💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › larry-gambone-proudhon-and-anarchism.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 12:03:56. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-06-20)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Proudhon and Anarchism Author: Larry Gambone Date: 1996 Language: en Topics: mutualism, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Source: Retrieved 11/30/2021 from https://archive.org/details/anarchy_is_order_2004_gambone_proudhon Notes: Published by Red Lion Press, 1996
It took me twenty years to get around to reading the works of Pierre
Joseph Proudhon. Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta and Goldman were all
familiar to me, so why was I reticent about the “Father of Anarchism”?
Some of this may be attributed to the general influence of Marx’s
writings on public opinion. Marx did a hatchet job on Proudhon and
Marxists such as Hal Draper took quotes out of context or dug up
embarrassing statements that made Proudhon look authoritarian or
proto-fascist. There are also anarchists who claim he is “inconsistent”
or “not quiet an anarchist”.[1] Among English speaking libertarians,
P.J. is renown for his statement “property is theft” and his
condemnation of government and little else.
When I finally read his works, far from appearing “inconsistent” or “not
quite an anarchist”, the “Sage of Besancon” had created a practical and
anti-utopian anarchism — An anarchism based upon a potential within
actually existing society and not a doctrine or ideology to be imposed
from outside. Since Proudhon’s conception of anarchism was the original,
and the others were derived from it, if the later varieties differed
significantly from the original, perhaps there was a necessity to
question whether these differences were of a positive or “progressive”
nature. The history of anarchism is usually treated as a linear
progression from the formative period of Proudhon to Bakunin’s
collectivism, then on to anarchist communism and syndicalism. But not
everything which occurs at a later time in history is necessarily better
or an improvement over what went before.
For the popular mind anarchism is an irrational doctrine of fanatics and
terrorists. Yet, Proudhon’s anarchism was rational, non-violent and
anti-utopian. However, the “propaganda of the deed” period did provide
grounds for the negative conception. Anarchism, as it was originally
conceived, had been turned into its opposite. This is not unusual in
history, think only of the original Christians and the Inquisition and
of Nietzsche and the “Nietzscheans”.
That anarchism changed into something very different from the original
conception is not just of academic interest. We face greatest challenges
in our history from the Leviathan State and the New World Order. Only a
mass popular movement can save us. A people divided will never succeed
in this endeavor. Proudhon’s philosophy provides a foundation on which
to build such a movement. He is one of those rare thinkers who provides
a bridge between populism and libertarianism and between “left” and
“right” libertarianism.
Most people in North America are unaware of Proudhon, but he did have an
influence here. The newspaper editors Charles Dana and Horace Greely
were sympathetic to his ideas and he influenced the American
individualists, most especially Benjamin Tucker, who translated and
published some of his most important writings. Proudhon’s criticisms of
the credit and monetary systems were an influence upon the Greenback
Party. His concept of mutual associations and the People’s Bank were
forerunners of the credit union and cooperative movements.
The public thinks anarchy means chaos or terrorism. But many people who
claim to be anarchists are also confused as to its meaning. Some think
anarchism is a doctrine espousing the right to do what ever you want.
Others dream that one day a pure anarchist utopia, a kind of earthly
Paradise of peace and freedom will come to be. Neither of these
conceptions were Proudhon’s. “Anarchy” did not mean a pure or absolute
state of freedom, for pure anarchism was an ideal or myth.
[Anarchy] ... the ideal of human government... centuries will pass
before that ideal is attained, but our law is to go in that direction,
to grow unceasingly nearer to that end, and thus I would uphold the
principle of federation.[2]
...it is unlikely that all traces of government or authority will
disappear...[3]
Proudhon wanted people to minimalize the role of authority, as part of a
process, that may or may not lead to anarchy. The end was not so
important as the process itself.
By the word [anarchy] I wanted to indicate the extreme limit of
political progress. Anarchy is... a form of government or constitution
in which public and private consciousness, formed through the
development of science and law, is alone sufficient to maintain order
and guarantee all liberties... The institutions of the police,
preventative and repressive methods officialdom, taxation etc., are
reduced to a minimum... monarchy and intensive centralization disappear,
to be replaced by federal institutions and a pattern of life based upon
the commune.[4] NB. “Commune” means municipality.
In the real world, all actual political constitutions, agreements and
forms of government are a result of compromise and balance. Neither of
the two terms, Authority and Liberty can be abolished, the goal of
anarchy is merely to limit authority to the maximum.
