Proudhon - A Biography

THE CRITIC OF PROPERTY
natures, because to tolerate them would be to introduce small
communities within the large ones... Communism is essentially
opposed to the free exercise of our faculties, to our noblest desires,
to our deepest feelings.’
But, if communism is to be condemned, even more so is pro­
perty, which ‘violates equality by the rights of exclusion and in­
crease, and freedom by despotism.’ In other words, it is a form of
theft which, to preserve itself, is inevitably bound up with the
power o f the strong or the crafty. But in considering this point we
are brought to the question of legitimate authority. And here
Proudhon introduces a memorable dialogue and an historic
definition.
‘What is to be the form o f government in the future? I hear
some o f my readers reply: “ Why, how can you ask such a ques­
tion? You are a republican.” “ A republican! Yes, but that word
specifies nothing. Res publica-, that is, the public thing. Now, who­
ever is interested in public affairs— no matter under what form of
government, may call himself a republican. Even kings are repub­
licans.” “ Well, you are a democrat.” “N o.”... “ Then what are
you?” “ I am an anarchist!” ’
Proudhon imagines his interlocutor looking at him in astonish­
ment and then taking for granted that he is jesting. Finally, he
explains his statement, tracing the genesis of authority in the
instinctive tendency of social animals and primitive man to seek
a chief. As a man develops reasoning powers, he selects authority
as one o f the first objects o f his thought, and out of this process
spring protest, disobedience, finally revolt. This revolt is canalised
by the appearance of political science and the realisation that the
laws of social functioning are not matters for the opinion of some
ruling individual or group, but exist in the nature of society. ‘Just
as the right of force and the right of artifice retreat before the
steady advance of justice, and must finally be extinguished in
equality, so the sovereignty o f the will yields to the sovereignty of
reason and must at last be lost in scientific socialism... As man
seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy. Anarchy
— the absence of a master, o f a sovereign— such is the form of
government to which we are every day approximating.’
In this way Proudhon became the first man to call himself an
anarchist. Others before him had attacked the idea of government,
and Godwin in Political Justice had made a detailed criticism of
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