of the first homogeneous, united and responsible ministry.
Jean Baptist von Schweitzer, attracted by the social democratic labor movement, had become president of the General Workingmen's Union of Germany after the death of Lassalle, and in this capacity edits Der Sozialdemokrat ("the Social Democrat"), which brings him into frequent trouble with the Prussian government.
Published three times weekly in Berlin by, it becomes the organ of the ADAV by January 4, 1865.
Marx contributes an article on the death, in this month, of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
Schweitzer is arrested and charged with the crime of homosexuality but key people within the Social Democrats still support him.
Born at Frankfurt am Main of an old aristocratic Catholic family, Schweitzer had studied law in Berlin and Heidelberg, and afterwards had practiced in his native city.
He is, however, generally more interested in politics and literature than law.