Since the two principles, Authority and Liberty, which underlie all
forms organized society, are on the one hand contrary to each other, in
a perpetual state of conflict, and on the other can neither eliminate
each other nor be resolved, some kind of compromise between the two is
necessary. Whatever the system favored, whether it be monarchical,
democratic, communist or anarchist, its length of life will depend to
the extent to which it has taken the contrary principle into account.[5]
...that monarchy and democracy, communism and anarchy, all of them
unable to realize themselves in the purity of their concepts, are
obliged to complement one another by mutual borrowings. There is surely
something here to dampen the intolerance of fanatics who cannot listen
to a contrary opinion... They should learn, then, poor wretches, that
they are themselves necessarily disloyal to their principles, that their
political creeds are tissues of inconsistencies... contradiction lies at
the root of all programs.[6]
In rejecting absolute anarchy and favoring an open-ended process,
Proudhon criticized all forms of absolutism and utopianism. He saw that
utopianism is dangerous, and was a product of absolutism — the sort of
thought which fails to distinguish between concrete reality and the
abstract products of the mind. Anarchist theory should be open-ended, or
“loose”. No hard-edged determinism or “necessary stages of history” for
Proudhon.
...writers have mistakenly introduced a political assumption as false as
it is dangerous, in failing to distinguish practice from theory, the
real, from the ideal... every real government is necessarily mixed...[7]
...few people defend the present state of affairs, but the distaste for
utopias is no less widespread.[8]
Not only was utopia a dangerous myth, the working people were too
practical and too intelligent to bother with such pipe dreams.
The people indeed are not at all utopian... they have no faith in the
absolute and they reject every apriori system...[9]
There was no easy way out — no Terrestrial Paradise, things might
improve, but we still have to work. Such was his hard-headed realism in
contrast to all the fancy dreaming and system-mongering of the
intellectuals. Poverty, by which he meant lack of luxury, not
destitution, was the foundation of the good life.
In rejecting absolutism, Proudhon never waffled on the question of
freedom. As opposed to the modern left which pits equality against
liberty, and demands the restriction of the latter for the sake of the
former, Proudhon was a resolute libertarian:
Louis Blanc has gone so far as to reverse the republican motto. He no
longer says Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, he says, Equality,
Fraternity, Liberty!... Equality! I had thought that it was the natural
fruit of Liberty, which has no need of theory nor constraint.[10] ...the
abolition of taxes, of central authority, with great increase of local
power. There lies the way of escape from Jacobinism and Communism.[11]
How would Proudhon introduce the anarchist society? Not through utopian
schemes or a wipe-the-slate-clean revolution but,
to dissolve, submerge, and cause to disappear the political or
governmental system in the economic system, by reducing, simplifying,
decentralizing and suppressing, one after another, all the wheels of
this giant machine... the State.[12]
We should not put forward revolutionary action as a means of social
reform because that pretended means would simply be an appeal to force,
or arbitrariness, in brief a contradiction. I myself put the problem
this way; to bring about the return to society by an economic
combination, of the wealth drawn from society...[13]
We desire a peaceful revolution... you should make use of the very
institutions which we charge you to abolish... in such a way that the
new society may appear as the spontaneous, natural and necessary
development of the old and that the revolution, while abrogating the old
order, should nevertheless be derived from it...[14]
Proudhon was a revolutionary, but his revolution did not mean violent
upheaval or civil war, but rather the transformation of society. This
transformation was essentially moral in nature and demanded the highest
ethics from those who sought change. Nor did his desire for revolution
make him sneer at reforms:
There are no such things as minor reforms, or minor economies or minor
wrongs. The life of man is a battle, that of society a perpetual
reformation; let us therefore reform and go on reforming
unceasingly.[15]
His self-image was that of a moderate. he saw no need to engage in
holier-than-thou, more millitant-that-thee attitudes.
I am one of the greatest artifers of order, one of the most moderate
progressionists, one of the least Utopian and one of the most practical
reformers that exist.[16]
The way to achieve self-government or anarchism on a large scale was
through federation. Proudhon wished to dissolve authority and the State
with the aid of the federal system. Note in the following quotations how
the State is still assumed to exist, yet is being set on the path of
abolition.
