Proudhon - A Biography

THE PRISONER
when they have conquered the political lie... the groups of
workers should take over the great departments o f industry,
which are their natural inheritance.’
Here Proudhon goes on to a closer examination of the nature
of government. He repeats the criticisms o f the idea of authority
already made in his earlier works, and against it he places the
idea of contract which, he told Michelet, was ‘the most formidable
part of my work.’ ‘The idea of contract excludes that o f govern­
ment.... Between contracting parties there is necessarily a real
personal interest for each; a man bargains with the aim o f securing
his liberty and his revenue at the same time. Between governing
and governed, on the other hand, no matter how the system of
representation or delegation of the governmental function is
arranged, there is necessarily an alienation of part of the liberty
and means o f the citizen.’
It is in the generalisation o f this principle o f contract, in the
turning of society into a network of mutual undertakings between
individuals, that Proudhon sees the new order o f economic as
distinct from political organisation. When that order is achieved,
there will no longer be any need for government, and, returning
to his old serialist doctrine, Proudhon concludes that the end of
the series beginning in Authority is Anarchy. In more concrete
terms, the change of aspect between the old and the new societies
is expressed as follows: ‘In place of laws, we will put contracts;
no more laws voted by the majority, or even unanimously.
Each citizen, each town, each industrial union will make its own
laws. In place o f political powers we will put economic forces...
in place o f standing armies, we will put industrial associations.
In place o f police we will put identity of interests. In place of
political centralisation, we will put economic centralisation.’
Law courts will be replaced by arbitration, national bureaucracies
will be replaced by decentralised direct administration, and large
industrial or transport undertakings will be managed by associa­
tions o f workers; education will be controlled by parents and
teachers, and academic training will be replaced by integrated
education, with ‘instruction... inseparable from apprenticeship,
and scientific education... inseparable from professional educa­
tion.’ As for such questions connected with authoritarian national­
ism as foreign and military affairs, these will have no meaning in a
society based on labour and hence on peace, where customs