Proudhon

I've been embracing my inner Proudhonite recently.

Anyone want to offer some good reasons not to be a mutualist?

RAF get out.

You completely change your ideology every time you read a book.

Market-based socialism is just an old relic rendered totally obsolete by Marxism. Mutualists and other apologists for private property deserve no respect whatsoever. They're generic anti-communists who have rejected democracy over the economy in favor of democracy over the firm.

tbh, I used to do that a lot, until you actually get involved with an organisation.

Lurched from Radical Liberalism (Jacobinism really) to Anarcho-Communism, then the various shades of Marxism.

It's what happens when you don't actually put any theory into practice, and it all just seems theoretical.

true.

Read Marx.

but there's very little I agree with Marx on

Oh Boy!
Let me get the Holy Gospel and show your heretic ears on what Saint Marx blessed his name has to say upon this misguided soul of Proudhon.

Check Benjamin Tucker out btw he was a Mutualist who turned Egoist.

Piety has for a century received so many blows, and had to hear its superhuman essence reviled as an “inhuman” one so often, that one cannot feel tempted to draw the sword against it again. And yet it has almost always been only moral opponents that have appeared in the arena, to assail the supreme essence in favor of — another supreme essence. So Proudhon, unabashed, says:[16] “Man is destined to live without religion, but the moral law is eternal and absolute. Who would dare today to attack morality?” Moral people skimmed off the best fat from religion, ate it themselves, and are now having a tough job to get rid of the resulting scrofula. If, therefore, we point out that religion has not by any means been hurt in its inmost part so long as people reproach it only with its superhuman essence, and that it takes its final appeal to the “spirit” alone (for God is spirit), then we have sufficiently indicated its final accord with morality, and can leave its stubborn conflict with the latter lying behind us. It is a question of a supreme essence with both, and whether this is a superhuman or a human one can make (since it is in any case an essence over me, a super-mine one, so to speak) but little difference to me. In the end the relation to the human essence, or to “Man,” as soon as ever it has shed the snake-skin of the old religion, will yet wear a religious snake-skin again.

So Feuerbach instructs us that, “if one only inverts speculative philosophy, i.e. always makes the predicate the subject, and so makes the subject the object and principle, one has the undraped truth, pure and clean.”[17] Herewith, to be sure, we lose the narrow religious standpoint, lost the God, who from this standpoint is subject; but we take in exchange for it the other side of the religious standpoint, the moral standpoint. Thus we no longer say “God is love,” but “Love is divine.” If we further put in place of the predicate “divine” the equivalent “sacred,” then, as far as concerns the sense, all the old comes back-again. According to this, love is to be the good in man, his divineness, that which does him honor, his true humanity (it “makes him Man for the first time,” makes for the first time a man out of him). So then it would be more accurately worded thus: Love is what is human in man, and what is inhuman is the loveless egoist. But precisely all that which Christianity and with it speculative philosophy (i.e., theology) offers as the good, the absolute, is to self-ownership simply not the good (or, what means the same, it is only the good). Consequently, by the transformation of the predicate into the subject, the Christian essence (and it is the predicate that contains the essence, you know) would only be fixed yet more oppressively. God and the divine would entwine themselves all the more inextricably with me. To expel God from his heaven and to rob him of his “transcendence” cannot yet support a claim of complete victory, if therein he is only chased into the human breast and gifted with indelible immanence. Now they say, “The divine is the truly human!”

The same people who oppose Christianity as the basis of the State, i.e. oppose the so-called Christian State, do not tire of repeating that morality is “the fundamental pillar of social life and of the State.” As if the dominion of morality were not a complete dominion of the sacred, a “hierarchy.”

How do you know that if you have not read him?

*Max

Didn't Tucker stay mutualist as well as egoist?

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Didn't you use to be a fucking "Luxemburgist"?

Also read him "again" then, until you learn.

Well for economic policy he didnt change that mutch i think (Still need to do more study on him) but his concept of property did radically change when he moved from natural law towards might is right. Also when Tucker left Natural it ment the official death of Moralist Individualist Anarchism.

