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Progressive Humanity: In the Philosophy of P.-J. Proudhon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

William H. Harbold
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Extract

InOurDay, the concept of progress has fallen into disfavor in philosophical and scientific circles, although most people ordinarily seem to take it for granted, in an unanalyzed fashion. There is some reason for its rejection by the more thoughtful; in most of its expressions it was accepted in what now seems rather simplistic terms with regard to its nature and certainty. Without some idea of progress, however, an age dominated by radical change may lack any standard by which to evaluate its condition and tendencies. Furthermore, the idea of progress, and of a meaningful history, was not always presented in oversimplified terms. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a singular figure in the French revolutionary tradition, developed in the middle of the last century a complex and flexible thought about progress in history, and attention to his now little-known ideas may help us save the concept for political analysis and practice.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 1969 , pp. 28 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1969

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References

1 Philosophie du Progrès [1853] (Paris, 1946), p. 45Google Scholar. I give the original date of publication, as well as that of the edition I have used. Hereafter cited as Progress. All translations are my own.

2 De la Célébration du Dimanche [1839] (Paris, 1926), esp. pp. 32, 45, and 96Google Scholar. This volume also contains Proudhon's letter of application for a scholarship, the Pension Suard, pp. 9–16, and his Qu'est-ce que la Propriété? Premier Mémoire [1840], pp. 119–363. Hereafter: First Memoire.

3 First Memoire, pp. 148, 346.

4 Qu'est-ce que la Propriété Deuxième Mémoire [1841] (Paris, 1938), pp. 46, 123, 76Google Scholar. Hereafter: Second Memoire. Accordingly, p. 37, he interpreted the development of commerce, the liberation of capital from land, as a “conspiracy of the exploited.” Although Tocqueville had shortly before expressed the thesis of egalitarian tendencies in history, Proudhon did not cite him, supporting his conclusion only with evidence drawn from various histories of legislation and property.

5 De la Création de l'Ordre dans l'Humanité, ou Principes d'Organisation Politique [1843] (Paris, 1927), pp. 40, 370, 41, 298Google Scholar. Hereafter: Creation.

6 Ibid., pp. 359 ff., 368, 298.

7 In 1852 Proudhon wrote in his diary that Comte, always obsequious before the ruling power, “made war on socialism in the name of sociology.” Cited in Dolléans, E., Proudhon (Paris, 1948), p. 336Google Scholar.

8 The “Toast to the Revolution” is reprinted in Les Confessions d'un Révolutionnaire (Paris, 1929), pp. 398–406Google Scholar.

9 ldée Générale de la Révolution au XIXme Siécle [1851] (Paris, 1923), pp. 200, 427Google Scholar. Hereafter: Idea of the Revolution.

10 De la Justice dans la Révolution et dans l'Eglise [1858; rev. ed., 1860] (Paris, 1930), I, 229Google Scholar. Hereafter: On Justice.

11 Ibid., I, 274, 324. The theory of immanent justice, in Proudhon's thinking, is the rejection of divine right, or any authority outside the human conscience. A corollary is the philosophy of history, which rejects fate or divine providence, any causes of history outside history itself. (See esp., Ibid., III, 241.) As the former is the assertion of the freedom of the individual, the latter is the assertion of the autonomy of society, that it contains within itself its own laws and their sanctions.

12 Ibid., II, 314.

13 Système des Contradictions Economique, ou Philosophie de la Misère [1846] (Paris, 1923), II, 210; I, 253Google Scholar. Hereafter: Economic Contradictions.

14 De la Capacité politique des Classes ouvrières [posthumous] (Paris, 1924), p. 119Google Scholar. Hereafter: Political Capacity.

15 On Justice, III, 81.

16 Economic Contradictions, I, 286; Les Confessions d'un Réuolutionnaire [1849; rev. ed., 1851] (Paris, 1929), p. 76Google Scholar. Hereafter: Confessions.

17 On Justice, II, 314.

18 Second Memoire, p. 54; Confessions, p. 346.

19 On Justice, II, 246; I, 224.

20 Economic Contradictions, I, 368.

21 Idea of the Revolution, p. 125.

22 Economic Contradictions, I, 167.

23 Creation, p. 87.

24 “Le Droit au Travail et le Droit de Propriété,” in Second Memoire, p. 454.

25 Confessions, p. 78.

26 Théorie de l'Impôt (Paris, 1861), p. 10Google Scholar. Hereafter: Taxes.

27 Progress, p. 49.

28 Creation, p. 37.

29 Idea of the Revolution, p. 178.

30 On Justice, I, 308; II, 462.

31 One example is in On Justice, I, 280: “If it is true that Justice is innate in the heart of man, it does not necessarily follow that its laws have been clearly determined in the human mind since the beginning; only gradually have we acquired an intelligence of them and their formula is the reward for prolonged work.”