The contract of federation, whose essence is always to reserve more
powers for the citizen than the state, and for municipal and provincial
authorities than for the central power, is the only thing that can set
us of the right path.[17] ...the citizen who enters the association
must 1. have as much to gain from the state as he sacrifices to it. 2.
retain all his liberty... except that he must abandon in order to attain
the special object for which the contract is made... the political
contract is called federation.[18] Free association... the only true
form of society.[19] The system of contracts, substituted for the system
of laws, would constitute the true government, true sovereignty of the
people, the REPUBLIC.[20]
Since all systems of government, including anarchy, are of mixed nature,
Proudhon was able to visualize the types of government along a
continuum. Not all governments were necessarily as authoritarian as
others.
...the constitutional monarchy is preferable to the qualified monarchy:
in the same way that representative democracy is preferable to
[monarchical] constitutionalism.[21]
Nonetheless, he did divide governments into two types, the Regime of
Liberty and the Regime of Authority. Note that anarchy and democracy are
placed under the same libertarian roof. No doubt he had the USA and
Switzerland in mind. It would be unlikely that present-day elite
democracy would still deserve to be placed there.
Regime of Authority
1. Government of all by one – monarchy
2. Government of all by all – communism
Regime of Liberty
1. Government of all by each – democracy
2. Government of each by each — anarchy or self- government.[22]
Proudhon’s interests were not limited to the political organization of
society. In his earliest works, such as What is Property? he analyzed
the nature and problems of the capitalist economy. While deeply critical
of capitalism, he also objected to contemporary socialists who idolized
association. There were some things better left independent or private.
There was also the important question of what kind of association one
should organize. He was suspicious of all systems, whether Fourierist
colonies or communist utopias. Note how he pins the socialists to the
wall as believers in a secular religion.
Association is a dogma... a utopia... a SYSTEM... with their fixed idea
they were bound to end... by reconstructing society upon an imaginary
plan... Socialism under such interpreters, becomes a religion...[23]
Association is a bond which is naturally opposed to liberty, and which
nobody consents to submit, unless it furnishes sufficient
indemnification... Let us make a distinction between the principle of
association, and the infinitely variable methods, of which a society
makes us...[24] ...association applicable only under special
conditions...[25]
Association formed without any outside economic consideration, or any
leading interest, association for its own sake is... without real value,
a myth.[26]
Proudhon proposed mutualism as an alternative both to capitalism and
socialism. Mutualism was not a scheme, but was based upon his
observation of existing mutual aid societies and co-operatives as formed
by the workers of Lyon. But the co-operative association in industry was
applicable only under certain conditions — large scale production.
...mutualism intends men to associate only insofar as this is required
by the demands of production, the cheapness of goods, the needs of
consumption and security of the producers themselves, i.e., in those
cases where it is not possible for the public to rely upon private
industry... Thus no systematized outlook... party spirit or vain
sentimentality unites the persons concerned.[27]
In cases in which production requires great division of labour, it is
necessary to form an ASSOCIATION among the workers... because without
that they would remain isolated as subordinates and superiors, and there
would ensue two industrial castes of masters and wage workers, which is
repugnant in a free and democratic society. But where the product can be
obtained by the action of an individual or a family... there is no
opportunity for association.[28]
Proudhon was in favor of private ownership of small- scale property. He
opposed individual ownership of large industries because workers would
lose their rights and ownership. Property was essential to building a
strong democracy and the only way to do this on the large-scale was
through co-operative associations.
Where shall we find a power capable of counter-balancing the... State?
There is none other than property... The absolute right of the State is
in conflict with the absolute right of the property owner. Property is
the greatest revolutionary force which exists.[29]
...the more ground the principles of democracy have gained, the more I
have seen the working classes interpret these principles favorably to
individual ownership.[30]
[Mutualism] ...will make capital and the State subordinate to labor.[31]
Alienation and exploitation in large-scale industry was to be overcome
by the introduction of workers’ co-operative associations. These
associations were to be run on a democratic basis, otherwise workers
would find themselves subordinated just as with capitalist industry. A
pragmatist, Proudhon thought all positions should be filled according to
suitability and pay was to be graduated according to talent and
responsibility.
That every individual in the association... has an undivided share in
the company... a right to fill any position according to suitability...
all positions are elective, and the by-laws subject to approval of the
members. That pay is to be proportional to the nature of the position,
the importance of the talents, and the extent of responsibility.[32]
Proudhon was an enemy of state capitalism and state socialism. At the
very most, government could institute or aid the development of a new
enterprise, but never own or control it.