Now, over against these representatives of ideal or sacred interests stands a world of innumerable “personal” profane interests. No idea, no system, no sacred cause is so great as never to be outrivaled and modified by these personal interests. Even if they are silent momentarily, and in times of rage, and fanaticism, yet they soon come uppermost again through “the sound sense of the people.” Those ideas do not completely conquer till they are no longer hostile to personal interests, till they satisfy egoism.

The man who is just now crying herrings in front of my window has a personal interest in good sales, and, if his wife or anybody else wishes him the like, this remains a personal interest all the same. If, on the other hand, a thief deprived him of his basket, then there would at once arise an interest of many, of the whole city, of the whole country, or, in a word, of all who abhor theft; an interest in which the herring-seller’s person would become indifferent, and in its place the category of the “robbed man” would come into the foreground. But even here all might yet resolve itself into a personal interest, each of the partakers reflecting that he must concur in the punishment of the thief because unpunished stealing might otherwise become general and cause him too to lose his own. Such a calculation, however, can hardly be assumed on the part of many, and we shall rather hear the cry that the thief is a “criminal.” Here we have before us a judgment, the thief’s action receiving its expression in the concept “crime.” Now the matter stands thus: even if a crime did not cause the slightest damage either to me or to any of those in whom I take an interest, I should nevertheless denounce it. Why? Because I am enthusiastic for morality, filled with the idea of morality; what is hostile to it I everywhere assail. Because in his mind theft ranks as abominable without any question, Proudhon, e.g., thinks that with the sentence “Property is theft” he has at once put a brand on property. In the sense of the priestly, theft is always a crime, or at least a misdeed.

Here the personal interest is at an end. This particular person who has stolen the basket is perfectly indifferent to my person; it is only the thief, this concept of which that person presents a specimen, that I take an interest in. The thief and man are in my mind irreconcilable opposites; for one is not truly man when one is a thief; one degrades Man or “humanity” in himself when one steals. Dropping out of personal concern, one gets into philanthropy, friendliness to man, which is usually misunderstood as if it was a love to men, to each individual, while it is nothing but a love of Man, the unreal concept, the spook. It is not tous anthropous, men, but ton anthropon, Man, that the philanthropist carries in his heart. To be sure, he cares for each individual, but only because he wants to see his beloved ideal realized everywhere.

So there is nothing said here of care for me, you, us; that would be personal interest, and belongs under the head of “worldly love.” Philanthropy is a heavenly, spiritual, a — priestly love. Man must be restored in us, even if thereby we poor devils should come to grief. It is the same priestly principle as that famous fiat justitia, pereat mundus; man and justice are ideas, ghosts, for love of which everything is sacrificed; therefore, the priestly spirits are the “self-sacrificing” ones.

He who is infatuated with Man leaves persons out of account so far as that infatuation extends, and floats in an ideal, sacred interest. Man, you see, is not a person, but an ideal, a spook.

Yeah, but then Muke started being retarded on shit, and made me think about marxism again, and then I decided it was full of shit and I didn't really agree with anything in what I'd read of him.

I'm sure he's got important stuff to say, but I haven't read it in Gotha or Manifesto.

k

'' Property as the civic liberals understand it deserves the attacks of the Communists and Proudhon: it is untenable, because the civic proprietor is in truth nothing but a property-less man, one who is everywhere shut out. Instead of owning the world, as he might, he does not own even the paltry point on which he turns around.