32 Economic Contradictions, I, 387; On Justice, II, 460. See also, Creation, p. 460, where he instructs the revolutionary workers to exploit the egalitarian principles scattered through existing laws and institutions; and Economic Contradictions, I, 166, where he observes that matters of governmental will and interest inevitably become questions of economic science, that is, the matter of revenue leads to questions of incidence, etc.

33 First Memoire, p. 132.

34 Economic Contradictions, II, 247.

35 Creation, p. 389. Clearly related to the historical dualism being noted in the text is an assertion in Economic Contradictions, I, 174, that human nature is the result of two series of powers: 1) sentiments, passions, and instincts; and 2) attention, perception, memory, imagination, comparison, judgment, and reasoning.

36 Proudhon was obviously aware of the sociological basis of ideas in history, and he always argued that truth is served by the conflict of ideas as well as interests, but, unlike Marx, he never even suggested that truth, or science, is the possession of a class, an outgrowth of its somehow ultimate position in historical development. To Proudhon, science is above such historical particularities; it must be universal. The closest he ever came to the Marxist assumption is an assertion in 1843 that since the equality of the workers is rejected without reason because of special privilege, “the proletariat is appointed to provide the proof of order,” that is, to create the science of the economy. (Creation, p. 302.) But though that science is rooted in the experiences of work, and rejects special privilege, it is not for that a class science. Indeed, he wrote that the fusion of classes, like the crossbreeding of races, is one of the conditions of progress. (On Justice, III, 138.)

37 He called it “dangerous” that the people have become irreligious without becoming instructed (Creation, p. 71), and a constant theme is that the “revolutionary idea” is not properly understood, either by the people or their alleged leaders. In 1851, he argued that the leaders in 1848 were “in different ways, men of yesterday,” who “did not know what needed to be done today,” and in 1863, he condemned them for being “immobilized in the passions of another age” (Progress, p. 104; Du Principe Fédératif [1863] (Paris, 1959), p. 261Google Scholar. Hereafter: Federalism).

38 On Justice, II, 389.

39 Le Droit au Travail et le Droit de Propriété,” in Second Memoire, p. 453.

40 Confessions, pp. 94 ff.

41 In his diary, 24 February, 1848, cited by Dolléns, , op. cit., p. 113Google Scholar.

42 La Révolution Sociale Démontrée par le Coup d'Etat du Deux Décembre [1852] (Paris, 1936), pp. 193 ff.Google Scholar Hereafter: Social Revolution.

43 Letter to Dr. Clavel, 26 October, 1861, cited by Dolléans, , op. cit., p. 339Google Scholar.

44 Federalism, p. 508.

45 Confessions, pp. 202, 75.

46 Taxes, p. 1.

47 On Justice, III, 413, 537.

48 Ibid., III, 531 ff. At p. 534: “What is the name of a regime of tacit hypocrisy, where justice is simply omitted, and where each follows only his own egoism, more or less disguised under the mask of an ideal? Idolatry.”

49 Ibid., III, 528.

50 Idea of the Revolution, p. 156.

51 “La Féderation et l'Unité en Italie,” in Federalism, p. 80.

52 On Justice, I, 304.

53 Contradictions Politiques; Théorie du Mouvement Constitutionnel au XIXme Siècle [posthumous] (Paris, 1952), p 214Google Scholar. Hereafter: Political Contradictions. In On Justice, II, 281, he had asserted that constitutional monarchy itself, as known in France since 1791, is an effort to balance opposing forces mechanically rather than finding an equilibrium based on principle, a public order that would flow from the reason of the citizen.

54 Federalism, pp. 304 ff.

55 Confessions, p. 148.

56 On Justice, II, 280, 471, 65. Italics added.

57 Political Capacity, p. 131.

58 On Justice, III, 17.

59 Federalism, p. 416.

60 Economic Contradictions, I, 370; Social Revolution, p. 147.

61 On Justice, IV, 431.

62 Economic Contradictions, I, 368 ff.

63 On Justice, I, 423.

64 Ibid., III, 423. History is “the evolution of liberty,” and justice is “the pact that liberty makes with itself for the conquest of the world and the subordination of nature.” He did not assume a natural harmony; harmony is always the result of a moral choice. (III, 404.)

65 Ibid., III, 24.

66 Federalism, p. 290.

67 On Justice, I, 328.

68 Des Réformes à Opérer dans l'Exploitation des Chemins de Fer (Paris, 1855), p. 339Google Scholar.

69 On Justice, III, 364, 528.

70 Creation, p. 177.

71 On Justice, IV, 16; I, 420; IV, 260.

72 Political Capacity, p. 198. The vigorous and persistent antitheist still found value in traditional theological language. He admitted the Bible, together with Adam Smith and Hegel, as a major influence on his thinking, and many of his ideas are evidently secularized versions of traditional Christian doctrines.