Proudhon - A Biography

THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE
instincts, one for conservation, the other for progress; that
neither o f these two instincts acts in the interests o f the other;
that thus each individual, judging things from the viewpoint o f
his private interest, understands by progress the development of
that interest; that, such interest being contrary in direction to the
collective interest, the sum o f votes, instead o f expressing general
progress, indicates general retrogression?
‘We have said it and we repeat it: the Republic is the form of
government in which, all wills remaining free, the nation thinks,
speaks and acts like one man. But in order to realise that ideal it
is necessary that all private interests, instead of acting in a contrary
direction to society, should act in the direction of society, which
is impossible with universal suffrage. Universal suffrage is the
materialism o f the Republic. The longer this system is employed,
the longer the economic revolution remains an unaccomplished
fact, the more we shall go backwards towards royalty, despotism
and barbarism, and that all the more certainly in so far as the
votes are more numerous, more reasoned and more free.
‘You blame the incapacity, the indifference of the proletarian!
But that is just what condemns your theory. What would you say
of a father who left to his young children the free disposition of
his means and then, ruined by them, blamed the inexperience of
their youth? And what an argument against you is the indifference
of the proletariat!’
It may be contended that this article was in part motivated by
Proudhon’s personal disappointment at not having been elected
to the Constituent Assembly in April, and that it was somewhat
inconsistent for a man who denounced universal suffrage so
emphatically to make use of it in the hope o f getting elected.
The first suggestion may be partially true; as for the second,
though at first sight Proudhon does seem inconsistent, he would
probably have defended himself with the contention that, if
universal suffrage exists, it had better be used by a man who is
aware of its dangers and will try to mitigate them. But even if
the criticisms are admitted, they do not invalidate Proudhon’s
actual contentions. It was one o f the prime illusions o f the men
o f 1848, as of the Chartists in England, that universal suffrage
was a sovereign remedy for social ills. It took the staggering
majority that confirmed Louis Bonaparte’s coup d’etat three years
later to convince most of them that such political devices, unless