In a free society, the role of the government is essentially that of
legislating, instituting, creating, beginning, establishing, as little
as possible should it be executive... The state is not an
entrepreneur... Once a beginning has been made, the machinery
established, the state withdraws, leaving the execution of the task to
local authorities and citizens.[33]
[Coinage] ...it is an industry left to the towns. That there should be
an inspector to supervise its manufacture I admit, but the role of the
state extends no farther than that.[34]
The following quote is a good summary of Proudhon’s economic and
political ideas:
All my economic ideas, developed over the last 25 years, can be defined
in three words, agro-industrial federation; all my political views...
political federation or decentralization, all my hopes for the present
and future... progressive federation.[35]
Unlike the anarchists and socialists who espoused an abstract
Internationalism, (workers have no country) Proudhon was a patriot.
People share a common geography, history, culture and language.
Normally, they have positive feelings for these aspects of their lives
and with to preserve them. This is something the abstract
internationalists did not understand.
My only faith, love, and hope lie in Liberty and my country. I am
systematically opposed to anything that is hostile to Liberty... to this
sacred land of Gaul.[36]
But France was not an abstract entity or nation state as nationalists
believed. France was the land, the people and their language, history
and culture. Proudhon dispised nationalism, well aware his country was
composed of many different regions and cultures. Only decentralization
of political power and a federal union would allow these different
groups and localities to thrive. Later generations of
anarcho-syndicalist workers would share these sentiments which combined
liberty and patrie. For the syndicalists the patrie was represented by
the working people and not the ruling elite whom they regarded as
parasites and traitors.
Even though Proudhon wrote about “anarchy”, he did not lead an anarchist
movement. Libertarians saw themselves as socialists or even social
democrats. (The individualist, Benjamin Tucker even went so far as to
call himself a “scientific socialist”) The term “socialist” had a much
different meaning then — at that time it meant co-operative production.
Socialism as collectivism or statism was a later development, largely a
result of the hegemony of the German Social Democratic Party. The name
“anarchist” was not adopted until 1876, some eleven years after
Proudhon’s death. This new anti-authoritarianism was quite different
from its predecessor by espousing violence, conspiracy and communism.
There are identifiable stages in the process by which Proudhon’s
anarchism changed. The first of these was the rejection of mutualism in
favor of collectivism.
Proudhonists were instrumental in forming the International Working
Men’s Association (First International) which was not collectivist.
However, the rising working class militance in 1868–9 radicalized many
members. During the Brussels Congress of the International in 1868, a
resolution endorsing collectivism (including that of land) was passed.
The Proudhonists objected and many left the International. Bakunin, soon
to be the major leader of the “anti-authoritarians”, favored the
resolution. Collectivism was not communism, but it was a step along the
way — a mid point between mutualism and the communist utopia. Proudhon,
had he been alive, may well have considered collectivism and
anarchist-communism as a reversion to what he had condemned as a “cult
of association.”
Mutualism and collectivism have little in common. Mutualism seeks to
maintain individual ownership of farm land and small scale production.
Large scale industry is composed of voluntary organizations (workers’
co-ops). Collectivism seeks to collectivise all property and industry,
and for revolutionary collectivists this is done by force.
The dividing line which separates Proudhon from later forms of anarchism
was the Paris Commune. Prior to 1871, relations between the classes,
which had been so brutal at the beginning of the century, had become
almost gentlemanly. Support for labor and even “socialism” was found
among the upper classes. The British Prime Minister, Disraell, expressed
sympathy for the workers, Lincoln corresponded with the International
and the editor and publisher of the world’s largest newspaper, the New
York Tribune, Charles Dana and Horace Greely, were followers of Proudhon
and Charles Fourier. The spectre of the armed seizure of power and the
execution of hostages by the Parisian workers undermined this sentiment.
While Proudhonism was the dominant form of French working class
radicalism in the decade prior to the Paris Commune, the failure of the
Commune weakened faith in Proudhonist gradualism and peaceful change.
The aftermath of the Commune was the major cause of this decline.
