THE EXILEat being recognised by a government— even the government o f a
tiny Swiss canton. It was more than a paradoxical urge that
prompted him; it was rather the yearning towards the very
society against which he rebels that so often attacks the intellectual
insurgent. And, indeed, Thtorie de I’Impot, as his essay was
called, is remarkable among Proudhon’s works for its almost
complete lack o f revolutionary tone. ‘The jury,’ he told Mathey,
‘considered my work eminently conservative.’ And the jury was
right. In his own writing Proudhon was demonstrating the
antinomial tendency he so often saw in society, and, if the new
edition o f Justice was more than ever sharpened into a weapon of
revolutionary thought, this essay, which immediately succeeded
it, was muffled in a caution that is a gift to Proudhon’s critics and
an embarrassment to his friends.
An attenuated shadow o f anarchism indeed appears in the
contention that the State should be restricted to certain purely
administrative functions, that its expenditures should be strictly
curtailed and its functions submitted to the greatest possible
decentralisation. But when Proudhon comes to discuss the
practice o f taxation at the present time his essay shows its more
timid aspects, for, while rejecting a graduated income tax, he
retains taxes on consumption goods, customs and stamp duties—
the very impositions which weigh most heavily on the poorest class.
The caution and clumsiness that Proudhon here displays in
formulating a concrete policy of administration are in part the
expression o f an incapacity to envisage the details o f social
reform— an incapacity which contrasts sharply with his brilliant
insights into the more generalised aspects o f social or historical
development. But beyond this there is evident a fear o f bold
measures that makes this essay unique among Proudhonian
writings. The fact, I suggest, must be regarded as o f psychological
rather than ideological significance. Only his sense o f insecurity,
his desire to be recognised as the returning prodigal, to expiate
his rebellions, even if only to renew them immediately, can
explain Proudhon’s almost naive delight when his efforts suceeded
in making him a pundit, if not in Paris, at least in Lausanne.
Dubiously as we may regard his performance, the joy he ex
perienced in his petty victory was demonstrated with such a
candid simplicity that one is reluctant to impute to him any
more Machiavellian motive.