Proudhon wants not the propriétaire but the possesseur or usufruitier.[85] What does that mean? He wants no one to own the land; but the benefit of it — even though one were allowed only the hundredth part of this benefit, this fruit — is at any rate one’s property, which he can dispose of at will. He who has only the benefit of a field is assuredly not the proprietor of it; still less he who, as Proudhon would have it, must give up so much of this benefit as is not required for his wants; but he is the proprietor of the share that is left him. Proudhon, therefore, denies only such and such property, not property itself. If we want no longer to leave the land to the landed proprietors, but to appropriate it to ourselves, we unite ourselves to this end, form a union, a société, that makes itself proprietor; if we have good luck in this, then those persons cease to be landed proprietors. And, as from the land, so we can drive them out of many another property yet, in order to make it our property, the property of the — conquerors. The conquerors form a society which one may imagine so great that it by degrees embraces all humanity; but so-called humanity too is as such only a thought (spook); the individuals are its reality. And these individuals as a collective (mass will treat land and earth not less arbitrarily than an isolated individual or so-called propriétaire. Even so, therefore, property remains standing, and that as exclusive” too, in that humanity, this great society, excludes the individual from its property (perhaps only leases to him, gives his as a fief, a piece of it) as it besides excludes everything that is not humanity, e.g. does not allow animals to have property. — So too it will remain, and will grow to be. That in which all want to have a share will be withdrawn from that individual who wants to have it for himself alone: it is made a common estate. As a common estate every one has his share in it, and this share is his property. Why, so in our old relations a house which belongs to five heirs is their common estate; but the fifth part of the revenue is, each one’s property. Proudhon might spare his prolix pathos if he said: “There are some things that belong only to a few, and to which we others will from now on lay claim or — siege. Let us take them, because one comes to property by taking, and the property of which for the present we are still deprived came to the proprietors likewise only by taking. It can be utilized better if it is in the hands of us all than if the few control it. Let us therefore associate ourselves for the purpose of this robbery (vol).” — Instead of this, he tries to get us to believe that society is the original possessor and the sole proprietor, of imprescriptible right; against it the so-called proprietors have become thieves (La propriété c’est le vol); if it now deprives of his property the present proprietor, it robs him of nothing, as it is only availing itself of its imprescriptible right. — So far one comes with the spook of society as a moral person. On the contrary, what man can obtain belongs to him: the world belongs to me. Do you say anything else by your opposite proposition? “The world belongs to all”? All are I and again I, etc. But you make out of the “all” a spook, and make it sacred, so that then the “all” become the individual’s fearful master. Then the ghost of “right” places itself on their side.

Read part 1 of Das Kapital vol 1, you won't be a market socialist after reading it.

Proudhon, like the Communists, fights against egoism. Therefore they are continuations and consistent carryings-out of the Christian principle, the principle of love, of sacrifice for something general, something alien. They complete in property, e.g., only what has long been extant as a matter of fact — to wit, the propertylessness of the individual. When the laws says, Ad reges potestas omnium pertinet, ad singulos proprietas; omnia rex imperio possidet, singuli dominio, this means: The king is proprietor, for he alone can control and dispose of “everything,” he has potestas and imperium over it. The Communists make this clearer, transferring that imperium to the “society of all.” Therefore: Because enemies of egoism, they are on that account — Christians, or, more generally speaking, religious men, believers in ghosts, dependents, servants of some generality (God, society, etc.). In this too Proudhon is like the Christians, that he ascribes to God that which he denies to men. He names him (e.g. page 90) the Propriétaire of the earth. Herewith he proves that he cannot think away the proprietor as such; he comes to a proprietor at last, but removes him to the other world.

Neither God nor Man (“human society”) is proprietor, but the individual. ''


Watch out before i grab Rothbart his criticism of Proudhon, its long and hard and you will be amazed by his theory!

Man Stirner really likes mentioning Proudhon on his conception of Property.

Proudhon (Weitling too) thinks he is telling the worst about property when he calls it theft (vol). Passing quite over the embarrassing question, what well-founded objection could be made against theft, we only ask: Is the concept “theft” at all possible unless one allows validity to the concept “property”? How can one steal if property is not already extant? What belongs to no one cannot be stolen; the water that one draws out of the sea he does not steal. Accordingly property is not theft, but a theft becomes possible only through property. Weitling has to come to this too, as he does regard everything as the property of all: if something is “the property of all,” then indeed the individual who appropriates it to himself steals.

Private property lives by grace of the law. Only in the law has it its warrant — for possession is not yet property, it becomes “mine” only by assent of the law; it is not a fact, not un fait as Proudhon thinks, but a fiction, a thought. This is legal property, legitimate property, guarantied property. It is mine not through me but through the — law.

Anyway thats all i can milk out of the Holy Book.

That's what happens when someone has only read 10 books.

Sounds to me like you just gave up and accepted whatever your friends agreed with. Being in an organization isn't reason to stop studying.

I haven't, but when you're actually organising and working within a group, you start to realise why some ideologies work better than others.

I've never seen an Anarchist group that subscribes to complete anti-authoritarianism actually function properly. There's always been a clique (even if it's just those that spend more time being activists than the rest), even if it's not official.

on the subject of leftism?
Sure, I've probably read less than 10 actually.
I can admit that tbh.

what does mutualism offer that communism does not do better?