Reprisals — 30,000 executed and an equal number sent to prison or
deported to New Caledonia — gave rise, as one might expect, to a
“profound mistrust at any co-operation with the bourgeoisie... [and] a
premium was placed on the expression of extreme revolutionary and even
revengeful sentiments... [this]... rhetoric would become the
indispensable tool of the socialist militant.”[37]
Even though the Commune had failed, it was considered the example to
follow. for both Bakunin and Marx, the armed seizure of power and a
revolutionary communal government seemed the way to liberate the working
classes. Bakuninists attempted new “Paris Communes” in Lyon and
Barcelona, both of which failed miserably. Yet the idea of the
revolutionary Commune persisted.
The failure of the Commune was a disaster for the International, which
was wrongly blamed for the event. In an attempt to save the organization
and to offset the growing influence of Bakunin (whom Marx thought was
conspiring to take over the Int.) the marxist faction sought greater
powers for the London-based General Council. Many were opposed to this
operation, but hostility toward the Council had little to do with
anarchism per se. This was more of a fight to maintain the autonomy of
the national federations against what was seen as a power-grab by Marx
and his supporters. The “St. Imier International” of oppositionists
organized by the Jura Federation included Bakuninists, Proudhonists and
many non-anarchists. It was from this core group, (the St. Imierists)
that anarchist communism was to evolve.
With the failure of the communes of Paris, Lyon and Barcelona and
Europe-wide repression of the International, prospects for revolution
seemed truly hopeless. For Bakunin and his supporters, the only hope was
to keep the idea alive through the actions of a “conscious elite”. Thus
was born the “propaganda of the deed” as “the very hopelessness of the
European situation demanded exaggerated deeds.”[38] Outside events were
also influential. The Narodnik assassinations in Russia were an
important factor in making the new anarchists sympathetic to violence.
The economic crisis in the watch making industry of 1874 had an impact
as well. The Jura Federation was composed of moderate collectivists and
proto-syndicalists such as James Guillaume. Its decline meant increasing
influence of the militant Italian Internationalists who supported
insurrectionism and propaganda of the deed. The Swiss movement finally
dissolved in the 1880’s. As a result, the emphasis of the movement
shifted from the most advanced sector of continental Europe, (France and
Switzerland) to the most backward areas, Italy and Russia. These changes
could not help but influence the development of anarchist doctrine, most
particularly in the direction of violence and conspiracy.
The democratic countries were, in spite of the massacre of the commune,
fundamentally liberal. There existed a concept of citizenship and law
and thus the possibility for relatively peaceful social change. In the
backward countries, the lower classes were regarded as human cattle and
few, if any, civil liberties existed. Conspiracy and violence were, with
some justification, considered necessary. The problem arose when such
ideas were transposed to countries like France, Britain, and the USA.
A shift in leadership from self-educated artisans to aristocrats and
bourgeois also occurred. In many instances this led anarchism away from
the concrete and practical to the abstract and utopian. It is the nature
of the upper class radicals, so distant from the realities of working
class life, to look at the world through abstractions and self-created
ideologies. This is also the very group which tends to glorify and
romanticise violence.
Along with the cult of violence came the change in economics.
Collectivism was replaced with communism. In opposition to this new
development, James Gullaume stated that “it is up to the community to
determine the method... for the sharing of the product of labor.”[39]
and did not lay down a hard line on mutualism, collectivism, or
communism. By 1876 the Italian anarchists had abandoned collectivism in
favor of communism, believing it the only way to prevent an accumulation
of wealth and therefore inequality. For Cafiero, “One cannot be...
anarchist without being communist... For the least idea of limitation
contains already... the germs of authoritarianism.”[40] The Anarchist
Declaration of 1883 stated, “We demand for every human being the right
and means to do whatever pleases him.”[41]
So Anarchism was absolutized into a pure utopia — a far cry from
Proudhon’s realistic conception. Less than 15 years after his death,
solid, practical mutualism had been replaced by communist utopianism,
non-violence with a cult of violence, a horror of absolutist thinking
with a new absolutism and moderation with intolerant rhetoric.
Given the brutal repression of the Commune, was Proudhon ultimately
naive? Did his theory deserve supercession by Bakuninism and
anarchist-communism? No one should blame Bakunin’s followers for
becoming violent in the aftermath of the Commune. Such brutal repression
is traumatizing and the undermining of Proudhon’s influence is
understandable. That an event is understandable, is one thing, but the
long-term judgement of history is another. Society did not become more
brutal in the developed democratic nations. The repression of the
Commune was so far (in the democracies) the first and last event of its
type. During the following century, greater freedoms were won and people
saw their incomes increase thirty-fold, the work- week cut by half and
life-expectancy double. (Even though the tendency seems to be the
reverse, of late) For the Revolutionary anarchist-communists (no less
for the Marxists) there was a major problem — there was no revolution.
