Proudhon - A Biography

THE CRITIC OF PROPERTY
The reference to Hegel is important, not only in illustrating the
breadth of Proudhon’s enquiries even in 1840, but also in solving
the dispute which later arose as to who— Gruen, Marx or Bakunin
— introduced him to Hegel. The answer is clearly that none of
them did, for Proudhon met all these Left-Hegelians between 1844
and 1846, when he had already been well aware for some years of
Hegel’s basic ideas.
How he came to discover these ideas we do not know for cer­
tain. Evidently, he had not read Hegel’s works in the original; he
admits as much in a letter written in 1845 to Bergmann. It seems
possible that he learnt a certain amount from friends and acquain­
tances familiar with German philosophy, such as Ackermann,
Bergmann and Tissot, while in 1836 Willm had published an essay
on Hegel in La Revue Germanique, which Proudhon certainly read,
for he refers to it in De la Creation de I’Ordre, completed in 1843.
It would hardly have needed more to support the simplified ver­
sion o f the dialectic which we find in What is Property? It is
certainly true that Proudhon later took advantage of his meetings
with people who had studied Hegel in the original to expand his
knowledge of that philosopher’s work, but already he was adapt­
ing it to his purposes, and I think it might justly be said that
Proudhon was never again so good a Hegelian as he was when, in
1840, he knew least about that philosopher’s ideas.
r~ Returning to the question of the ideal social pattern, Proudhon
finally dismisses communism as a system which creates only a
spurious equality and does not in fact abolish property. His
criticisms have an uncommonly prophetic bearing on authori­
tarian communism as it has been practised in our own day.
‘The members of a community, it is true, have no private pro­
perty; but the community is proprietor, and proprietor not only of
goods, but also of persons and wills. In consequence of this prin­
ciple o f absolute property, labour, which should only be a condi­
tion imposed upon man by nature, becomes in all communities a
human commandment, and therefore odious. Passive obedience,
irreconcilable with a reflecting will, is strictly enforced. Fidelity
to regulations, which are always defective, however wise they
may be thought, allows o f no complaint. Life, talent and all the
human faculties are the property of the State, which has the right
to use them as it pleases for the common good. Private associations
are sternly prohibited, in spite of the likes and dislikes of different