Well, his economics are bascially Marxian without the unfortunate association to a long string of failed dictatorships.

An incitement to produce. If it's "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs", then there is a risk that people will not produce enough. Also mutualism, just like anarcho-collectivism (labor voucher), have a meritocratic aspect. Like if you work 4 hours per day instead of 2, you'll get twice as much stuff, seems fair to me.

Proudhon also stated that "Property is liberty" and that "Property is impossible" and also held that these statements were not contradictory.


This, pretty much.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Marx as an economist and I still think his critique of capitalism is valid (if a little outdated) but pretty much every time someone's tried to put his theories into practice on a national scale has devolved into an authoritarian wankfest that eventually collapses on itself.

This also.

So am I the only one here who can like some writings of Lenin and not be a Leninist, some Marx and not be a Marxist, some Proudhon and not be a mutualist, some [philosopher] and not be a [philosopher's following]?

Fuck, most leftist thinkers who are popular had something to offer. Why does one have to blindly follow one or the other? Why not accept the parts you agree with (good parts) and reject the parts you don't (bad parts)?

These people were human, just like us, and they were flawed, just like us. No one is perfect and you will never find one writer you completely agree with on every single point.

That's capitalist/Western all-or-nothing belief and is starting to reek of religion. But most of you are Amerifags, socialised in America, and it might be harder for you to think critically, I get it.

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Most people do this, ignore the tripfags who are so desperate for a concrete worldview that they latch on to the first thing they read. Once they hit the age of 21, hopefully they'll grow out of it.

Yes, the USSR and China.The rest were for the most part, satellites of the former, which did in fact become an authoritarian wankfest that collapsed on itself, and China has abandoned Marx in all but name.


And all this at the cost of vilifying Marxism in the eyes of the proletariat.

Get out and talk to people once in a while, most of them know their being screwed, but they won't touch Marxist socialism with a 10 foot barge pole because of the idiocy and excess carried out in it's name.
It's not all down to porky propaganda.Socialists need to come to grips with that, and stop making excuses.

Bakunin was right, the state was a mistake.

Mostly based on forced labour, though.

If we enslave people, what the fuck is the point?

Stalinstache is starting to become my favorite poster. Exactly this.

OP, Proudhon was an excellent critic, but he couldn't construct a system very well. Mutualism has more or less been transcended since the First International.

As for why mutualism is shit, flip through Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread and/or Marx's Grundrisse.

To an extent I agree with what you say about people's current fear of socialism and communism, but only to an extent. The role of capitalist powers in portraying the USSR and other Communist powers is not to be underestimated. It should be noted that in the USSR, for instance, the vast majority of people wanted to preserve the Soviet Union. Many felt they lived comfortably and were content, only to be disturbed by the capitalists highlighting their lack of "luxury goods."

Additionally, there is a resurgence of far-left sprouting in the first-world. Here in the US, after years of hysteria surrounding the term, a "Democratic Socialist" is running for president. He probably won't win, but it goes to the show the direction the people are moving in. They're not full-on revolutionaries, but it's a start.

Of course, the far-right is also growing thanks to the people's indoctrination. But we should understand that as the climate becomes more "divisive" (I think that's the word I'm looking for), so too will the clarity increase of the forces involved - the right against the left.

Thats called being Possessed by the idea, the only purpose of ideas is to utilize them for yourself Comrade!

Let say you are a cripple, you cannot produce or service anything. According to mutuialism, i cannot produce anything so i should just be left to rot then? what about the old and sick? Don't they deserve to be able to take take the fruit of the collective labor or do they just get pushed aside because they cant do anything.

I dont see their being being any less of an incentive to produce in an anarchist-communist system than any other system, and if that really is the case then what exactly does mutualism offer that communism does not also offer and probably do more effectively for more people?

im not talking about Proudhon, what i want to know is what does multualism give people that an anarchist communist society cannot?

do you not understand the point he was trying to make or

go back and read "what is property?" again until you understand

As opposed to tankies who stick with their dogma no matter WHAT they read.

It's physically possible.

Most people want to preserve capitalism. This argument means fucking nothing.

I am 100% for a welfare used to help the crippled, the children, the old and sick and so on. I don't think public services in general are incompatible with mutualism/market socialism.