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PROUDHON, PIERRE JOSEPH (1809-1865)

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Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 490 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PROUDHON, See also:PIERRE See also:JOSEPH (1809-1865) , See also:French socialist and See also:political writer, was See also:born on the 15th of See also:January 1809 at See also:Besancon, See also:France, the native See also:place also of the socialist See also:Fourier. His origin was of the humblest, his See also:father being a See also:brewer's See also:cooper; and the boy herded cows and followed other See also:simple pursuits of a like nature. But he was not entirely self-educated; at sixteen he entered the See also:college of his native place, though his See also:family was so poor that he could not procure the necessary books, and had to See also:borrow them from his mates in See also:order to copy the lessons. At nineteen he became a working compositor; afterwards he See also:rose to be a corrector for the See also:press, See also:reading proofs of ecclesiastical See also:works, and thereby acquiring a very competent knowledge of See also:theology. In this way also he came to learn See also:Hebrew, and to compare it with See also:Greek, Latin and French; and it was the first See also:proof of his intellectual audacity that on the strength of this he wrote an Essai de grammaire generate. As Proudhon knew nothing whatever of the true principles of See also:philology, his See also:treatise was of no value. In 1838 he obtained the See also:pension Suard, a bursary of 1500 francs a See also:year for three years, for the encouragement of See also:young men of promise, which was in the See also:gift of the See also:academy of Besancon. In 1839 he wrote a treatise L' Utilite de la celebration du dimanche which contained the germs of his revolutionary ideas. About this See also:time he went to See also:Paris, where he lived a poor, ascetic and studious See also:life—making acquaintance, however, with the socialistic ideas which were then fomenting in the See also:capital. In 184o he published his first See also:work Qu'est-ce que la propriete? His famous See also:answer to this question, " La propriete, c'est le vol " (See also:property is See also:theft), naturally did not please the academy of Besancon, and there was some talk of withdrawing his pension; but he held it for the See also:regular See also:period. For his third memoir on property, which took the shape of a See also:letter to the Fourierist, M.

Considerant, he was tried at Besancon but was acquitted. In 1846 he published his greatest work, the Systeme See also:

des contradictions economiques ou philosophie de la misere. For some time Proudhon carried on a small See also:printing See also:establishment at Besancon, but without success; afterwards he became connected as a See also:kind of manager with a commercial See also:firm at See also:Lyons. In 1847 he See also:left this employment, and finally settled in Paris, where he was now and on their mutual relations; a See also:science which we have not to invent, but to discover." But he saw clearly that such ideas with their necessary accompaniments could only be realized through a See also:long and laborious See also:process of social transformation. He strongly detested the prurient. immorality of the See also:schools of See also:Saint-See also:Simon and Fourier. He attacked them not less bitterly for thinking that society could be changed off-See also:hand by a ready-made and See also:complete See also:scheme of reform. It was " the most accursed See also:lie," he said, " that could be offered to mankind." In social See also:change he distinguishes between the transition and the perfection or achievement. With regard to the transition he advocated the progressive abolition of the right of aubaine, by reducing See also:interest, See also:rent, &c. For the See also:goal he professed only to give the See also:general principles; he had no ready-made scheme, no See also:utopia. The See also:positive organization of the new society in its details was a labour that would require fifty Montesquieus. The organization he desired was one on collective principles, a See also:free association which would take See also:account of the See also:division of labour, and which would maintain the See also:personality both of the See also:man and the See also:citizen. With his strong and fervid feeling for human dignity and See also:liberty, Proudhon could not have tolerated any theory of social change that did not give full See also:scope for the free development of man.

Connected with this was his famous See also:

paradox of anarchy, as the goal of the free development of society, by which he meant that through the ethical progress of men See also:government should become unnecessary. " Government of man by man in every See also:form," he says, " is oppression. The highest perfection of society is found in the See also:union of order and anarchy." Proudhon, indeed, was the first to use the word anarchy, not in its revolutionary sense, as we understand it now, but as he himself says, to See also:express the highest perfection of social organization. Proudhon's theory of property as the right of aubaine is substantially the same as the theory of capital held by See also:Marx and most of the later socialists. Marx, however, always greatly detested Proudhon and his doctrines, and attacked him violently in his Misere de la philosophic. Property and capital are defined and treated by Proudhon as the See also:power of exploiting the labour of other men, of claiming the results of labour without giving an See also:equivalent. Proudhon's famous paradox, " La propriete, c'est le vol," is merely a trenchant expression of this general principle. As See also:slavery is assassination inasmuch as it destroys all that is valuable and desirable in human personality, so property is theft inasmuch as it appropriates the value produced by the labour of others without rendering an equivalent. For property Proudhon would substitute individual See also:possession, the right of occupation being equal for all men. A complete edition of Proudhon's works, including his See also:posthumous writings, was published at Paris (1875). See also P. J.

Proudhon, sa See also:

vie et sa See also:correspondence, by Sainte-Beuve (Paris, 1875) ; Beauch6ry, Economic sociale de P. J. Proudhon (See also:Lille, 1867) ; Spoll, P. J. Proudhon,ctude biographique(Paris,1867) ; Marchegay. See also:Silhouette de Proudhon (Paris, 1868) ; See also:Putlitz, P. J. Proudhon, sein Leben and See also:seine positiven Ideen (See also:Berlin, 1881) ; Diehl, P. J. Proudhon, seine Lehre and sein Leben(See also:Jena, 1888–1889); Miilberger, Studien fiber Proudhon(See also:Stuttgart, 1891) ; Desjardins, P. J. Proudhon, sa vie, ses oeuvres et sa See also:doctrine (Paris, 1896) ; Miilberger, P.

J. Proudhon (Stuttgart, 1899).

End of Article: PROUDHON, PIERRE JOSEPH (1809-1865)

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