Marx attacked Proudhon as a “petty bourgeois anarchist”, yet France was
to remain fundamentally a country of petite bourgeois well into the
1940’s. Success for any movement meant incorporating this group. To
ignore or condemn the petty bourgeoisie would only drive them into the
hands of the monarchists or fascists. Proudhon’s anarchism appealed to
the peasant, artisan and professional as well as the industrial worker.
And as workers incomes increased, they too began to purchase property.
Having once done so, they were most unwilling to relinquish their
hard-earned gains to the sticky hands of the Socialist State. Proudhon
the peasant had a much better grasp on reality than the bourgeois
Marxists with all their abstract thoughts and dreams.
The Bakuninists and anarcho-communists could not forsee this, nor should
we expect them to have done so. Thus, 120 years later, by the great gift
of hindsight, we realize society evolved in a direction more suitable to
Proudhonism, than the doctrines of violence and communism.[42] One
should also not ignore the fact that Proudhonism existed throughout this
time period and is still around today. Mutualist and federalist
movements thrive and have an influence upon French society.[43]
Anarchism took more than twenty years to get back on its feet after the
disasterous “propaganda of the deed” period. (some might say it never
never fully recovered.) Recovery consisted in going back to Proudhon and
moderate collectivists like Guillaume. A more moderate and realistic
anarchism arose — known as anarcho-syndicalism. With syndicalism,
anarchism became a popular movement for the first, and so far, the last
time. The concept spread around the world and by the mid 1920’s millions
of workers were members of syndicalist unions. That syndicalism was
destroyed by communism and fascism in the 1930’s should not cause one to
ignore its earlier successes. For three decades a mass libertarian
movement of peasants and workers existed. Considering the overwhelmingly
totalitarian direction of the Twentieth Century, this is not something
to scoff at.
[1] The charge of inconsistency is a common fallacious means of
attacking someone. What is ignored is the development of a persons
thought. Who doesn’t see things differently at age 50 compared to their
youth? Hence, everyone is guilty of being “contradictory.” Furthermore,
life itself is complex and full of contradictions. If one wishes to
mirror reality rather than invent an ideology, one’s thought will at
times appear contradictory. Consistency may be aesthetically appealing,
but life isn’t as simple.
[2] Woodcock, George. P.J. Proudhon, p. 249
[3] Selected Writings p. 105
[4] Ibid 92
[5] Ibid 103
[6] The Federal Principle, p. 21
[7] Ibid 21
[8] op cit 56
[9] General Idea of Revolution in the 19^(th) Century, Freedom, 1927, p.
76
[10] Ibid 95
[11] Ritter, Alan, Political Thought of P.J. Proudhon, p 280
[12] General Idea 173
[13] George Woodcock, Anarchist Reader, p. 139
[14] General Idea... 174
[15] Ritter 280
[16] DeLubac, Henri, The Unmarxian Socialist, p. 31
[17] Federal Principle... 45
[18] Ibid 38
[19] P.J. Proudhon... 71
[20] General Idea... 206
[21] Ibid 135
[22] Federal Principle... 9
[23] op cit 80
[24] Ibid 83
[25] Ibid 85
[26] Ibid 87
[27] Selected Writings... 62
[28] op cit 216
[29] Theory of Property in Lubac p. 177
[30] General Idea... 210
[31] Selected Writings... 57
[32] op cit 222
[33] Federal Principle... p. 45
[34] Ibid 46
[35] Ibid 74
[36] Selected Writings... 195
[37] Stafford, David, From Anarchism To Reformism p. 20
[38] Ibid 39
[39] Cahm, Caroline, Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism,
p. 39
[40] Ibid 57
[41] Ibid 63
[42] Proudhonism, while more successful than Bakuninism, did not triumph
either. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this paper, but
have much to do with the dominance of statism during the 20^(th)
Century. No libertarian of populist movement was able to overcome this
power.
[43] More than 20 million French belong to mutual aid societies, mainly
in health care. Mutuals are important in many other countries.